Interesting analysis, plenty of food for thought. Iain McGilchrist has a book called "The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World", it is a fascinating take on the hemispheres of the brain and the differences between left brain thinking and right brain thinking. I have found there are a lot of parallels between left and right brain thinking and left and right politics. It is almost as if we were designed that way, perhaps to compliment one another and strike some sort of balance as we navigate our way to emergent futures.
These are fine linguistic references that may show certain intricacies. Most of such investigations are like breadcrumbs, because we do not have any means to verify their substance or origin. Language history in itself is hearsay attempting to explain some phrases with other phrases, preferably older - these will look more “authoritative”. But at the end of the day, it’s all guesswork.
However, we have a relatively verifiable period of record making from the beginning of the 19th century to about 1980s. These references can be cross-examined against our direct experience, including (not always perfect) recollections of the oldest people we used to know a few years ago. Verifiability of resources ended once and for good when computers entered the scene. The ease of data manipulation without leaving the comfort of your chair has launched the era of lies. With the added manipulation of images, audio and, recently, photo and video material, we won’t have credible data any more. It all is turning into “virtual”, which should be perceived as “unreliable” by definition.
New symbology doesn’t particularly care about roots. It simply takes actionable terms and assigns ad hoc meanings to them, as required by those behind the curtains. With the flood of media messages spanning across unverifiable distant lands and social systems, we are deprived of tracing the real life of new symbols. Some of them are hijacked and twisted, some are molded to fit the current (volatile) narrative, and some are developed as new entities.
All these instances depart from the traditional (or “archetypal”) baseline explanations and become contextual symbols. The power of media campaigns can even turn them into new dominant entities, as is the case of “masking”. 4 years ago masks indicated bad intentions and possible bad evolution of events. One strong campaign turned it all upside down. Suddenly, “no mask” became the target of a range of untamed (and regarded as legitimate) emotional reactions down to physical violence - despite an impressive body of peer-reviewed studies and actual clinical practice clearly proving almost complete uselessness of masks. When the winds changed, the mask symbol was re-assigned the former setting. And we followed the orders, acknowledging relativity of a very important symbol.
“Left” used to be associated with some form of progress, freedom and more opportunities just a few dozen years ago. “Right” was more orthodox and strict at that time. Both coexisted pretty peacefully, offering two prescribed lens to perceive the reality. Then, there was a time of creating perceived enemies, and the left was announced to be the opposition of the right. Interestingly enough, despite the flow of almost 100 years dominated by the polarization of left vs. right, we don’t have a “recognized” definition that would unanimously classify certain attributes to one or the other.
We seem to be now in the phase of merging left and right “political” programs into one, where words and means may differ, but the final result not so much. For those at the wheel, left or right is meaningless - all they take their payments from the same cash point, in the same currency of real-life true efforts of the people who do the work of creating taxable net profits. As you can easily see from state and local budgets of almost any time window, the “governors” never even try to appear to create profits. Their only intent is to drain the money out, increase the deficit, borrow more, and shift the financial charge on you and me. Left or right, irrelevant. The symbol is gone.
Interesting analysis, plenty of food for thought. Iain McGilchrist has a book called "The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World", it is a fascinating take on the hemispheres of the brain and the differences between left brain thinking and right brain thinking. I have found there are a lot of parallels between left and right brain thinking and left and right politics. It is almost as if we were designed that way, perhaps to compliment one another and strike some sort of balance as we navigate our way to emergent futures.
Great post!
I studied high school Latin for a couple of years, and knew the two words as Sinistra and Destra.
These are fine linguistic references that may show certain intricacies. Most of such investigations are like breadcrumbs, because we do not have any means to verify their substance or origin. Language history in itself is hearsay attempting to explain some phrases with other phrases, preferably older - these will look more “authoritative”. But at the end of the day, it’s all guesswork.
However, we have a relatively verifiable period of record making from the beginning of the 19th century to about 1980s. These references can be cross-examined against our direct experience, including (not always perfect) recollections of the oldest people we used to know a few years ago. Verifiability of resources ended once and for good when computers entered the scene. The ease of data manipulation without leaving the comfort of your chair has launched the era of lies. With the added manipulation of images, audio and, recently, photo and video material, we won’t have credible data any more. It all is turning into “virtual”, which should be perceived as “unreliable” by definition.
New symbology doesn’t particularly care about roots. It simply takes actionable terms and assigns ad hoc meanings to them, as required by those behind the curtains. With the flood of media messages spanning across unverifiable distant lands and social systems, we are deprived of tracing the real life of new symbols. Some of them are hijacked and twisted, some are molded to fit the current (volatile) narrative, and some are developed as new entities.
All these instances depart from the traditional (or “archetypal”) baseline explanations and become contextual symbols. The power of media campaigns can even turn them into new dominant entities, as is the case of “masking”. 4 years ago masks indicated bad intentions and possible bad evolution of events. One strong campaign turned it all upside down. Suddenly, “no mask” became the target of a range of untamed (and regarded as legitimate) emotional reactions down to physical violence - despite an impressive body of peer-reviewed studies and actual clinical practice clearly proving almost complete uselessness of masks. When the winds changed, the mask symbol was re-assigned the former setting. And we followed the orders, acknowledging relativity of a very important symbol.
“Left” used to be associated with some form of progress, freedom and more opportunities just a few dozen years ago. “Right” was more orthodox and strict at that time. Both coexisted pretty peacefully, offering two prescribed lens to perceive the reality. Then, there was a time of creating perceived enemies, and the left was announced to be the opposition of the right. Interestingly enough, despite the flow of almost 100 years dominated by the polarization of left vs. right, we don’t have a “recognized” definition that would unanimously classify certain attributes to one or the other.
We seem to be now in the phase of merging left and right “political” programs into one, where words and means may differ, but the final result not so much. For those at the wheel, left or right is meaningless - all they take their payments from the same cash point, in the same currency of real-life true efforts of the people who do the work of creating taxable net profits. As you can easily see from state and local budgets of almost any time window, the “governors” never even try to appear to create profits. Their only intent is to drain the money out, increase the deficit, borrow more, and shift the financial charge on you and me. Left or right, irrelevant. The symbol is gone.