The Left, the Right, the Liberalism, and even more confusion.

Well, I won't--at least in this article--discuss the respective advantages and disadvantages of one or another opinion; rather I'd like to spend a few words on the vague using of these, and not only these, words.

It's pretty clear, isn't it? On one side there are the conservative torys, or the Right; on the other you can find those liberal leftists. In case you go too far the left way, you might end as a  communist, whilst the extreme on the right side is the fascism. Correct me if I am wrong, but I do think this is an average opinion of the plain citizen--or the plain press article, speaking of that.

So what? Why don't I accept the widely used terms as they are? It's simple: primarily, there are no widely used terms: everybody understands words his own way (or her... we'll talk of the feminism in some future article). In my opinion, this usage of words is utterly inconsistent, and leads to more and more confusion. As anybody uses words with some private meaning, the mutual understanding simply vanish; and such newspeak is the very sort of up I won't put with (if I am allowed to quote Sir Winston).

Of course, the problem is not limited to the mentioned words; but, as these columns are supposed to be a tad on the politics side, let's focus on these.

Firstly, the liberalism. The word is based on the Latin 'liber', which means 'free, independent'. So, one would say the liberalist is somebody, who want as much freedom--and by implication, as little limitations--as possible. Strangely enough, especially in the U.S.A., the 'liberalism' is often connected to the New Deal policy, which tends to limit the freedom, replacing it by strong and excessive government control. Unfortunately, the meaning didn't stay in the U.S.A.; some parties, who fear laissez-fere more than hell itself, happily declare their liberalism... and now, poor boy, try to understand what on earth the word really means!

The Left, the Right. Even worse than the liberalism case; seems there are no two common meanings, but a handful of them. Primarily the Left was the part of a legislative chamber located to the left of the presiding officer (and analogically for the Right, of course). It happened so the left part was the more radical one; hence, the Left became sort of synonym for 'radical', and the Right for 'conservative'. Why not, this might be a good meaning--should it be clear what the 'conservative' and 'radical' means. Nothing can't be farthest from the truth: imagine a man (or a government, at that), being a bit too much on the conservative side. You can imagine diverse results, but the fascism is not among them. And even that, almost anybody would claim the fascism is the 'Right extreme'. Well, it surely is a nonsense; in the above meaning, the Right--or conservative--extreme is stagnation in the current state, whatever it is, bolshevism (as in the Russia) or one of the world's best democracies (like, say, the U.K.). Even worse, the Left, should it mean 'radical', would mean those, who want the greatest change: bolsheviks in the U.K., but the democrats in the today's Russia! Seems we can't use the original explanation very well...

But wait! Seems there is another, widely accepted meaning: socialism is on the Left, capitalism on the Right. True, the extreme left would then be the widely accepted communism, but what with the extreme right? Anyhow the extreme capitalism might look, it can't be fascism: remember, the fascism is kind of socialism (actually, a national socialism). Once more alas...

Well, there are another meanings, but none of them fits the common understanding. It is a bit strange: seems everyone knows what the 'Left' or 'Right' means; but as soon as you want him to explain, (a) my explanation will differ from the one of yours, and worse, (b) one's explanation will not fit one's intuitive understanding! Oh boy oh boy, try to understand what on earth the word really means...

And now, there is another nice word: the democracy. Going back to the Greek source we'd find some integral meanings: it is a system ruled by majority of the people, the actual mechanism are periodical free elections. Not to mention many new uncertainties we just brought up (for example, which elections are free? Surely not the pseudo-elections in a Communist country, but what about, say, the elections in the Czechoslovakia in 1946?), let's try to focus on the very meaning. Ask an average citizen what on earth the 'democracy' should mean; pound to penny you'll get an answer like 'that means I can do whatever I want'. Wow?!?

Well, we should consider many other words. There are some with pretty fixed meaning, and some with even worse confusion than the ones we discussed already. It would not be worth the effort; already we got the message: some words--especially in the politics--are much more vague than ones in the normal speech. Surely we won't make a The Only Sacred Dictionary, with the proper meanings, obligatory for everyone; that would be another way to hell. What we, at least in my opinion, should do indeed, is consider actively the relativity. Anytime I hear, say, 'conservatism', I don't stick with the meaning I presume the word have; instead, I consider which other meaning it might--or might not--have for the speaker. The same for my own words: before using some with ambivalent meaning, I either define it explicitly, or at least consider how the auditorium (readers) will understand. Well, should at least some of the readers of this article do this, it'll be definitely worth the writing.

(ostatní články/other articles)