I think most people think that left and right are on some straight line going from one side to the other.
To me, this is just silly – in actual fact the spectrum is more like a circle, or a horseshoe as show below.
The centre is were progress is made, where people believe in one another, were people, planet and life thrives.
If we go down the right spiral, we get conservatism, hierarchy and eventually lead to strong man fascism, division and hate (hello 1930s Germany, 2020s Britain, US, Australia, and plenty of other examples). The oligarch’s push us to this direction, as they think they can control the rhetoric (as they own the media) and divide and conquer – this works, until it doesn’t and you get a reset like WWII or the 30 years war before that, or the French Revolution – they just cut off their heads.
Then we can try to go down the left spiral, we get police state, purity tests, loyalty and very much a personality cult like Lenin/ Stalin, Chávez where the people are taken by the charisma of the leader – but they are selling workers rights and standardisation of life. When in actual fact they are looking to put themselves on a pedestal and be the centre of everything.
The bottom of the horseshoe is not the same, but very similar in the end you have a powerful state with few leaders making decisions. How you get there, is less important when you are not aligned with the regime, you are under their boot – and on average are pretty bad off. If you happen to be related to the power that has the reins – good for you and your family – but others – no chance.
The point in this is that strong leaders are not the answer – but citizens taking the power back for ourselves is the answer. Through collectives, cooperatives, citizens assemblies and sortition (random selection) based deliberation that is solution focused – that is the answer to division.
Concentration of power
The problem is when power is concentrated, it feeds off itself, and no matter if you are left or right, you chase more and more. The obvious answer to this is to limit power concentration. The Founding Fathers of America knew it, they built a division of power into their constitution – maybe without realising the slight overlap was not great. That is the Presidents choosing Judges and the massive media ownership problem of the super rich controlling 80% of media (internet).
It is time for a reset.
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