Beyond Left and Right?
I would like to note at the outset that in this essay I will use the terms “left” and “right”, but I am increasingly sceptical of the utility of the left-right typology. Nonetheless, because I am addressing myself to an audience that will largely identify as “right-wing”, I will make use of it.
As I noted in my review of Hans Freyer’s Revolution from the Right, many people who identify as right-wing think that revolution is a leftist concept, and therefore must be rejected. This is part of a broader trend of “reactionary” thinking on the right, according to which anything advocated by those we call “left-wing” cannot be advocated by rightists.1 Many objections to this idea can be formulated, even from within the left-right framework. Originally, I began thinking of how to solve this problem as a man of “the right”, but then I began to think that it, and a number of other problems, can ultimately be resolved by doing away with the framework altogether.
My first concern with such reactionary thinking was that this cedes the initiative to the left. The left only have to develop or latch onto a good idea, and they can be assured that many rightists will reject it out of hand, thus depriving themselves of something useful. Examples are environmentalism (rejected by much of the mainstream right), a revolutionary stance (rejected by a portion of the radical right and in name only by the mainstream right),2 and alternatives to capitalism (rejected by most of the mainstream right and by some on the radical right). All of these are necessary for overcoming the present system.
A further problem, I thought, is that it’s questionable whether various ideas attributed to the left are inherently left-wing. For example, as I showed in a previous series of posts, many of the pioneers of environmentalism would be regarded today as right-wing. Rightists who adopt this mindset are, despite their supposed concern for history, suffering from a case of historical amnesia. Yet, even if these ideas were left-wing, this isn’t necessarily an issue, because “being right-wing” doesn’t exhaust who you are. The acceptance of nominally left-wing ideas is no threat to your identity. Your identity consists of the family, folk, and race to which you belong, and only in a less substantial sense does it consist of what ideological tenets you adhere to.
Finally, it occurred to me that the ultimate problem is that the tendency derives from the left-right dichotomy itself. This dichotomy is out of date—being derived from the French Revolution—and is becoming meaningless, since there is so much ideological diversity on the right that there are few, if any, salient features that the term refers to, other than a heterogeneous population of people who happen to apply that term to themselves (for differing and even incompatible reasons). The “right” supposedly includes Ben Shapiro, Roger Scruton, Troy Southgate, and Benito Mussolini. Any form of classification that throws such differing thinkers together is of dubious validity. Furthermore, the dichotomy is a set of conceptual shackles that lead to harmful tendencies such as the one I mentioned above: it leads people to think that they should believe tenet x or advocate policy y, not because they are true or even useful, but because that’s what a right-winger does.3
So it seems that we have to move away from this typology. But if we don’t think in terms of left and right, then what is the primary political division? My answer is—between folkishness and universalism. Folkishness consists of attachment to one’s folk—considered as a concrete, biocultural entity in the world—and develops its ideology and strategy from this. Universalism centres around the metaphysical conception of “humanity” or “the individual”—which are really two sides of the same coin—and strives for an order based on the ideas of liberty and equality. We see the results of universalism around us today. The folkish worldview offers us a chance to throw off our conceptual shackles, to encompass both a respect for the past and the need to push for a better future, in a way that doesn’t lead to an opposition between the two.
This is “reactionary” in a particular sense of the term—always being on the back foot, never taking the lead, letting the opponent do so instead.
I say “in name only” because mainstream rightists are effectively the advocates of someone else’s revolution.
Incidentally, I accept this behaviour in the case of folk identity (“this is not the English way”, etc.), but that is because ideology and folk identity are very different things. Notably, as I suggested in the previous paragraph, your real identity is not whatever ideology you adhere to. This is a form of the propositional theory of identity, which Mike from Imperium Press has written about on his Substack. I will expand on this in a later article.
Important to note, in keeping with what you said at the end, that universalism and equality are inherently linked. This is something denied by universalists on the right. But if we all fall substantially under the same moral rubric, this is simply saying that there's some substantial way in which we're all the same.
Binary splitting is a simple strategy used by slave masters to keep slaves fighting each other. In the digitally connected world information and kinetic affiliations are shifting with such rapidity the master class is being overrun by a billion points of view. The control freaks have been reduced to raping and killing the most vulnerable among us, our children. They will not get away with it forever.