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The Crap
Connect to Today
Left, Right, and Center
The terms we use today to describe where people stand politically derive from the factions that developed in the Legislative Assembly in 1791.
- People who want to radically change government are called left wing or are said to be on the left.
- People with moderate views often are called centrist or are said to be in the center.
- People who want few or no changes in government are often called right wing or are said to be on the right. (Holt 657)
Factions Split France Despite the new government, old problems, such as food shortages and government debt, remained. The question of how to handle these problems caused the Legislative Assembly to split into three general groups, each of which sat in a different part of the meeting hall. Radicals, who sat on the left side of the hall, opposed the idea of a monarchy and wanted sweeping changes in the way the government was run. Moderates sat in the center of the hall and wanted some changes in government, but not as many as the radicals. Conservatives sat on the right side of the hall. They upheld the idea of a limited monarchy and wanted few changes in government. (657)
The Truth
The book’s abhorrently simplistic definition of what it means to be on the “right” or “left” should immediately raise some red flags; as it did for a leftist friend of mine who, when shown, became so infuriated that he told me to “rail against this definition with everything in [my] power.” The book is not simply referring to the political climate of 18th century France, either. The text clearly informs the reader that it is explaining the meaning of the political terms as they are in the present. But even if it was not, the explanations themselves would still be intolerably incorrect by any standard.
By the textbook’s logic, the post-revolutionary Stalinists of the Soviet Union would be “right-wing” for seeking to preserve the Marxist regime as opposed to adopting more free-market solutions. Similarly, the Tea-Party movement by this definition is “left-wing” for its desire to radically revert the size and power of the federal government to the levels the Founding Fathers intended for. But its’ take on the imaginary political “center”–the “independent” way that supposedly transcends the Left and Right in utter disagreement with all things partisan–should prove discrediting for anyone who’s studied political philosophy for more than ten minutes: A centrist is anyone that has “moderate views”. Forget for a moment that that means absolutely nothing; but what person like that would be disagreeable?
The second quote poses itself as an explanation of what the Legislative Assembly was and how it operated; but in light of historical fact, it carries out its intended purpose as well as swiss cheese operates as a parachute. First, there was no “center” of the meeting hall. The legislators sat either on the right side of the hall or the left side of the hall, depending on their views. The political moderates the book claims sat in the non-existent middle actually sat on the right side of the room. Second, the right-wing of the Legislative Assembly was never referred to as the “conservatives,” they were known as “Feuillants” or “monarchists”. The book also fails to mention that a good portion of the lesser faction of the Assembly’s left, the Girondin party, actually supported the institution of a limited monarchy, while not to the extent of the right-leaning Feuillants.
The book defines a political ideology on the poorly-devised premise of how much “change” is involved, rather than by the role of government in social and economic structures. Furthermore, the book curiously uses the phrase “conservative” to apply to 18th century supporters of the aristocracy, as opposed to what they were historically called. The prevailing myth that conservatism seeks to preserve the status quo while kind-hearted “liberals” want to change the country so that the little guy can take the reigns is only given more prevalence with shoddy definitions and semi-accurate historical accounts like these being fed to apolitical teens like my classmates in the name of “education”.
This is the crap your kids are learning.
Michael Espersen is a 15 year old conservative reader of David Horowitz. His hobbies include long walks, playing with his dogs, and rambling about how much of a loser Jean-Jacques Rousseau was.
