What does left and right really mean? Both politically and culturally

I. Politically:

Traditionally, the left usually advocates positive reforms, advocating the removal of the old ideology and system so as to establish a new one, and the opposition generally regards itself as the left; the right is generally more conservative, advocating a steady, orderly, gradual, and slow approach to reforms, and emphasizing the maintenance of the old traditions, and the royalist party generally regards itself as the right.

In modern politics, a leftist is a group in society that defends the interests of the lower and middle classes of society, and supports changing the old irrational social order to create a more equal distribution of wealth and basic rights.

In politics, the right wing, the political right, refers to a variety of conservative political positions that have different meanings in different countries and at different times.

Today, right-wing is used to refer to an emphasis on nationalism, tradition, and religion. Some people use the term "rightist" to refer to those who support laissez-faire capitalism.

The term "leftist" originated during the French Revolution, when delegates of the third class sat on the left side of the Constituent Assembly in support of ****surrogacy, popular political movements, and secularization. Originally, during the French Revolution, the term "right" referred to those who sat on the right side of the Assembly and supported the monarchy and aristocratic privileges.

Second, culturally:

The old concept of ritual and custom. In ancient times, the strict hierarchy, left and right as one of the signs of differentiation between inferiority and superiority, commonly practiced in a variety of rituals.

Different generations, the left and right of the inferiority and superiority of different.

For example:

Zhou, Qin, Han, our country to the right for the honor, so the royal aristocrats known as the "right relatives", the big families called "the right family" or "right surname". Right respect for the left side of the performance of the building housing, luxury families must live in the city of the right, the common people live in the city of the left.

Anciently, there was a difference between the official seats, very strict. Higher officials were honored to be in the upper position, lower officials were inferior to be in the lower position. Ancient people still right, to the right as the honor, "left to move" that is to say that the depreciation of the official.

As for the social occasions, its seat to the left as the honor. Because the ancients sat in the north towards the south, the left for the east, the right for the west, so the seat to the "left" for the honor. In the "Records of the Grand Duke of Wei", Lord Xinling hosted a banquet for his guests to welcome Husheng Yimen.

From the Eastern Han Dynasty to the Sui and Tang dynasties and the two Song dynasties, China gradually formed the system of the left and the right. During this period, the left minister was higher than the right minister, and the left prime minister was higher than the right prime minister. After the establishment of the Yuan Dynasty by the Mongols, - changing the old system, stipulating that the right is honored, the right prime minister at that time was above the left prime minister.

Zhu Yuanzhang set up the Ming Dynasty, the change to the left as the honor, this system for the Ming and Qing dynasties used for more than five hundred years. Nowadays, when a classical play is staged on the theater stage, the guests and elders are always seated on the left side of the host and the youngest generation, which reflects that the Ming Dynasty respected the etiquette of "left".

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Expanded:

While the use of these two words is quite common, there is generally no precise definition of them. As a result, the use of the terms is often rooted in opinion. There are many different views on the distinction between the two terms:

1. Innovative as Left; Conservative as Right: Although the terms "right" and "conservative" are often regarded as synonymous in some countries, this distinction is seldom given much weight in discussions of the spectrum of the left and the right. It is rarely emphasized in discussions of the left-right spectrum.

2. Fair outcomes are left; fair procedures are right: Classical liberalism emphasizes procedural fairness, as exemplified by the Lieberville Field. Robert Nozick, a scholar of free will, is one of the 20th century theorists who emphasized the distinction between the "historical process" and the "final result".

On the other hand, supporters of modern liberalism, such as John Rawls, have argued that the policies of the left also use process-based reasoning, while some neo-conservatives tend to favor the use of the military to establish democracy as the end result.

3. One present government for the left; one religious government for the right: this difference is particularly pronounced in the United States, India, and the Catholic countries of Europe (which are also regions where anticlericalism represents the left), and sometimes encompasses the Middle East. However, in some countries, such as France, the far right is more radical in its support of secularism than the left

4. Collectivism is left; individualism is right: However, the countercultural wave of the 1960s was characterized by an emphasis on individual freedom, which is mainly classified as leftist, while in the case of religious/presentational conflicts presentists tend to emphasize more on the individual's freedom and freedom of religion than the value of collective beliefs. over collective faith values.

However, fascism, considered by many to be on the right, also emphasizes the "organizational conception of the state," embracing a collectivist conception of the state as a collective entity.

5. Socialism on the left; capitalism on the right: This is the most widely known division in modern times, and most media references to left and right are mostly to this division. Socialism in this context refers to a high-tax, high-welfare, high-government-intervention-regulation political system, not necessarily the dictatorship of the proletariat advocated by the ****-producing party.

References:

Baidu Encyclopedia - Left and Right

Baidu Encyclopedia - Seating Etiquette

Baidu Encyclopedia -seating etiquette