LEFT AND RIGHT

It’s too easy to call oneself Right or Left simply by considering oneself as the heir to a tradition, a family, or a culture.

For many, being on the left is to refer to the “great ancestors” who would be the revolutionary founders of the French Republic. The “great ancestors” are almost always Jacobins. “It doesn’t matter” that these individuals did not establish themselves by truly being the majority, but rather through violence and even crimes, later imposing in schools and elsewhere, a bible dominated by a wicked nationalism.
“It doesn’t matter” that these Jacobins advocated for colonization in all its aspects, many of them not very honorable, and spread and taught racist rhetoric. This Left can nonetheless claim to have defended social progress where the words Equality and Fraternity are supposed to take on meaning. It is only under this social aspect that this Left can claim not to be contradictory. This Left is not left-wing by nature in the other aspects mentioned above. In those areas, it shows itself to be as right-wing, or even extreme right. This “traditional Left” is in reality a mix of Left and Right.

In the same way, being “right-wing” often corresponds to a family culture inherited, with an accompanying folklore. It’s also true that younger generations now adhere to it spontaneously, with a reflection that suffers from ignorance. We have witnessed a shift towards the right and tragically the far-right, which nevertheless reveals something else: a Left that was actually partly “right-wing” without knowing it or acknowledging it could easily move towards the Right knowingly, a Right that embraced much of the right-wing beliefs unconsciously held by this pseudo-left and pseudo-radical left. This traditional Right, in turn, can have, from the start, some references from the Left. Because there is a Right, and even a far-right with social promises. This greatly facilitates the permeability between the two poles, once shame, complexes, and barriers fall. And within the moderate Right or center-right, there are more than a few individuals who, in reality, through their behavior and even some of their options, are more humanist and respectful than what those on the Left are supposed to be.

Can’t we be honest and look at things with maximum objectivity?

I firmly believe that, since the origins of humanity, each of us, individually, navigates between two tendencies: selfishness and generosity. In all of us, there is also another duality: the need for security and some degree of order, and the vital desire for movement, a movement towards something better, more just, happier, and more harmonious. This other duality also pushes us to the right and to the left. But in each of us, one side prevails. We lean right or left through these two dualities, and possibly others.

In the same way, concerning society and political tendencies, since words must have meaning, I would say that a true Left would be supposed to correspond to a desire for generosity, and a true Right to selfishness. More precisely: A true Right would be supposed to correspond to: selfishness, egocentrism, maintaining an order, particularly a hierarchical one, and established powers, enrichment, whether honest or dishonest, somewhat deserved or not at all, conquering, subjugating everything around oneself, eradicating (peoples, cultures) anything that isn’t oneself. A true Left would be marked by a desire for: generosity, sharing, fraternity, establishing these values, with respect for others and their opinions, respect for other peoples and their cultures, in a perpetual egalitarian movement towards more justice, etc. Ecology could be assumed to belong to neither side. But it seems to me that it stems from empathy for the common fate, giving it more logically a left-wing inclination.

I maintain these terms of Left and Right rather than inventing new ones because this is indeed the essence of what people feel, even if it is most often distorted. Indeed, if a person claiming to be right-wing reproaches those on the left for being naïve, utopian, and idealistic, far from reality, it is clear that they associate the term “left” with a desire for equality, which implies that the attribution of egalitarian concepts stemming from a generous sentiment is a general understanding of the concept of Left.

This perspective on these concepts is very often obscured, simply to continue a theoretical belonging, positioned on the left or right of an assembly. This geographical classification (shouldn’t it be a circle, by the way?) then allows MPs and voters to perpetuate at least certain behaviors, habits, and absurd choices, based on the sentiments I mentioned earlier (such as, for the “Left”, unconditional support for Hamas or a deliberate disdain for Breton popular culture). It is true that truly being on the left is an ideal and a desire that cannot be achieved at every moment.

I align myself with this true Left, out of solidarity with people whose lives are much harder than mine (I fully acknowledge this, even though I am almost the only one who truly knows my own life).

I sincerely hope that the candidates for the legislative elections (excluding the RN) will deign to clarify certain points described, particularly regarding the fate they have in store for my country, Brittany. How many have done so?

I have always believed that there is a need for both firm and clear horizons but also to avoid falling into positions where individual glorification, paranoid tendencies, and oversimplifications become mixed with very just causes.

This is why I have always had a certain sympathy for a certain alter-globalism, while maintaining some caution justified by my experience. I have participated in demonstrations, particularly environmentalist ones. The almost entrepreneurial experience has also taught me a lot. This is why I follow people who embrace a very unifying political geography, from the center to certain – true – far-lefts.

On this last point, I must clarify that if the word “left” means or once meant great respect for humanity, then a far-left would be extreme respect for humanity. We can see that rioters attacking innocent people have nothing to do with a true far-left. The radicality of a democrat, which I try to be, is to advocate for extreme democracy. Like any ideal, it unfortunately does not lie in short-term goals. The ideal is a driving force to move towards something better. Moving towards that better is already a dream difficult enough to realize both as a community and for each and every one of us.