Thursday, January 4, 2018

Can Left Meet Right?

Can Left Meet Right


People with opposite points of views usually are not friends, do not date, marry, co-habitate or communicate in any meaningful way.  Sapiens have a sleek means of streaming themselves in many different ways. People are well adept at forming hierarchies according to income, race, religious, political affiliations, divergent beliefs such as those held by the Flat Earth Society, Southern Baptists, or any exclusive men’s club.  There have been caste and class systems, social barriers and gender barriers, blacklisting and glass ceilings, so many creative road blocks to equality and understanding and barriers to communication between groups. 

In fact belief systems, values and cultural norms can be either unifying or divisive, harmful or beneficial depending on who is giving and who is receiving.  Fun fact: in Islamic Cultures (Kuwait) with regards to homosexual behaviour the receiver is the sinner yet for some untold reason the giver is more pure of heart; such an odd religious/cultural perspective when an action can be half right and half wrong. Proving the adage that it is better to give than to receive, or think of it this way “sin” and deviant behaviour is merely a perception.  The point being there are few social universals, on any topic of which I am aware, with the exception of gravity, the only force that truly holds people together.

There exists a gigantic chasm between people on just about any issue.  Spend a few hours on Facebook and witness the range of opinions on anything from child rearing, to jogging, what type of blender to use, animal hygiene, gun control, cute babies, panda rearing or the carbon footprint of dog sledding.  Some people even disagree on the virtues of Trump as president.

As a real life example and on a micro level, my current neighbour has a hate on for me because I elected to widened  my driveway in the direction of his property line. He and his wife call the municipal by-law authorities to my house on every opportunity available.  They have not met with success to date in having me charged with any infractions, but it seems to develop a high degree of emotionalism in him and his wife and keeps them angry, frustrated with a full charge of spiteful motivation.  We have developed a rift, my neighbour and i and unless I remove my driveway I’m not sure how to appease them.  Irreconcilable differences.


Now when  I walk down my driveway I have this weird feeling I can see a red dot laser light wavering over by heart, but it could also be the angle of the setting sun and my old eyes playing tricks on me.  Who really knows. Why though do seemingly sane people become unhinged and turn from good neighbour to bad neighbours and the communication lines come tumbling down and so rapidly!

While on a macro level  one can take any issue be it political, economic, or religious and subdivide those categories into any number issues gay rights, debt reduction and immigration based on religious origins and the communication ideological divide can be justifiably compared to slavery versus anti-slavery and the lead up to civil war.  As recently, in Alabama, why does one vote Moore and another Jones?  The divides are so vast and so frequent one wonders how any communication or any effective communication can go on between those on the left and those on the right.



People who watch and listen to Right Wing news sources such as Fox news do not listen to BBC, CBC or MSNBC the reverse is also true.  These sources are all mutually exclusive!  Their ideologies are located on different planets and therefore exist worlds apart on the political spectrum. Think of Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus, the same concept of distances and separation applies when listening to news sources outside of our comfort zone.

But what really is Left and Right.  Is it arbitrary or a true representation of certain societal truths?

During the era of the French Revolution King Louis the XVI convened the National Assemble consisting of the Estates General. The king was in a deep financial crisis and needed support from the full spectrum of society. I think the king assumed, in his arrogance, the Assembly would do his bidding. 

During this historic meeting the first and second estates representing the upper classes, specifically the clergy and the nobility sat on the King’s right hand.  They, like Trump today and the Republicans stove to do everything in their power in maintaining the status quo, being certain that the privileged remained as the ruling 1%.  Privilege was after all privilege and as power corrupts today that’s only because corruption has a long and successful legacy.




Hypothetically, if Fox News existed in the late 1700’s in pre- revolutionary France they would be in strict support of the monarchy, despite the personal idiosycracies and lack of leadership exemplified by the KIng. Image if you would an entire class of people supporting an unstable narcissistic, power hungry, elitist ruler while many in the realm were literally starving to death.  This, level of abuse of course, could never happen in the modern age, but I’m talking pre-French Revolution, things were obviously crazier back then before democracy and our array of checks and balances.. What modern, educated, cultured, sophisticated society would allow a narcissist to rule. That’s just crazy talk. Historically kings could rule by Divine Right as ordained by God.  Clearly we have come so far.






Likewise, on the left, as the King gathered the  National Assembly with all of the three estates in one place at one time it was truly unprecedented somewhat  like calling a joint session of Congress, the Senate, a heavenly host of televangelists, and members of the working poor all in one room in order to decide the future of the nation.



Siding with the masses and the peasant class in the Third Estate, in my hypothetical scenario, would be MSNBC with Rachael Maddow tag teaming with Lawrence O'Donnell, together joining all of the dots and explaining why the gaps between the rich and the poor were unjust and reform was needed. Naturally, the narcissistic King would ignore the pleas for reform because, well the king is chosen by God and has lots of rich friends, then to top it all off his wife, Marie blurts out in all her insensitivity like some super model, “Let them eat cake.”  The rest is history.  Thousands of heads were chopped off, including the King’s and Queen’s as the country went into an orgy of violence.




Sadly, the left and right didn’t listen to each other or understand each other any better during revolutionary days then they do in today’s political spectrum.  As a result there was a revolution in which the ruling class was removed and eventually replaced with another king and finally a military dictatorship.  Perhaps, some of that grief could have been avoided had their been more communication.  Unfortunately there were Koch brothers, vested interests, ignorance and the likes then as now.  We hope to learn from history, but apparently those lessons are never learned.  We just don’t.  

Apparently, there is an entire branch of science, specifically neuroscience which has devoted some significant research to cognitive differences between liberals and conservatives.  

In today’s society left winger’s tend to be more open minded, Democrats for example voted in the first Black president and were working on electing the first female president.  Studies have shown that individuals with lower cognitive abilities tend to gravitate towards more socially conservative and right wing ideologies that maintain the status quo.  This according to studies at Brock University. The reasoning being that status quo provides a sense of order and continuity, therefore it is safe.

Right wing beliefs tend to value traditions, they concern themselves with individualism, smaller government, survival of the fittest.  They believe in economic freedom which ironically usually favours the rich over the poor because business should not be regulated.  People should look after themselves therefore a social net which might include “free tuition”, universal health care and the like are viewed suspiciously as creeping socialism and/or communism and a direct threat to personal freedom.

Right wing believers tend to idealize symbols such as, the Constitution, the National anthem and the flag, and they may be also conservative in their religious believes thereby supporting anti abortion initiatives and oppose any form of gay rights.  The nation and militarism is the core of stability as they identify themselves as being strong patriots.



The story is not quite so simplistic because people are more complex.  One can be left in most cultural practices and be open to something like gay marriages but be very right wing in economic and fiscal practices such as debt reduction.  Also be aware that conservative and liberal values evolve over time.  

The Party of Lincoln today would probably make Lincoln turn over in his grave were he actually aware of what was happening to his party.   Definitions of what is liberal or conservative not only change over time but also over geography.  A so called liberal democratic party so labelled in one country may actually express dictatorial views if expressed in another location.  Context and temporal positioning is everything when defining left/right political ideologies and how they manifest themselves within society.

Knowing all this just makes the idea of communicating within and across a political spectrum more problematic.  Will the left hand every know what the right hand is doing and understand why without wanting to cut it off?

Turning to science, which if you are a conservative with a large C will make you squirm, there are studies based on neuroanatomy which relate to thinking styles and in turn how you think can determine which political ideology, left or right, you are most comfortable.

Liberals tend to have a larger and/or more active anterior cingulate cortex, or ACC.  This part of the brain is quite useful in detecting and judging conflict and error.  Conservatives are more likely to have an enlarged amygdala, the portion of the brain for the development and storage of emotional memories.  

In practical terms these findings mean that liberals in general would be more flexible and reliant on data, proof and analytic reasoning while conservative, as a group, are more inflexible, as they prefer stability.  They are emotion driven and often associate with “family values” and are often more religious in a traditional sense.  They are church goers.  Whereas liberals tend to the opposite camp include skeptics, agnostics and atheists, open to alternative explanations.




Can such information and research, as it progresses and develops lead to more effective communication across party lines? Can a new understanding of empathy, emotions, understanding of personality differences, without the baggage of judgements and stereotypes be instrumental in the productivity of political debates on climate change or evolution?  

If we have different thinking styles is their any point in trying to communicate.  Is it a a moot point?

Liberals will rally their base with speaking points, logical arguments, reason and data.  conservatives will yammer on about stability and family values. Each at cross purposes, each not hearing the other. This of course appeals to the converted but does nothing to cross party lines.  It is still representative of Fox News and BBC speaking to separate audiences.

Each side or individual must eventually recognize that not everyone thinks like them, or receives and processes information in similar ways or even values the same things in the same time and place as someone else. 

To communicate across the abyss we must exchange learning styles.  We must be purposefully dyslexic.  Decide what we wish to communicate, determine how the receiver will process the information, what turns them on or off, and present ideas for change, improvement for the greater good in a meaningful non-threatening way.  Until we can do something resembling that we will be standing at the ruins of the Tower of Babel, confused and bewildered wondering what happened to our quality of life, our civilization and our own humanity.  There will be Fire and Fury.

Marty Rempel


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