Understanding ‘Leftism’ — Part-1
In this, first of a multi-part series, i attempt to unravel ‘Leftist’ worldview that informs its political policies and social narratives. I also touch upon the ‘Conservative’ worldview as a means to explain the Leftist worldview better
“This is a leftist idea” is a common refrain in conversations these days. I use it too. It has come to signify a lot of ‘woke’ ideas or socialist or utopian ideas. However, it is often hard to explain exactly what this means and what the side ‘opposite to the left’ (let’s call them ‘Conservatives’) stands for.
The conservative view is that human beings have an inherent ugly & corrupt side, just as they have their moral & virtuous side. It further believes that nature is inherently unfair in its design of the human being (for this conversation we shall limit ourselves to discussing humans). What they means is that no two human beings are born equal and that even with the application of the same environmental factors such as, good parenting, access to good education, access to good health, offered to two different individuals, the outcomes such as IQ, moral behaviour, ability to perform at a workplace, etc, would always be different.
The ‘left’ on the other hand believes that human beings have an ‘equal’ potential, and it is the institutions that are flawed which lead to imperfections and immoral behaviour in human beings. And that by fixing the institutions we can solve for all problems in the world, including ushering in ‘equality for all’ across gender, race, religion and other social conditions. It further believes in utopian ideals such as equitable (if not equal) distribution of money, elimination of immoral behaviour among human beings and connected with it, an elimination of injustice from the world.
The ‘left’ puts the blame for all injustice in the world squarely on what it calls the ‘privileged’ classes — it theorises that because there is injustice and inequality in the world, it must be there because there are groups of people, more privileged and immoral in their values, who pursue a sadistic goal of keeping them in states of equality and unfair social conditions. It believes that by ‘affirmative action’, that manifests as offering ‘special opportunity’ to the ‘oppressed classes’, is justified; even if it comes at the cost of meritocracy, and therefore at the cost of the rest of the people and their lost opportunity of success and happiness. It does so, because it blames the ‘privileged classes’ several generations in the past, for the unjust done to the oppressed classes inter-generationally, as the reason for their current unequal and unjust social status.
The left believes in fixing institutions to deliver equal outcomes. This often means giving special access to jobs and educational institutions, even to unqualified people, as a means to correct the historic wrongs done to them over generations. It believes that the less privileged, given the out-of-turn equal opportunity, would naturally deliver the same outcomes in performance that may be required from that job or education.
The conservative view, however, is that nature abhors equality. No two human beings, even twins, given exactly the same loving parenting, access to the same education & teachers, the same access to health & nourishment, will ever produce the exact same outcomes in IQ or performance in a job or even social behaviour. Conservatives call this the inherent unfairness of life (Indian conservatives see this as ‘Prarabdha Karma’ (प्रारब्ध कर्म) — which is a topic for a different discussion).
Counter to such a worldview, the conservative view is that there are no ‘(perfect) solutions’ to any problem of the human kind; that injustices of the past cannot and must not, be attempted to be corrected by collective punishment via a ‘denial of equal opportunity’, to current generations of what the left calls the ‘priviliged’.
Conservatives believe there are only a set of ‘imperfect solutions’ to choose from; that all solutions offer both good and bad outcomes and that exercising choice is really about choosing ‘trade-offs’ offered by these imperfect solutions. In other words, all solutions will have their good and poor outcomes, and choices that human beings and institutions must make is about judging which poor outcomes are they willing to live with, while manifesting a certain set of good outcomes. In simpler words, which ‘good outcomes’ outweigh the ‘’poor outcomes’.
The left strives for equality of outcomes while the conservatives aspire for equality of opportunity.
Most of ideas about this subject have been informed by videos and some reading of the works of Dr. Thomas Sowell and Dr. Milton Friedman. One such exceptional video to understand the problems with the leftist worldview is shared here:
