
The Myth of Left and Right
How the Political Spectrum Misleads and Harms America (Studies in Postwar American Political Series)
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Narrated by:
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Hyrum Lewis
A groundbreaking argument that the political spectrum today is inadequate to twenty-first-century America and a major source of the confusion and hostility that characterize contemporary political discourse.
As American politics descends into a battle of anger and hostility between two groups called "left" and "right," people increasingly ask: What is the essential difference between these two ideological groups? In The Myth of Left and Right, Hyrum Lewis and Verlan Lewis provide the surprising answer: nothing. As the authors argue, there is no enduring philosophy, disposition, or essence uniting the various positions associated with the liberal and conservative ideologies of today. Far from being an eternal dividing line of American politics, the political spectrum came to the United States in the 1920s and, since then, left and right have evolved in so many unpredictable and even contradictory ways that there is currently nothing other than tribal loyalty holding together the many disparate positions that fly under the banners of "liberal" and "conservative." Cutting against the grain of most scholarship on polarization in America, this book shows why the idea that the political spectrum measures deeply held worldviews is the central political myth of our time and a major cause of the confusion and vitriol that characterize public discourse.
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What people are chasing is thymos within their political tribes, and it’s a substitute for a sense of adventure or agape.
There isn’t a word I’m aware of for the intoxicating precarity of when affective polarization (hating people on other tribe) will manifest and self-righteous estrangement of friend and family members, but I see it all the time. Sometimes that makes me wonder if we believe in myths like left and right forFreudian reasons. Do we have an unconscious chaophillic part of us that wants to see the crash so bad we nudge it in to existence using whatever framework we can to justify our actions?
Let’s all tell that part of ourselves that we’ve had enough chaos for awhile, it’s time to let the peace and prosperity chilliphillic part take the driver seat in our culture again. Let’s not use myths to hate each other when what we want is life and love.
TIL thymos and thymotic
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Straight forward, clear and relevant.
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Thought provoking
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Very convincing, clarifying, and needed.
My biggest critique is that they take a naive approach to parties and over apply the essentialist model.
For example, it’s probably not the essentialist model that’s blocking new party formation, but the myriad election rules that favor the parties built up over the last century and the money needed to win elections.
Essentially it’s structural barriers to entry, not the myth they knock down.
Regardless, the authors convinced me the myth exists and that it creates lots of problems for our democracy.
Obvious and elegant
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Absorb this reality
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A must read for our society
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good points but redundant
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It is a shame that I was required to purchase this for a class, because it will receive much more attention than it deserves.
Makes determinations on unproven claims.
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