What Lies at the Core of Right and Left Thinking
I wrote the piece, and then I let ChatGPT fix it because I was being too dogmatic.
On the left, the vision often resembles something out of Star Trek: a future in which humanity can move beyond scarcity and division, building a more united planet where everyone has a place. The orientation is toward possibility — toward creating abundance, equality, and fairness through deliberate effort. The left says: the future can be better if we make it so.
On the right, the perspective leans toward the past. It emphasises continuity with what has worked, traditions that kept societies together, and loyalty to circles of belonging: me, my family, my community, my country. This view holds that the world is competitive and finite: not everyone will win, and survival often means prioritising one’s own. It prizes strength, responsibility, and the ability to endure hardship without expecting fairness from the world.
Both ways of seeing have virtues. The right’s tribal realism offers grit, preparedness, and resilience; the left’s future orientation offers compassion, innovation, and inclusivity. One gives us the toughness to weather storms, while the other gives us the imagination to build a better vessel.
But there are shadows. The right’s tribalism can slide into exclusion, us-vs-them thinking, and a worldview where dominance is the only security. The left’s universalism can slip into naïveté, utopianism, or bureaucratic overreach.
Then there is libertarianism, which in its best light insists on personal freedom and distrusts concentrated power — a valuable check against authoritarian tendencies.
But in practice, it often collapses into radical individualism, where responsibility to family, community, or planet is minimised. At its worst, it becomes a philosophy of justification: protecting self-interest under the banner of “freedom,” while ignoring the ways power and wealth distort the playing field.
What matters most is where these worldviews lead us. A purely tribal future — right or libertarian — risks endless struggle, hierarchy, and ecological exhaustion. A purely utopian future risks collapsing under impractical ideals. But a path that integrates toughness with compassion, realism with vision, restraint with growth — that’s a path with hope.
As Leo Rosten once wrote: “I learned that it is the weak who are cruel, and that gentleness is to be expected only from the strong.” True strength is not just fighting with fists up; it’s knowing yourself well enough that anger and fear don’t rule you.
Nature alone is harsh and selective. However, human beings, through reflection and learning, can transcend their raw instincts. We can temper the hawk with the dove, not because it’s easy, but because it’s the only way to ensure a future worth living.
The right warns us about chaos; the left warns us about cruelty. Ignore either, and we regress. Balance them wisely, and we stand a chance of avoiding both dystopia and decline.