slug.com slug.com

10 1

Coming from Australia, the terms "left" or "right wing" are not thrown around nearly as much as say, the USA. Do you think these label's contribute to (or even solely create) a strong initial, automatic prejudice? Would leaving phrases such as these behind do us well? Do you believe this could allow for a more fair and organic discussion culture? (As opppsed to the absolute mess it currently is)

theNecromancer 4 Apr 8
Share

Be part of the movement!

Welcome to the community for those who value free speech, evidence and civil discourse.

Create your free account

10 comments

Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.

0

It's been easier in my mind to simply discern American from communist because i'm a live & let live liberal, which has been hijacked to make communism acceptable.

I'm a firm believer in the founding language as one significant tool in our childrens education. They've intentionally eradicated it, we need to intentionally reinstitute it. We can turn it around in one generation, we just have to start.

0

I don't like the left right label. I am a conservative but socially a libertarian. I don't care what anybody does as long as i don't have to pay for it. Im a centrist on some things. The USA is a more centrist country than the media lets on. It is changing tho thru the indoctrination of our kids.

0

It can of course be polarising, and the term only covers the horizontal left right axis. The vertical of authoritarian vs libertarian is ignored. What we see currently in the US is that the left has moved so far left and up towards authoritarianism that it has distanced itself from the conservatives.
They have to mentally account for that gap without admitting how far they have moved, so they project that it is the right that has moved so far from centre, hence the constant conflation with "alt right" or "far right".

Australia's two political parties are no longer the left and right of decades ago.
We now have both major parties pushing a socialist agenda, and both arguably left and moving up to greater authoritarianism.

Greens are of course left, socialist and for govt authoritarianism. And both majors cow tail to the Greens. One to get preference votes and the other to mitigate preference votes.

The only right/conservatives in Australia now are some smaller minority conservative parties.

It is a mess, and the only answer is for Australians to WTFU and remove power from the majors. However, this is made all the more difficult by there being mediocre choice in conservative candidates.

1

I think the answer is 'Yes', but I don't think simply 'leaving them behind' is really a good answer, as sensible as it might sound. The reason is that people tend to be reductivists and reduce complex things to simplest terms (or simpler) as often as they can-- so if it wasn't literally the words 'left' and 'right', it would be something else... 'red' & 'blue', for example, 'fascist' or 'commie'-- whatever it is. Whether those terms really encapsulated or evoked the true range of meanings they're intended to or not. And then the secondary, more pedestrian point, we would need to call them something and then we'd end up right-- er, left-- of where we started, don't you think?

2

Dog. Cat. Book. Table. Me/we. Us/them. It's how we assimilate society and it assimilates us. We think in labels and without them we don't think at all. We can't ponder ideas until we have know what "ponder" and "ideas" mean. One of the reasons the anonymity of the internet makes for such crazy talk is that it's impossible to label the infinity of who you expressing them to, and we hold a notion that we can't be subjected to the horrors of someone hanging us by their own label for us...in the real world.

Our ability to think, and particularly to vocalize what we're thinking, seems (to me) to be entirely based on our ability to discern and distinguish 'relationships' between things and concepts. The first one I believe is 'me versus not-me' and we build upon it from there. Thus our expressive language is based upon a collection of shared relationships-- ie., definitions of things, which are either direct or slightly abstracted relationships-- but in any case, there is always a path back to some set of fundamental relationships which encode and provide our sense of meaning.

@jwhitten Our ability to abstract, to make connections, is how we interpret the world; we interpret with language. Like, chair. This a chair, that's a chair, and that over their is a chair. Until we identify a few things as each being chairs, we can't abstract a concrete block or a tree stump as also being chairs if what we're wanting is just to sit a minute and take a load off. We learn about the world as tool users, and by seeing things within the context of how things are, but also how they might be used. We make up the meaning as we go along, depending on what's around us, but all of it seems to be a running dialogue in our minds that wouldn't be possible without language in the first place.

Or, well, that's how I perceive it. We know the screw. We know the screwdriver. We abstract the butter knife as screw turning tool. We make chairs of stumps. Pry bars out of screwdrivers. Our own ambitions out of the manipulation of others. The world is a toolbox that we ponder up out of word thoughts.

@govols So explain to me what a screwdriver is without using relationships.

@jwhitten I can't. It's part of a complex system. Maybe you're right. Maybe we don't need words until after we start noticing relationships. Still, as soon as we start making relationships we seem to start naming the parts and acquiring the words to express how they relate. You're also probably right about "me, not-me." Hmm. I wonder how many a child has already integrated before he figures out the one between pointing at things and the demand, "THAT?" and starts demanding names for everything.

@govols Are you able to think without words? Certainly you can perceive and observe. You can even react-- but can you think ??

Also, 'THAT' is a word, it's a temporary definition either to focus your attention on some specific thing (or concept), perhaps as a stand-in for something which is unknown, or else as a sort of a 'temporary variable' which is used to recall something that is already part of our current context. For instance, if we were talking about 'those children'-- which if you'll notice already 'lassos' a particular group of children, either specifically or abstractly, we can then later make reference to 'them' and we'll understand by context-- 'current context' to be more specific-- which set of children we mean.

@jwhitten No. I don't think one can think without words--I can't--but I'm open to the idea that we can begin to recognize relationships prior to acquiring language. Is recognition of relationships "thinking," or something "not quite, yet?"

@govols Yes, I think we are able to perceive / discern relationships prior to speech. I don't personally know if 'thought' is possible without words. I have tried my best to try and remember what it was like to exist without words, or to imagine what it must be like to somehow 'think' without words and I just can't do it. And yet clearly there are some types of processes that are occurring which utilize the 'analytical' part of our brains or else we would not be (as?) able to learn when we're young. You can build a machine to mimic your movements all day long, but there is no associated apparatus there to hoist those motions nor any accompanying risk or reward into 'learning'-- which I think must be governed by a different mechanism, even if the original mimicry is a component of the bootstrapping process.

All of that other stuff you were talking about earlier is likely to exist as part of the data / content addressing mechanism, including associations to other similar things. IMO, it is most likely built in some sort of 'content addressable memory' array, though probably made more complex through lateral connections to other areas of the system.There may additionally be one or multiple layers of 'autonomous processing' happening as well, which perform various transforms and normalizations on the acquired or recalled data to strip it to its essential essence, determine key attributes, etc. Thus, as you suggested, when we think 'Tree', a whole flood of 'tree'-like objects start flooding in along with whatever your own version of the quintessential tree is to you.

Interestingly, I believe that a whole lot of these kind of facilities / abilities are self-organizing and/or emergent properties of a system which is self-organizing such that many of the things we can do and are capable of doing are latent functions just waiting to be bootstrapped and lofted into service. Similarly I think speech and probably hearing and maybe even olfactory abilities are all latent parts of the package just waiting to be utilized. There have been many interesting experiments with various types of animals which seem to suggest that speech, understanding, some degree of cognition, etc. are present in at least a latent form, and simply remain undeveloped / underdeveloped through the lack of requisite hardware (ability to vocalize, for example) or need. Which is not to say that animals are capable of the same level or depth of language or cognition as humans, but it certainly makes one ponder where the line of difference really is between people and the rest of the animal kingdom. IMO.

2

I think more in terms of more or less government. I want less government in my life socialists want more. .... so did nazis.

0

In my mind it'd a question of categorization.These(and other) labels allow us to simplify a broad set of things or ideas into palatable size for discussion. Imagine a conversation where we had to meticulously define descriptive labels - one by one. Wouldn't get very far. That being said these labels are less than completely accurate and subject to deceitful use (eg The Fair Deal). If a particular term or label is crucial to the conversation we should spend a few minutes carefully defining it before proceeding.

3

I don't think Australians are as politically polarized as American. Or rather, Australian media is not as polarized as American media. I've watched videos of Australian panel discussions where the discussions are respectful on each side. The American equivalents start as verbal food fights and descend into gang rumbles.

Down at street level, however, I don't think we are as radically polarized as our media are. I want to buy food from people in that store, not polemics. And they want to sell it to me. Pleasant and polite works all around.

You are mostly correct, however Australian media outlets are still quite bias and horrendously opinionated. Look at "the project" for examples of this. Thanks!

That's interesting. While I would not put myself out there as any sort of 'Aussie expert' in any sense of the word, what bit of media programming I have seen seems to me to be generally more extreme than we see here in the US. Of course, I completely accept that what I am exposed to here in the US from there in Australia happens to be the more extreme stuff so my perception of it may (and probably is) completely biased in that regard.

1

I may be way wrong, but I think part of the problem you're talking about is that the fact that your preferred "wing" becomes part of your identity as an individual and as part of the group (the other people on your side). It seems to me that the group identity (and therefore some sense of belonging/camaraderie) is a strong factor in "automatic prejudice". But I think if you abandon the labels people will always find new ones, and it might not even be psychologically possible (at least for many people) to have their chosen group without determing an outside opposing group (which I think is sometimes the precursor to the groups existence anyway e.g the oppresor exists so we should band together). All in all I don't think the labels are so much a problem, it would be far easier to respect your intellectual opponents than ask everyone to abandon the left/right dichotomy.

You're correct! It is the idea of the label causing prejudice and conflict before any has actually risen. I agree with this, names are imperative, but the association with group identity is the issue. Thanks

0

It would be wonderful if America could get to the point where we could leave those labels out of a lot of our conversations. In the current climate, though, there are no votes to be garnered, ratings to be raised or money to be made by not using divisive language.

I don't know if I agree with that-- and I don't know that I don't either... perhaps the goal should be getting the 'emotional punch' out of the labels so that we can simply refer to things by the labels / definitions we're familiar with without the inherent associated vitriol that seems to pervade our current climate.

NOTE TO SELF: Take your own advice!! 😉

Write Comment
You can include a link to this post in your posts and comments by including the text q:28582
Slug does not evaluate or guarantee the accuracy of any content. Read full disclaimer.