Is the Left Wing more truthful than the Right Wing, and if so, why?

[Cloo]

I have been pondering this - after seeing a few examples of RW people on Twitter telling on themselves a bit about 'Hey, why don't we hear about left wing stuff being corrected by fact checkers' or 'It's really annoying arguing with the left wing because they use facts', I don't want to be all 'Ah the Left are wonderous and wise and honest....' but at the same time we do seem to make a whole less shit up/spread fewer baseless lies than the Right. Why might that be?

I can think of a few times LW things that aren't true have been spread - one was time people were saying Trump was only banning travel to middle Eastern countries he didn't do business in, another time a quote that I was satirical was attributed to Jacob Rees Mogg (but it says something that it seemed plausible!), but I don't think I've ever seen a trend to the wild sort of lie spreading that comes from the right. And I don't think an untruth spread on the Left has ever done actual harm to someone on the right, unlike vice versa.

I don't think it's because the Left are so marvellous - to be honest it makes me want to scream how many on the Left seem to devote their energies to doing down their own side, but again, that's perhaps related to the reason we don't seem to spread bullshit about the Right - we want to be truthful, even to the points of being 'warts and all' about 'our side' even to its discredit.

There is also the fact that the Right does a lot of genuinely awful things, so we don't really have to make it up or exaggerate make it sound bad? Whereas the Right likes to frame harmless things, like kids getting read a nice story by a drag queen, in some utter bullshit to make it sound bad. Sorry, this is kind of rambling, but interested what people think.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

I think you only need to look at how quite a lot of "left" people dive down conspiracy rabbit holes to see bullshit can be the language of both sides.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

Well the cliche is that the right cares more about power than truth and that the left cares more about being right than being in power…

 

[Cloo]

Well the cliche is that the right cares more about power than truth and that the left cares more about being right than being in power…

I've not heard that one, but there's a lot of truth in that.

beesonthewhatnow - The left-wing conspiracy side is interesting because a lot of the time they seem to come out literally on the other side - especially when it comes to antisemitism, surprise surprise!

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

I've not heard that one, but there's a lot of truth in that.

beesonthewhatnow - The left-wing conspiracy side is interesting because a lot of the time they seem to come out literally on the other side - especially when it comes to antisemitism, surprise surprise!

There's an argument that if you go far enough in either direction and you'll eventually get to the other side

 

[Cloo]

Covid has proved a really interesting case in point - I suppose mistrust of authority has always been close to the surface in the Left, and on the Right its a mixture of people who put utter trust in authority and those who see it as a challenge to their freedom to... I dunno, just do whatever shit they liked. And some left wing types have been drawn away from 'doing things in the best interest of others' to 'no one has the right to tell you what to do'.

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

There's that whole side to Marxism, from the inception of the USSR onwards, where the Party was always right, no matter how wrong they were. Orwell parodied that brilliantly in 1984. That still continues today in all the Marxist cliques. Until it is universally recognised just how nasty, violent, authoritarian and arbitrary the USSR was from the kick off, a whole section of the Left will start off with a fundamentally untruthful view of history.

 

[8ball]

I have been pondering this - after seeing a few examples of RW people on Twitter telling on themselves a bit about 'Hey, why don't we hear about left wing stuff being corrected by fact checkers' or 'It's really annoying arguing with the left wing because they use facts', I don't want to be all 'Ah the Left are wonderous and wise and honest....' but at the same time we do seem to make a whole less shit up/spread fewer baseless lies than the Right. Why might that be?

I can think of a few times LW things that aren't true have been spread - one was time people were saying Trump was only banning travel to middle Eastern countries he didn't do business in, another time a quote that I was satirical was attributed to Jacob Rees Mogg (but it says something that it seemed plausible!), but I don't think I've ever seen a trend to the wild sort of lie spreading that comes from the right. And I don't think an untruth spread on the Left has ever done actual harm to someone on the right, unlike vice versa.

I don't think it's because the Left are so marvellous - to be honest it makes me want to scream how many on the Left seem to devote their energies to doing down their own side, but again, that's perhaps related to the reason we don't seem to spread bullshit about the Right - we want to be truthful, even to the points of being 'warts and all' about 'our side' even to its discredit.

There is also the fact that the Right does a lot of genuinely awful things, so we don't really have to make it up or exaggerate make it sound bad? Whereas the Right likes to frame harmless things, like kids getting read a nice story by a drag queen, in some utter bullshit to make it sound bad. Sorry, this is kind of rambling, but interested what people think.

Welcome to urban. Hobnob, fiver, which returner are you etc.

 

[8ball]

There's an argument that if you go far enough in either direction and you'll eventually get to the other side

Bad Horseshoe Man!!!

 

[Santino]

There's certainly examples of false things that feel awkward to challenge, as if doing so would make you look bad. Like pointing out that Donald Trump probably never used the word 'bigly', or that it seems reasonable to ask whether COVID might have been accidentally leaked from a Chinese laboratory.

 

[PTK]

There's that whole side to Marxism, from the inception of the USSR onwards, where the Party was always right, no matter how wrong they were. Orwell parodied that brilliantly in 1984. That still continues today in all the Marxist cliques. Until it is universally recognised just how nasty, violent, authoritarian and arbitrary the USSR was from the kick off, a whole section of the Left will start off with a fundamentally untruthful view of history.

Do not all revolutions involve actions that are “nasty, violent, authoritarian and arbitrary” to some extent?

 

[Magnus McGinty]

I think you only need to look at how quite a lot of "left" people dive down conspiracy rabbit holes to see bullshit can be the language of both sides.

Horseshoe theory only makes sense to centrist twats. They're the middle 'good' bit but the 'extremes' are too alike.
Yeah, anarchism is almost identical to fascism.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Do not all revolutions involve actions that are “nasty, violent, authoritarian and arbitrary” to some extent?

The Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia toppled the communist government in a way that wasn't nasty, violent, authoritarian or arbitrary. Of course it didn't happen in isolation, but it's hard to argue that it wasn't a revolution given the nature of the regime that preceded it and the nature of the regimes that followed it. The Solidarity movement in Poland also not nasty, violent, authoritarian or arbitrary. (It's easy to look back at 1989 and think that the collapse of communism was inevitable, but it did not feel like that to those involved at the time. It was still something that needed to be won.)

There is an inherent problem with revolutions that start with actions that are nasty, violent, authoritarian and arbitrary. They necessarily involve the transfer of the monopoly over violence from one ruling elite to another. Any revolution borne of violence faces this problem.

 

[JimW]

The Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia toppled the communist government in a way that wasn't nasty, violent, authoritarian or arbitrary. Of course it didn't happen in isolation, but it's hard to argue that it wasn't a revolution given the nature of the regime that preceded it and the nature of the regimes that followed it. The Solidarity movement in Poland also not nasty, violent, authoritarian or arbitrary. (It's easy to look back at 1989 and think that the collapse of communism was inevitable, but it did not feel like that to those involved at the time. It was still something that needed to be won.)

There is an inherent problem with revolutions that start with actions that are nasty, violent, authoritarian and arbitrary. They necessarily involve the transfer of the monopoly over violence from one ruling elite to another. Any revolution borne of violence faces this problem.

Without being too flippant, that's also to the credit of the regimes they were overthrowing, who didn't push the opposition to extremes. You'd not have got far overthrowing Chiang Kai-Shek or the landlord system without the murders.

 

[RD2003]

Do not all revolutions involve actions that are “nasty, violent, authoritarian and arbitrary” to some extent?

Exactly. Any conceivable revolution will be nightmarish by the standards of what we're used to living through. And that's why they usually happen only when the classes who make them at are at the absolute end of their tethers. People might cite the 'velvet' and 'colour' revolutions (at least the succesful ones), but these weren't revolutions in the classical sense, because they took place where the ruling elites had either given up or had their reasons not to intervene in any decisive way. This was purely due to the precarious nature of the power they held,and because many of them saw personal advantage in siding, covertly or otherwise, with the opposition. Nobody in the western world should expect anything of the kind to happen.

Any purist vision of revolution is unrealistic. Anarchists and other left libertarians, for example, would probably be shocked at how authoritarian they would inevitably end up having to be, if only because their very lives would be at stake. And if they triumphed they would find themselves acting, by and large, just like the Bolsheviks had to.

Of course, many libertarians would balk at this reality, but they are not really revolutionaries.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Without being too flippant, that's also to the credit of the regimes they were overthrowing, who didn't push the opposition to extremes. You'd not have got far overthrowing Chiang Kai-Shek or the landlord system without the murders.

Well of course it was preceded by the Tiananmen Square massacre. But I think that also just highlights how uncertain everything still was. It took bravery to protest against the communist regimes, even in 1989 as things were collapsing. They all knew what had happened to protesters a generation earlier. We read the history and see the inevitability of the collapse backwards, but life is lived forwards.

 

[RD2003]

The Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia toppled the communist government in a way that wasn't nasty, violent, authoritarian or arbitrary. Of course it didn't happen in isolation, but it's hard to argue that it wasn't a revolution given the nature of the regime that preceded it and the nature of the regimes that followed it. The Solidarity movement in Poland also not nasty, violent, authoritarian or arbitrary. (It's easy to look back at 1989 and think that the collapse of communism was inevitable, but it did not feel like that to those involved at the time. It was still something that needed to be won.)

There is an inherent problem with revolutions that start with actions that are nasty, violent, authoritarian and arbitrary. They necessarily involve the transfer of the monopoly over violence from one ruling elite to another. Any revolution borne of violence faces this problem.

All of this happened in circumstances which in no way resemble anything we can realistically expect to confront in societies like ours. One of history's ironies is that the Communist regimes, born in violence to one degree or another, gave up power almost wholly without bloodshed. This couldn't happenin societies where capitalism is entenched. But the flexibility of capitalism allows conditions where the revolutionary impulse never arises in any mass way, at least for now. If it did happen, the bloodshed would be horrific.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Of course, many libertarians would balk at this reality, but they are not really revolutionaries.

We're all theoretical when discussing this given the conditions for it happening in the heartlands of Western Capitalism don't exist presently. So The Judean People's Front scoffing at the People's Front of Judea on such matters is neither here nor there.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

All of this happened in circumstances which in no way resemble anything we can realistically expect to confront in societies like ours. One of history's ironies is that the Communist regimes, born in violence to one degree or another, gave up power almost wholly without bloodshed. This couldn't happenin societies where capitalism is entenched. But the flexibility of capitalism allows conditions where the revolutionary impulse never arises in any mass way, at least for now. If it did happen, the bloodshed would be horrific.

I don't really have answers.

Mugabe was the co-leader of a noble cause. He led the fight against oppression and won. But by winning in that way, he was immediately placed in control of the means to violence. And then made it all about him.

Cuba. Another worthy cause. But Castro in power abused that power. Because he could. Made it all about him.

French Revolution. The Reign of Terror followed by Napoleon stepping in to restore order. And making it all about him.

Stalin. Made it all about him.

I'd love to see counterexamples. Revolutions in which tyranny is overthrown violently and that doesn't lead to a new form of tyranny of some flavour or another.

 

[RD2003]

We're all theoretical when discussing this given the conditions for it happening in the heartlands of Western Capitalism don't exist presently. So The Judean People's Front scoffing at the People's Front of Judea on such matters is neither here nor there.

Don't see what this has to do with anything I said.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Don't see what this has to do with anything I said.

Having a dig at the 'libertarian' left. As if the tough Tankies are managing anything different presently.

 

[8ball]

I don't really have answers.

Mugabe was the co-leader of a noble cause. He led the fight against oppression and won. But by winning in that way, he was immediately placed in control of the means to violence. And then made it all about him.

Cuba. Another worthy cause. But Castro in power abused that power. Because he could. Made it all about him.

French Revolution. The Reign of Terror followed by Napoleon stepping in to restore order. And making it all about him.

Stalin. Made it all about him.

I'd love to see counterexamples. Revolutions in which tyranny is overthrown violently and that doesn't lead to a new form of tyranny of some flavour or another.

Well, you’ve squarely planted your flag in the “anti tyranny” camp there.

 

[RD2003]

I don't really have answers.

Mugabe was the co-leader of a noble cause. He led the fight against oppression and won. But by winning in that way, he was immediately placed in control of the means to violence. And then made it all about him.

Cuba. Another worthy cause. But Castro in power abused that power. Because he could. Made it all about him.

French Revolution. The Reign of Terror followed by Napoleon stepping in to restore order. And making it all about him.

Stalin. Made it all about him.

I'd love to see counterexamples. Revolutions in which tyranny is overthrown violently and that doesn't lead to a new form of tyranny of some flavour or another.

I'm not saying that it isn't preferable for tyranny-or whatever else we think we might be overthrowing-to be defeated non-violently. Probably few, apart from outright psychopaths, would think otherwise.

Nor do I think any of the examples you cite were intended to be all about one central leader. It's just the way things turned out due to factors too multiple to discuss coherently in an internet thread. The lesson is that you never get exactly what you thought you were fighting for, but a semblance or caricature of it. Luckily, many of us being of the moaning bastard mindset, we could go into opposition at the first opportunity. Ironically, it would probably prove more difficult in the new circumstances than it was in the first place. But it's all part of life's rich tapestry, as they say.

 

[RD2003]

Having a dig at the 'libertarian' left. As if the tough Tankies are managing anything different presently.

Still don't see what you're addressing.

Edit. All right, I'll have a go what I think you might be getting at.

Leaving aside the 'Tankie' nonsense, not least because 'Tankies' hardly exist in then real world anymore, you only have to think about it for about a minute. Given that society, especially one like this, is highly complicated, and given that people today are subjected to multiple influences, fuelled by an all-pervasive media, whereby so many can believe contradictory things simultaneously, and given that many people have been induced into having a stake in the present order, then revolution in western societies is inevitably going to be a complex affair. Should a situation arise in which the conditions come about, far from there being a united majority it's much more likely to be a 'seize the chance' moment on the part of a politically conscious minority which has a view of sorting out everything when the overthrow of the existing order has been achieved. But it would find itself under siege from the start, including, even in a socialist/left-libertarian revolution (however unlikely the latter) from a section of the working class. It would then find itself in a situation not unlike the one the Bolshevik minority faced in Russia, albeit in vastly different conditions. There would be many people, ranging from the overthrown wealthy classes and their billionaire oligarch allies, probably directing things from safe havens, to the many throughout society who would be horrified at what's happened, out to overthrow the revolutionary seizure of power. The leftish liberals would melt away, and many would join the opposition. Many people would form an organised resistance and, in the febrile atmosphere, seek to put heads on poles, if not of the revolutionary leaders, then those of the rank-and-file. It would be bloody, and the revolutionaries would have to respond with utter ruthlessness and terror. The media would have to be closed down and then purged, along with all of society's institutions. As few would go willingly, it would have to be at gunpoint. Execution and imprisonment would become a daily occurence, of both the old guard and, in areas they don't control, of the revolutionaries. The revolutionaries would have to perform 'mopping up' operations. Everybody would be watching their backs.

If the revolutionaries manage to come through, then the task of rebuilding a likely devastated society in line with their vision would have to begin. Again, this would have to involve utter ruthlessness, and this goes for the 'libertarians' as much as anybody else. They would find themselves having suddenly become authoritarians, and the transition would have seemed natural. All sorts of deals would have to take place with subjugated elements of the old regime and foreign governments your ideology would have you regard as unpalatable. All of it being a matter of sheer survival, of both what you've created and your very self. And then the purging of 'unreliable elements' in your own ranks would begin, if it hasn't already...

This is the pattern that all genuine revolutions have followed, and it's practical conditions that dictate it. What you might have stood for beforehand, your ideals and the lot, would have to be put on the back-burner for the forseeable. And that's where the revolution starts to sprout its unexpected consequences...

If any libertarians can tell me how it might work differently, then please go ahead.


*Apologies to the OP-I suspect we've veered a long way off the kind of thing you wanted to discuss.

 

[LDC]

I have been pondering this - after seeing a few examples of RW people on Twitter telling on themselves a bit about 'Hey, why don't we hear about left wing stuff being corrected by fact checkers' or 'It's really annoying arguing with the left wing because they use facts', I don't want to be all 'Ah the Left are wonderous and wise and honest....' but at the same time we do seem to make a whole less shit up/spread fewer baseless lies than the Right. Why might that be?

I can think of a few times LW things that aren't true have been spread - one was time people were saying Trump was only banning travel to middle Eastern countries he didn't do business in, another time a quote that I was satirical was attributed to Jacob Rees Mogg (but it says something that it seemed plausible!), but I don't think I've ever seen a trend to the wild sort of lie spreading that comes from the right. And I don't think an untruth spread on the Left has ever done actual harm to someone on the right, unlike vice versa.

I don't think it's because the Left are so marvellous - to be honest it makes me want to scream how many on the Left seem to devote their energies to doing down their own side, but again, that's perhaps related to the reason we don't seem to spread bullshit about the Right - we want to be truthful, even to the points of being 'warts and all' about 'our side' even to its discredit.

There is also the fact that the Right does a lot of genuinely awful things, so we don't really have to make it up or exaggerate make it sound bad? Whereas the Right likes to frame harmless things, like kids getting read a nice story by a drag queen, in some utter bullshit to make it sound bad. Sorry, this is kind of rambling, but interested what people think.

Short answer, no I don't think the left is more honest. I think the difference in the last few years has been that the right is more willing to use headlines and culture war topics that involve at best exaggeration and at worst lying and fabrication and that's where they get caught out (but only by the left really).

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

Do not all revolutions involve actions that are “nasty, violent, authoritarian and arbitrary” to some extent?

It's the extent that matters, and in the case of the USSR and other Marxist states, the horror became the enduring new norm. But this thread is about truthfulness. Socialist Realism, which came to dominate, portrayed the USSR as a veritable paradise. Which it clearly wasn't. No excuses for attempting to mislead the entire world.

 

[Cloo]

Short answer, no I don't think the left is more honest. I think the difference in the last few years has been that the right is more willing to use headlines and culture war topics that involve at best exaggeration and at worst lying and fabrication and that's where they get caught out (but only by the left really).

It's true the Right has much more of the press to manipulate.

 

[Jennaonthebeach]

I used to believe that the left spoke more truth than the right, but having seen how some sections of the left have mangled the truth in the name of attacking trans people it makes me question the whole output tbh, and is a large part of why I've withdrawn from politics in the last 6 or 7 years.

 

[quimcunx]

Maybe because you don't have to lie to say we should respect xyz people, we should care for people that are vulnerable we need to spend money on infrastructure or lifting people out of poverty or universal healthcare or community assets to improve lives or reduce crime or suffering, or curb corporate activities to reduce climate change but you do need to lie to maintain mass support for a system that sees billions have too little to live on while a tiny number have billions to live on.

 

[Spandex]

'Hey, why don't we hear about left wing stuff being corrected by fact checkers'

Fact checkers tend to check 'facts' spewed out by politicians using distortions, half-truths, misrepresentations and outright lies to justify whatever shit they want to get up to. If you could find a left wing politician I'm sure you'd see them getting fact checked.

Who are all these left wingers that the fact checkers are ignoring? Dave and his Workers Revolution blog (readership: 6 people)? Sir Keir Starmer QC and his carefully focus grouped establishment centrism?