The author did not take a stance on the question if Hamas and Iran are leftist Muslims or far-right Islamists, so I dared to ask. You might not believe this, but many German leftist - even moderate ones - supported explicitly the Islamic Revolution, as well as the first or second Intifada. The author might include Hamas and IIR into his conclusion of some groups being "inherently scary to anyone outside the preferred in-group", but by observation, that doesn't seem to be true once your own out-group (i.e., Capitalists, Jews, and Jewish Capitalists) seems even more inherently scary to you than some Islamist thousands of miles away. It's also not true for the governments of Russia or China, which are neither Muslim nor Islamist, thus not part of the proclaimed Iranian "in-group", but they are not at all scared of them.
Furthermore, the author's claims demote "left" and "right" to some kind of synonyms of what they have labeld as "good" and "bad" on their personal moral compass, robbing them of any systematic meaning in political reality; those definitions match neither scientific consensus, nor the way people self-select into groups that call themselves either "left" or "right", nor the way these terms are used to describe policies. The reason is simple: the goals that he attributes to his idea of what "left" means cannot be achieved and sustained on the scale of modern governments and states without the means of authoritarianism, which is, by his definition, exclusively a "far-right" thing.
Yes, the Ayatollahs were very notable in using foreign media to provide cover while they turned a liberal revolution into a far-right Islamist one. I believe there was also a few radical feminists who were so pissed off about America they thought Osama was one of the good guys. The history of left-wing own goals is frustratingly long.
Idiots aside, Islamism is obviously far-right. Okay, left- and right- don't have good definitions as is, as they were defined in response to where people physically sat in the Estates General during the French Revolution. But I can at least point to a few properties that are manifestly right-wing and why Islamists all tick those boxes:
1. Right-wing politics supports and defends already-established power structures. Islam (Sunni-Shia divide notwithstanding) is an established power structure; in fact, it's the dominant power structure in the region. Ergo, Islamism supports and defends an established power structure: a specific religion.
2. Right-wing politics is Wilhoitist: it believes in an in-group, to whom the law protects but does not bind; and that the law binds but does not protect the out-group. Islamism specifically wants an Islamic theocracy, that's about as Wilhoitist as it gets.
3. Right-wing politics demonizes the other, to the point of spreading lies about people outside their preferred in-group. Whenever there's someone shitting on Islam you can count on Islamists to make shit up about them to stoke the flames of outrage.
To me, at least, those properties alone are enough to confidently put Islamism in the far-right bin. The fact that some ignorant leftists do the whole "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" bit without actually reading what's on the tin is immaterial.
> 1. Right-wing politics supports and defends already-established power structures.
Once the left is in power, they immediately turn out to be right wing? Does it happen in the very second they gain power or only when try to keep it? Is running for the next election even though you're already in power inherently right-wing?
As I hinted at before, "left" and "right" aren't very well defined and it's easy to confuse one for the other, especially when cultural or national barriers are in the way. But I also do not want to spend paragraphs of text on redefining things people already intuitively understand. I assume people are vaguely familiar with the Political Compass and go from there.
As for left-wingers becoming right-wingers, yes that can and does happen.
For example, at the time the terms left-wing and right-wing were coined, liberal capitalism was understood to be a radical left-wing attack on the traditional feudal hierarchy of kings and priests that had ruled France in the past. A hundred years later and those same capitalists who had built their business empires on the back of liberal and left-wing revolution were either cozying up to the kings they'd once scared, or establishing new kings to replace the ones that got destroyed.
But merely running for office again does not inherently make you right-wing. Nor does engaging in a coup or other forms of power maintenance make you inherently right-wing. It makes you an authoritarian.
It's generally considered rude to stop reading one sentence into a message in order to shoot off pithy replies
The author did not take a stance on the question if Hamas and Iran are leftist Muslims or far-right Islamists, so I dared to ask. You might not believe this, but many German leftist - even moderate ones - supported explicitly the Islamic Revolution, as well as the first or second Intifada. The author might include Hamas and IIR into his conclusion of some groups being "inherently scary to anyone outside the preferred in-group", but by observation, that doesn't seem to be true once your own out-group (i.e., Capitalists, Jews, and Jewish Capitalists) seems even more inherently scary to you than some Islamist thousands of miles away. It's also not true for the governments of Russia or China, which are neither Muslim nor Islamist, thus not part of the proclaimed Iranian "in-group", but they are not at all scared of them.
Furthermore, the author's claims demote "left" and "right" to some kind of synonyms of what they have labeld as "good" and "bad" on their personal moral compass, robbing them of any systematic meaning in political reality; those definitions match neither scientific consensus, nor the way people self-select into groups that call themselves either "left" or "right", nor the way these terms are used to describe policies. The reason is simple: the goals that he attributes to his idea of what "left" means cannot be achieved and sustained on the scale of modern governments and states without the means of authoritarianism, which is, by his definition, exclusively a "far-right" thing.
Yes, the Ayatollahs were very notable in using foreign media to provide cover while they turned a liberal revolution into a far-right Islamist one. I believe there was also a few radical feminists who were so pissed off about America they thought Osama was one of the good guys. The history of left-wing own goals is frustratingly long.
Idiots aside, Islamism is obviously far-right. Okay, left- and right- don't have good definitions as is, as they were defined in response to where people physically sat in the Estates General during the French Revolution. But I can at least point to a few properties that are manifestly right-wing and why Islamists all tick those boxes:
1. Right-wing politics supports and defends already-established power structures. Islam (Sunni-Shia divide notwithstanding) is an established power structure; in fact, it's the dominant power structure in the region. Ergo, Islamism supports and defends an established power structure: a specific religion.
2. Right-wing politics is Wilhoitist: it believes in an in-group, to whom the law protects but does not bind; and that the law binds but does not protect the out-group. Islamism specifically wants an Islamic theocracy, that's about as Wilhoitist as it gets.
3. Right-wing politics demonizes the other, to the point of spreading lies about people outside their preferred in-group. Whenever there's someone shitting on Islam you can count on Islamists to make shit up about them to stoke the flames of outrage.
To me, at least, those properties alone are enough to confidently put Islamism in the far-right bin. The fact that some ignorant leftists do the whole "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" bit without actually reading what's on the tin is immaterial.
> 1. Right-wing politics supports and defends already-established power structures.
Once the left is in power, they immediately turn out to be right wing? Does it happen in the very second they gain power or only when try to keep it? Is running for the next election even though you're already in power inherently right-wing?
As I hinted at before, "left" and "right" aren't very well defined and it's easy to confuse one for the other, especially when cultural or national barriers are in the way. But I also do not want to spend paragraphs of text on redefining things people already intuitively understand. I assume people are vaguely familiar with the Political Compass and go from there.
As for left-wingers becoming right-wingers, yes that can and does happen.
For example, at the time the terms left-wing and right-wing were coined, liberal capitalism was understood to be a radical left-wing attack on the traditional feudal hierarchy of kings and priests that had ruled France in the past. A hundred years later and those same capitalists who had built their business empires on the back of liberal and left-wing revolution were either cozying up to the kings they'd once scared, or establishing new kings to replace the ones that got destroyed.
But merely running for office again does not inherently make you right-wing. Nor does engaging in a coup or other forms of power maintenance make you inherently right-wing. It makes you an authoritarian.
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