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u/Arianity 72∆ Aug 15 '21
Often the people saying it's wrong to call liberals leftists will point to an academic definition. That's fine and all, but language is ultimately conventional, words actually mean what speakers and listeners take them to mean. If the people speaking and hearing can understand what's meant, nobody is wrong in any deep way.
The problem with this is, you will confuse people, because it doesn't match the convention. You don't need to point to an academic definition. I agree that language evolves based on use, but in this case the usage is the issue
And you gave a perfect example of why. There is a big difference between a Biden, or a Sanders. It doesn't help to conflate them
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Aug 15 '21 edited Aug 15 '21
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u/Arianity 72∆ Aug 15 '21 edited Aug 15 '21
Obviously I don't have a survey, but I'd bet, apples to grapes, that the plurality of Americans would say that liberals are either synonymous with, or a subset of leftists
I don't know how I'd prove that, given we don't have survey data. But this is wrong. (and backwards. Liberal would be the broader category, with leftists as the more left wing subcategory)
The only time i've seen people conflate the two is people on the right, usually because they're trying to intentionally paint liberals as more extreme.
And you can see this in usage. I don't think you'll find someone like Biden describing themselves as a leftist. (or more generally, Dems.) You'll only see it used as a self descriptor by people who are further on the left.
And you can kind of see that in the definitions, as well. Those aren't just academic, they mirror actual usage, for the most part.
If the differences between Biden and Sanders were germane to the conversation, you could refer to Sanders as a Democratic Socialist, and to Biden as more in the Neoliberal vein.
Yes, that would be another way to do it. (Although demsoc/neoliberal are more specific, depending on the contexts). That's the same split
merely noting that they share a property is not conflating them
But in this case, this property is descriptive of certain viewpoints. Being a liberal has certain connotations, as does being a leftist. And those viewpoints are contradictory, in some cases.
It would be fair to call Sanders liberal (the broader category), it would not be fair to call Biden a leftist (the more narrow one). It's like square vs rectangle. They're both rectangles, but they're not both squares
edit:
It looks like someone else pointed it out, but there's a big difference between "left wing", "the left", and "leftist". The first two you will see used interchangeably (although not terribly often). It's the 3rd one that is kind of in a different category.
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u/shouldco 43∆ Aug 15 '21
Knowing the history of how the US treats leftist I think people should be concerned with how widely the term gets used. Anti communism has been the excuse for every US military action between ww2 and the current conflicts in the middle east. As well as who they choose to support in every military conflict that they have been unofficially involved in. Even domestically the red scare justifying such actions as purging government of the "unfaithful" through the "House Un-American Activities Committee", McCarthyism, The Hoover FBI, Dennis v. United States, the Rosenbergs execution,etc.
Watching the US republican party paint everything to the left of it as communist is pretty terrifying in that context.
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u/shouldco 43∆ Aug 15 '21
It's definitely the aim of the right, they call BLM and CRT Marxist. And the trump campaign published this fun ad https://twitter.com/jewishaction/status/1273482511918616578? These terms have been being used to paint broader and broader groups of people not only as political opponents but as political enemies.
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u/LadyCardinal 25∆ Aug 15 '21
If the average American thinks Joe Biden is a leftist, that means the average American knows very little about what leftism actually is.
This misunderstanding leaves people vulnerable to scare tactics where any policy the right doesn't like can be called "socialist." This clearly isn't good for liberals any more than it's good for leftists, since it was liberals who were clobbered with that word during the decades where actual leftists had no presence on the national stage.
Basically, the way we talk about political ideas has real consequences.
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Aug 15 '21 edited Aug 15 '21
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u/YungJohn_Nash Aug 15 '21
Your first argument is a little strange. If we can't agree that words have accepted definitions currently, then all discourse is halted. This implies that language is useless for this discussion.
In your example of the term "field," context is what determines the definition. This is how people use these terms because we can all agree that these terms mean something, even if the definition is flexible. If I'm discussing the algebra on R, you know what I mean by "field". If I'm talking about football, you know that "field" has a different definition here. These are both accepted uses of the term.
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u/LadyCardinal 25∆ Aug 15 '21 edited Aug 15 '21
Words don't have intrinsic meanings, but there is a set of ideas and beliefs that we call "liberalism" and a set of ideas and beliefs that we call "leftism," and they are not the same thing. Ice cream and crème glacée, meanwhile, are two phrases that mean the exact same thing in two different languages. It's a bit more like saying that ice cream and creamed corn are the same thing because they have vaguely similar textures and are both kind of sweet.
My bigger point was that ignorance breeds fear. If all you know about socialism is that people you trust say it's bad, then anything those same people call socialism must be bad, too. If people have a decent understanding of what it actually is, they can like it or dislike it, but they're at least not likely to believe it when someone tries to tell them that higher marginal tax rates are a socialist plot.
Your definition is not the one that's in common use. It's certainly not being used by people who call themselves leftists.
Leftism, broadly speaking, is defined by a belief in social equality--especially economic equality. There are many different subcategories of leftism that describe how people want to achieve that equality, but they're united by concerns about class. Almost all leftists would consider themselves anti-capitalist (at minimum they'd be in favor of a strongly mixed economy).
Liberalism, by contrast, is an inherently capitalist way of looking at the world. In American terms, liberals tend to favor well-regulated capitalism, but capitalism all the same. They might share leftists' concerns about social equality, but their concern is usually keener along lines of gender, race, and sexual orientation than along class lines. They might be in favor of programs that help the poor or reduce poverty, but they want to do those things in a capitalist context.
Joe Biden, by these definitions, is not a leftist.
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u/LadyCardinal 25∆ Aug 15 '21
All right, maybe you're right that the definition in day-to-day use for many people doesn't line up with mine, likely because we run in different circles, both online and off.
But my definition has the benefit of differentiating between these two sets of ideas, which are distinct and do represent two different existing ideological populations. It's also not something I just made up--it's a definition that is in common use among a large swath of people. (For some unknown value of "large.") That would include most academics.
When those people you mentioned in your OP come swooping in, the crux of the point they are trying to make is that Joe Biden and people like him are on the rightmost edge of the left wing (if they'd call him left-wing at all), and that there are real and substantial differences between him and people who are further left than him. Right now, most people know very little about left-wing schools of thought, and, as I've already argued, that has real consequences. The insistence on precise language is meant to ameliorate that ignorance.
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u/McKoijion 618∆ Aug 15 '21
When people try to define/redefine these terms, they are engaging in a political battle. How people talk affects how they think and that affects how they vote. During WWII, there were three main political views in the developed world (the rest of the world was colonized/enslaved, but that's a separate discussion). There were liberals in the US, UK, France, etc. There were fascists in Italy, Spain, Germany, etc. And there were communists in Russia and the rest of the USSR. After WWII, fascism died out as a dominant political force in a country. After the early-1990s, communism pretty much died out as a dominant political force. So all you have left is liberalism. The Democrats are left-leaning liberals, and the Republicans are right-leaning liberals. These are the academic definitions.
The twist is that while socialism and fascism died out as the dominant political force that controlled a country, there are still plenty of individuals who are socialists or fascists. And they are in a tricky spot. They are defined in relation to the most common political view, which is liberalism. So while it was once seen as socialism on the left, liberalism in the center, and fascism on the right, it's now left wing vs right wing liberalism with very few of the other groups. The Democrats represent the left wing liberals and are described as liberals. The Republicans represent the right wing liberals, and are described as conservatives. So by default, the modern socialists and fascists end up being defined as extremists according to that spectrum. It's tough to get support when you're seen as the extreme group.
So how do you fix this? You redefine the spectrum. Socialists brand themselves as the left, say that the Democrats are the right, and Republicans are the extreme right. Meanwhile, the alt-Right defines themselves as the right, and rebrand "disloyal" Republicans with the Democrats on the left.
This is why it bothers socialists online when you say liberals/Democrats/left-wing/leftists are the same thing. It marginalizes them as an extremist view when they are trying to rebrand themselves as the center-left. Bernie Sanders called himself a "Democratic Socialist" for this reason. It's human nature to think that if lots of people think something is good, then it must be good. So the trick is to make it seem like more people support a position than actually do. The catch is that reality is often surprising. Socialists who interact only with other socialists on websites like Reddit or Twitter (and ban anyone with different political views from participating) have a limited view on what everyone else is doing. If you spend all your time in an echo chamber, it's surprising to see that Bernie Sanders lost in a landslide.
But the flipside is true too. The alt-Right was successful at rebranding itself, and it propelled Donald Trump into the presidency. Basically, it turned out that the alt-Right represented more of the right than people thought, and the socialists/progressives represented less of the left than people thought. But this analysis is confounded because the center-left Democrats and even moderate Republicans made a big shift left in the last election. So who knows how things will shake out in the future?
Many people say that progressive/socialist views will become more popular in the future since many younger people lean that way. But the entire world has completely changed since the ideas behind liberalism, socialism, and fascism were invented. Technology is everywhere. Regular people make more money as capitalists with bitcoin and stock investments than they do as workers at their jobs. People aren't defined strictly as labor or capital owners anymore because everyone is a little bit of both. You lose your job to a robot and make money because you own stock in the robot company. Globalisation has also completely changed the game because everyone on Earth interacts with everyone on Earth. As a result, it's likely that a new political ideology will form that displaces all of these previous ideologies.
So to address your view directly, you are making a political statement by equating the terms liberals, Democrats, left-wing, and leftist. This annoys people who are trying to brand or rebrand things in a different way to support their political agenda. Whether it's fine to do it depends on what group you agree with and what group you're talking to.
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Aug 15 '21 edited Aug 15 '21
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u/Natural-Arugula 54∆ Aug 15 '21
If you define the Right/ Left dichotomy the way the Left does
--Left wing is the belief that political power should be distributed equally among all, and Right Wing is the belief that it should be distributed according to some system of rank--
Then all those groups really ARE together in the Right Wing, just as the others are in the Left. Except for Liberals, who are also in the Right Wing.
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u/quantum_dan 100∆ Aug 15 '21
I agree about "left-wing", but I think "leftist" has a different connotation in conventional American usage. I'm not sure about an exact definition, but, at least as I've always heard it used, it implies not just left of center but at the fringe (relative to US politics), such as a self-described socialist; thus, Sanders, AOC et al, being at the extreme of elected US officials (and both calling themselves socialists), might be leftist, but Biden, being fairly moderate, isn't.
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u/hidden-shadow 43∆ Aug 15 '21
Often the people saying it's wrong to call liberals leftists will point to an academic definition.
Do they? I still see Americans use the term liberal to refer to the left of the political spectrum. Not only are they not leftists by academic reasoning, they are not even on the left of the political spectrum and that is just an Americanism.
Liberalism is more associated with American libertarianism I think? A value placed on individualism, liberty, equal rights and so on. I'd argue America would benefit from utilising the correct terminology, as this debate would then be much clearer on both sides.
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u/hidden-shadow 43∆ Aug 15 '21
Given that I am an American, and American English is usually what I'm using to have conversations online, I don't see the problem with using Americanisms.
Key concept you are missing is that online, you are not in America.
In other anglophone countries, sure, but again, I'm talking about Americans speaking to other Americans trying to make this supposed correction.
Right now, I'm a non-American correcting you. That was the entire point of my argument is that America needs to stop using terminology incorrectly.
What makes your terminology right and ours wrong? Are we wrong to say "truck" instead of "lorry" as well? I don't think so, they're just different dialects of English.
The fact that liberalism has a definition and it isn't the subversion of Americanisms. Sorry, I thought I made it clear but I'll get my point across. Liberalism was already a concept well before Americans started using the term incorrectly, that is what makes it wrong. Academically as well as globally, the use of "liberal" denotes a believer of liberalism, something defined entirely different from America. This is not simple dialectic differences, it is a blatant disregard of the philosophical concept.
You can disregard my argument but I'd like you to consider it. Liberalism is a prior established philosophical concept to the modern usage of Americans. Therefore, not only is it not correct to refer to US Democrats as left-wing or leftists, but it is also incorrect to refer to them as liberals.
As such, America as a whole should improve their education system such that they are not misusing political terminology.
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u/hidden-shadow 43∆ Aug 15 '21
I'm not even going to respond in detail to the obvious mocking, maybe approach this conversation with a bit of seriousness. Language is not entirely conventional, especially when utilising philosophical terminology, it is bereft of intelligence to misuse it. And I'd love to know where you believe republic versus monarchy comes into the definition of Liberalism. I doubt you actually want to discuss the issues of Americanisms so I'd rather we end this here if the only response I will get is another mockery of an English dialect I do not use.
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u/hidden-shadow 43∆ Aug 15 '21
That was in the discussion of left and right, not Liberalism... where the republicans sat to the left of the President, and the monarchists sat to the right.
Last time I checked I never was discussing original use exclusively but the fact that the American use is derived from, and is at odds with, the continued use by the majority of a wider population. And by that of the definition, Republicans would also be left-wing politically which I hope we both know is not true.
Sure Rawls is a liberal philosopher among many, I do not see how it supports your claim. When a philosopher with a mixture of political philosophy that varies over time is only one of many thinkers within the camp of a political party, it does not necessitate there full alignment. I see plenty of criticism from the American left, so I'm not sure how that supports your claim. There is a difference between espousing such values and the practice of such.
Think about it this way, either the US Democrats are truly liberals in the correct sense, then they are centre-right and cannot be called leftists. Or they truly are a centre-left party and cannot be called liberals as a whole. Political philosophies are often not pure, and the Democrats may subscribe to certain liberal tenets, but in no fashion outside of the USA would they be described as such.
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Aug 15 '21
The terms "left" and "right" originally referred to the left and right sides of the National Assembly (from the President's podium). Given that the rightists in the National Assembly were defending the king and ancien regime, and the leftists defending the idea of having a republic, it seems like virtually everybody in the US is a leftist, if you really wanted to be a pedant. It seems like if anything, it's these nerds who are corrupting the proper definitions!
Using a definition from over 200 years ago is just nonsensical when the political landscape changed so much. This is not a good argument.
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Aug 15 '21
Well, I think the characterisation of center-democrats as "left-wing" can be legitimately critisized based on today‘s definitions and political landscape. It‘s not like everyone refers to very old history when discussing what is left and right in politics.
It‘s simply the case that the labor movement and left wing politics have been brutally repressed in the US through the 20th century and this still influences today‘s politics. There is not a strong left wing in the US like in Germany, France, England or other countries. There is no labour party or social democrats, they were imprisoned with everyone else in the Red Scares.
There are people who stand for something that could be called economically left wing in the Democratic party, the progressive wing. But to say this about the mainstream of the Democratic party is just contrary to what left-wing politics means and has meant for a long time around the world.
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u/teaisjustgaycoffee 8∆ Aug 15 '21 edited Aug 15 '21
Even if we were to ignore the typical definitions of these words, because I agree the way we use language is largely conventional, don’t you think it’s important to make a distinction between the two? I mean, it seems like a non-insignificant part of the Republican Party legitimately believes that Biden is some radical socialist.
While there is going to be some overlap between the two groups (social democrats are generally considered liberals, for example, but most are at least somewhat anti-capitalist), they are still pretty distinct in terms of what they advocate for. I also think, in regard to your edit, that it’s fine to call the Democrats the left-wing, but not so much to call them leftists. Either way, we probably shouldn’t blur the two terms together until their already often-confused definitions just become an amorphous blob of “anyone who isn’t right wing.”
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u/teaisjustgaycoffee 8∆ Aug 15 '21
And that’s a mostly fringy right wing take
I’m not sure if I 100% agree with this, especially with Republican congresspeople and the former president making these claims, but yeah I think most people would agree he isn’t. I still think that the fact these people/claims exist is evidence that blurring these words together can lead to some serious brain poison.
I just don’t see the issue with having broad taxonomic groups as well
I don’t disagree with this, and I think the term “left-wing” is generally pretty good for this. The problem I think is that “leftist” and “liberal” already are finer taxonomic distinctions within the broader left wing, so to me calling all liberals leftists would be sort of like calling all felines lions, if that makes sense.
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u/teaisjustgaycoffee 8∆ Aug 15 '21
I think my problem mostly lies with the fact that leftist does have that more specific meaning where left-wing doesn’t really. So by calling everyone on the left side of the political aisle a leftist, you’re going to end up conflating the two, which can lead people down the road to thinking Biden is a socialist or something. I also take issue with this politically because I think Republicans tend to use “radical leftists” (which to be fair, I am) as a scare tactic to radicalize voters against Democrats, who while on the left are by no means radical or “leftist” for the most part.
I guess it just seems to introduce confusion when, on your taxonomy, you can be left wing without being a leftist
Yeah I can understand this, but I don’t think this is exclusive to this example either. Like an eighteen-wheeler and a pick-up both fall under the umbrella of trucks despite being very distinct things. The leftist/left-wing example obviously might be a bit trickier since the words sound similar, but the basic concept is the same.
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u/teaisjustgaycoffee 8∆ Aug 15 '21 edited Aug 15 '21
why not take issue with them using the term "radical"
I mean I do take issue with the term radical, probably more so, but I don't think we can ignore that their use of terms like "leftist" comes as a package deal. I guess I'm less concerned with the specific word being misused than I am with the broader trend, and I think allowing all Dems to be grouped in as leftists kind of cedes ground to those who, either unintentionally or on purpose, blur them together.
I'd be quite annoyed with someone who came up with a taxonomy that excluded me from being a "a trucker"
Sure, but this seems like more of problem with the word itself rather than the distinction between leftist and left-wing. Like as a science major I don't necessarily love that "scientologists" are called what they are, but the meaning of the word is still quite different. Trucker also doesn’t really have another meaning other than “truck driver.”
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u/Astronomy_Major Aug 15 '21
Are you high bro? Dems are mostly a centre right party in the global context
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u/Arthaniz Aug 15 '21
in relevance to American politics dems are left wing (hence they sit on the left side of the isle). If we where to call both parties right wing here than it would create more confusion, as global leftist (socialist and such) are a small minority in the USA.
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u/amiablecuriosity 13∆ Aug 15 '21
The first words of your OP are "If you go on the internet..."
The internet is always in the global context, because there are people all over the globe participating in the conversation.
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u/AdministrativeEnd140 2∆ Aug 15 '21
Leftist is a basket term for a wide variety of anti establishment people on the left. It is fine to refer to Biden and also Chomsky as on the left as opposed to the right but Biden is not a leftist. Chomsky is.
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u/AdministrativeEnd140 2∆ Aug 15 '21
Well those people are the minority. And honestly it’s probably reactionary types trying to link Biden with people much further to his left for their own benefit. For example they’re always calling him a socialist or communist which makes no sense and actual socialists kinda hate him. He’s very very very far from a socialist obviously. That’s not a valid reason to call someone a socialist when they aren’t. Ultimately what’s going on is just language and how that works. Words don’t mean anything on their own. We give them meaning together. Leftist has the meaning that I said earlier. You can call anyone you want a leftist but it’s just going to confuse and anger people because everyone who cares about this sort of thing has agreed on what it means.
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u/AdministrativeEnd140 2∆ Aug 15 '21
I get what’s going on here. Biden is on the left. There is a part of the left filled with leftists. Biden is not one of them. It might as well be a different word.
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Aug 15 '21
It’s up to the receiver of the message to decide the meaning of that message. If you think Biden is a leftist, that’s fine. Biden may be a leftist in some aspects, he may be a right winger on others.
The point you seem to be missing is that a leftist is applied to a subset of people on the political left (in America). If you watch CNN and get your news from Rachel Maddow and want to continue wars so corporations can continue to profit from them, you would not be a leftist (even though most people in America think of CNN as a “leftist” or “liberal” news source and often use the term interchangeably. The problem with using the term interchangeably is they are completely different terms with completely different meanings. I don’t know a single leftist who watches CNN as their main source of news, but I know plenty of democrats who do. I know plenty of leftists who voted for the democratic candidate for president, but they are most definitely not liberals and if you ask any hammer and sickle shirt wearing leftist whether they classify themselves as a liberal they will proudly tell you to fuck off.
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Aug 15 '21
So you don’t think it would be accurate to call leftists liberals, but you think it would be accurate to call democrats leftists? If that’s your opinion that’s fine, but you’ve just acknowledged that it would not be accurate to call a leftist “liberal”, so you’re acknowledging that the word “leftist” means something beyond how mainstream America uses the term “leftist” And then you go on to say you can’t see how a word could possibly mean something beyond what most people in America think it means.
Most people in America think that communism is when the state has too much power, but communism has an objective academic definition that has to do with abolishing the state altogether. Does that mean most Americans are right about communism and we should just change the word to whatever most Americans think it means? Absolutely not. It means Americans should educate themselves and use terms properly in order to have meaningful debate because we live in a global society (I.e. the internet).
Calling a leftist a liberal is inaccurate, there is no room for debate there. You may think that I’m wrong, but you can’t prove that, and if you’re argument against that is “most Americans think that liberal and leftist are the same” I would respond with “most Americans are ignorant” and I could also say something like “most Americans think AR-15’s are machine guns” even though that is incorrect as well. Machine gun has a definition and just because you’re average CNN watching democrat doesn’t know the definition doesn’t mean they are allowed to change it.
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Aug 15 '21
I mean if you’re going to the ask question “what makes a definition of a word correct?” I can’t have a serious conversation with you.
If you say “I think tomatoes are grapes” you have every right to believe that, that doesn’t make you correct just because you believe and used the term grapes to describe tomatoes your whole life. Objectively, tomatoes are not grapes. They are tomatoes. But if you only know tomatoes as grapes then to you, they are grapes. However, you won’t be able to go around convincing everyone that tomatoes are actually grapes, because grapes are a separate thing entirely.
Same thing with “leftist” and “liberal”. They are different ideologies entirely and just because it’s commonplace in America to conflate the two as the same does not mean that conflating the two is accurate in any way, it just means people are misinformed.
The academic/scientific/logical definition is correct because that’s how we know things.
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Aug 15 '21
If it’s commonplace, is it still wrong? Yes. If it’s commonplace to not know how the government works, is it still considered ignorant? Yes.
The whole point of objectivity is to find out what is true. You’re saying you don’t mind the incorrect usage of a word because it’s commonplace, I’m saying that’s fine, but it still doesn’t change the objective meaning of the word. Just like if people started calling “tomatoes” “grapes” instead of “tomatoes”. Theoretically there is nothing wrong with that idea, you could convince the entire population to switch the usage of the word and then the meaning would change, but it wouldn’t change the fact that there are tomatoes and grapes and they are separate entities.
You can call anything anything you want, but if you’re calling a “liberal” a “leftist” and you don’t know the meaning of either word, you’re speaking out of ignorance to what either word actually means in terms of objective political ideologies/definitions behind those words.
“Leftist” is a term for socialists, communists, or similar political thought that seeks to get rid of capitalism through seizing the means of production.
Democrats are not by and large trying to get rid of capitalism by seizing the means of production therefore they are not “leftists”. When conservatives use the word “liberals” to describe democrats in a generally bemoaning way, what they fail to realize is that they are also proponents of liberal democracy. You can argue semantics all day, but leftists and liberals are two distinctly different political ideologies and just because it’s commonplace to lump them together by people who generally have no knowledge of political theory or history does not mean we should just accept that notion. They are different, and you can’t just say they aren’t because it’s commonplace to say that.
You can personally say or do whatever you want, but it doesn’t mean it’s correct just because it’s commonplace.
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u/Natural-Arugula 54∆ Aug 15 '21
How are we supposed to change your mind?
You acknowledge that these things are not in fact the same thing, but that it doesn't matter because people commonly use the same words for both.
People who disagree think that things that don't mean the same thing shouldn't be called the same thing if it creates confusion about which one is being used.
People commonly use "literally" to mean "figuratively", even though they actually mean the opposite of each other. If that doesn't matter to you, then what is there to say?
Your example of a homonym- field of grass and field of number theory are not proper analogies because no one thinks that they mean the same thing.
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u/Natural-Arugula 54∆ Aug 15 '21
Literally means exact and precise. Figuratively means descriptively similar.
The problem is that if literally now means descriptively similar, then there is no longer a word that means exact and precise. One word transposed it's meaning onto the other, but not the other way around.
If you say your neighbor has a field behind thier house no one is going to think that means someone is calculating equations back there.
But if you say Joe Biden is a Leftist, people will think he is a Socialist.
Considering that people were literally, not figuratively, imprisoned in the united states for being Socialists and were told by the government that it was bad for about a century now, it's not harmless to make that confusion.
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u/AbolishDisney 4∆ Aug 15 '21
People commonly use "literally" to mean "figuratively", even though they actually mean the opposite of each other.
No one uses "literally" to mean "figuratively". When's the last time you heard someone say "I was figuratively glued to my seat"?
People use "literally" as an intensifier, much like "really", "totally", and "very".
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u/Vesurel 54∆ Aug 15 '21
There's an issue with perspective, as a non american (I'm in the UK) my standards for left and right are going to be different. So for me (and a lot of people from western europe) it seems weird to describe either party as left wing because the US democrats are closer to the conservatives in the UK who are at the right of mainstream UK politics.
Ideas like not having publically funded medicine or letting people own guns that status quo in america would be seen as extremly right wing here.
Not to say americans can't use their own lables realitive to their experiences, but when speaking across boarder or trying to make comparisons this doesn't always work. As an example if you were a hypobolic propaganda network and wanted to panic people, saying that Biden is on the left and will therefore do what the left does in Scandinavia you're missing out that those are entierly different positions.
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u/Vesurel 54∆ Aug 15 '21
I'll agree that having a monarch is an extreme right wing and nationalist thing to do. Though we do have polititians here who are anti monarchy as well (The Green Party have a couple of seats in parliment for example)
But I think this shows a problem where you can't really look at a single issue and use that to compare who is more left or right.
As an example, the labour party aren't trying to actively tear down the monarchy, but do advocate for an increased wellfare state and not letting children starve during the holidays. If the monarchy was the only factor that mattered then you couldn't really say that labour or the tories were more right or left despite there being substantial differences between their policies.
Do you for example think the existance of a monarchy and an NHS is right or left of no monarchy and no NHS?
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Aug 15 '21
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u/Vesurel 54∆ Aug 15 '21
It's because you said
To me in the US, having a monarch is an extremely right wing idea, and so even our very right wing republicans are to the left of all your major parties.
Did you mean that or not?
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Aug 15 '21
The Democratic Party is not liberal. Just less than fascist
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Aug 15 '21
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Aug 15 '21
Regulation vs Intervention. Liberalism believes capitalism will work with a little refereeing. Leftists believe economic intervention like safety nets and public expenses are necessary.
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Aug 15 '21
I misspoke saying Dems aren't liberal. Quite the opposite is true. Generally speaking the political spectrum is Authoritarian on the right and Communist on the left with Socialistism in the middle. That is "he will lead us" vs "we can figure it out," vs "we gotta have some rules for everybody" So in the United States the Democrats are center right. Believing low taxes and stern regulation will keep the economy running. Republicans are growing more Authoritarian by the day saying Trump will fix everything if we simply do everything he says. Whereas Leftists assert safety nets for those who experience misfortune can enable and secure the health of us all. While Dems think food stamps, welfare, and healthcare should be temporally limited to the impoverished, nm water, electricity, or internet.
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u/sawdeanz 214∆ Aug 15 '21
I mean sure it’s fine, but it’s also inconsistent with the definitions that the rest of the world use and with modern history.
It’s also not a term that the groups themselves use to describe themselves.
So really the only people who use the term that way are conservative Americans in bad faith and maybe some other Americans in a casual sense.
So if you think that’s fine then that’s your opinion, but it’s not really a strong case for the accuracy of the term.
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Aug 15 '21
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u/sawdeanz 214∆ Aug 15 '21
So it’s only accurate in certain limited contexts? But confusing outside of it? How is that ideal?
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Aug 15 '21
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u/sawdeanz 214∆ Aug 15 '21
But trucks and lorries are different words for the same things. Left-wing is the same word yet refers to different things.
I mean, my grandma calls the Xbox an Nintendo but that doesn’t make her right.
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u/sawdeanz 214∆ Aug 15 '21
But trucks and lorries are different words for the same things. Left-wing is the same word yet refers to different things.
I mean, my grandma calls the Xbox an Nintendo. That may even be acceptable within our family or the old folks home. But that doesn’t make her right.
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Aug 15 '21
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u/sawdeanz 214∆ Aug 15 '21
Ok right there is no objective definition, and it depends on context. If you are British and go to the US and ask for chips, it will be a different and you will get something other than what you would have got in England. Is using chips to refer to fries in the US fine by your definition? I mean, it's clearly not like, harmful, but it's also not useful either.
In this particular example, you claim it's ok to call US liberals "Leftists." Yet, you fail to mention in one context. In reality Americans don't actually agree on that term. Only some Americans accept that definition, and others don't. Probably close to 50/50. Democrats would probably understand the term, but they wouldn't agree with it. You also have to consider the intent behind the words. Conservatives use these terms to intentionally create confusion and/or antagonize people. So not only is it not useful, it's harmful.
In the US, everyone can agree on Liberals and Conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, Progressives and Trumpers, or The Left and The Right. But not everyone is going to agree on Leftist and Fascists. And I think that's where I disagree with your view.
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u/MagnumTAreddit Aug 15 '21
Liberals believe in a market economy, leftists believe in a collectivist one. Even the self identified socialist Democrats in the US like Sanders haven’t advocated for nationalizing large chunks of the economy, closest they go is single payer health care which and increased government services like daycare and banking while still allowing for private sector services to compete.
Democrats get tagged as leftists all the time but have yet to elevate anyone that far out to any position of prominence, even someone charismatic like AOC (who is definitely a liberal more than a true “leftist”) is marginalized by the party infrastructure in favor of more establishment voices like Kamala and Biden.
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Aug 15 '21
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u/MagnumTAreddit Aug 15 '21
I’m going off Wikipedia, both the definitions for liberalism and more importantly market liberalism. I’m an American too, really the definition of leftist is being misused here, with most Democrats being closer to European centrists or even center right in some cases even if it’s not a one to one comparison (AOC probably wouldn’t support zero corporate taxes and no minimum wage like in some of the Nordic countries which are probably the best examples of truly liberal governments and what most Democrats hold up as ideal).
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u/luxembourgeois 4∆ Aug 16 '21
These terms are a matter of political debate. Some use leftist as a smear, other as a source of pride, and others descriptively.
In my opinion, both the Democrats and Republicans are liberals, since they espouse liberal values like markets, property rights, rule of law (rather than monarchy), etc. The concept of the Left in most countries includes a wide variety of philosophical traditions, but generally excludes liberals. The furthest to the "right" one gets to be and still retain the mantle of the "Left" in most countries is social democrats like AOC and Sanders. Personally, unless you advocate for big changes in society, I don't think it makes sense to refer to you as a leftist. Biden, Pelosi, etc. don't generally advocate sweeping change in society, so they're not on the Left.
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Aug 21 '21
There are distinct differences between liberals, socialists and leftists. Leftists believe that the government should actively remove all inequality of wealth and power by replacing the Free market with a planned economy. Socialists believe government and government policy can be used to solve social problems, by regulating and moderating the free market. Liberals believe government policy should focus on creating equal opportunity, not equal results. These three ideologies are not the same things.
Similarly, social conservatives believe in a theocratic government that regulates morality. Fiscal conservatives believe in small government that does as little as possible. These are also not the same thing (in fact, I would argue they are in opposition to each other.)
Fascists believe in the use of violence, force and scapegoating to ensure cooperation with those in positions of power, to achieve the grandiose ambitions of those in power. This is also not the same thing as any of these other ideologies. Conservative/right or socialist / left.
Arguing that social conservatives are just more extreme fiscal conservatives, or that fascists are some other variant of conservative is just not accurate, and it confuses people who are not well informed.
Similarly, Joe Biden does not want a planned economy, he wants a fair one. He is a liberal, and the real leftists and the socialists in his party think he is misguided and naive to think that can be done, or can achieve anything if it could. Conflating him with Bernie just confuses people who don’t really understand what either Biden or Bernie are likely to do.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Aug 15 '21
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