In the West these labels have blurred, and have lost most of their meaning.
To me, “left” when used to label a person, just means a person who is predisposed on the bell curve to axiomatically value diversity, equality, and change. (To use an archetypical theme they would represent the “left” hand of the Numinous, which roughly means Kindness/Compassion, but also Chaos/Anarchy, overturning the established order.)
To me, the “right” when used to label a person, just means a person who is predisposed on the bell curve to axiomatically value purity, unity, and order. (To use an archetypical theme they would represent the “right” hand of the Numinous, which roughly means Severity/Judgment, but also Order/Tyranny, maintaining the established order.)
These are raw, unmolded/unshaped axiomatic modalities of being… if looking at the Big 5 personality test, “left” leaning people are high on Openness, and low on Consciousness; “right” leaning people are low on Openness and high on Consciousness.
Liberal and Conservative are ideologies that are attractive to the left or right because they axiomatically align with their innate values.
However, and this is now the big issue in our culture, without having guardrails around our axiomatic beliefs/values, people dig into more extreme versions of their natural drives.
Both Liberal and Conservative thought in the past was controlled and contained within biblical Judeo-Christians values. Today? Both the “left” and “right” have mostly abandoned the spirit of those values. The “right” mostly holds them as a sort of Creed… the “left” to quote a “left” leaning friend sees Religion as:
I don’t care what a bunch of dirty, delusional savages from a thousand years ago said and only the weak minded are drawn into that ooga booga ass bullshit.
Said in private by a person that wont be named
What can this “delusional ooga booga ass bullshit” teach us about our current times?
16 Do not be overrighteous, neither be overwise— why destroy yourself?
17 Do not be overwicked, and do not be a fool— why die before your time?
18 It is good to grasp the one and not let go of the other. Whoever fears God will avoid all extremes.
Ecclesiastes – 7:16-18
This is not just found in the Bible, but also in Buddhism, Taoism, etc, etc…
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. I fear that we are in a feedback loop where the “left” (not liberals) and the “right” (not conservatives) will continue to grow and get more and more violent, until the West falls into a modern civil war. It will not look like the Civil war of America’s past… but more like Israel and Palestine, Northern Ireland conflict, etc… Ideological Wars that are acts of random violence or low-intensity conflict.
There are other people of course saying the same thing:
This Researcher Predicted 2020 Would Be Mayhem. Here’s What He Says May Come Next
But outside of that I look at artists and Poems. Here is part of one by W.B Yates:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The Second Coming BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.