Are you sure that you can apply modern standards of left or right wing to the late 1600s? It seems that as you go that far back and you apply postmodern views to enlightenment era events, you end up with a lens distorted by the events that came since.
Even conservative versus progressive in that era wasn't necessarily so simple.
The Puritans were a new and quite different sect of christianity, so the conservative bet would have been to go with the Anglican Church that had existed for sometime at that point, and the really conservative bet would have been to go with the Roman Catholic Church which had existed for a millennium and had massive political power at that point.
Now, on the other hand the Puritans also represented an attempt to return to a more pure morality that wasn't held up by the current institutions of the churches in europe,. So in that sense they were more conservative, but it just goes to show you that it's a complicated and multifaceted discussion.
If we even go back 100 years, we think that we can relate those people to the present day, but the devil's in the details, and I think that most people on both sides of political spectrum might be shocked to discover just how different those people were than us. Their entire way of living was different. Things that we consider to be just the way of the world were completely alien for the way those people thought back then. 100 years ago, so-called progressives of the time believed in eugenics, something today we consider overwhelmingly taboo. The father of Canadian public healthcare, Tommy Douglas, was a strong proponent of eugenics.
Corporations as we conceive of them today were just on the cusp of existing around the 1600s. Imagine a world so alien that the modern conception of the corporation which has become one of the biggest things that we are constantly talking about it didn't even exist. Not to mention other things such as income taxes, modern police forces, healthcare that wasn't insane and based on 2000 year old false theories from the Greeks...
The Puritans were a new and quite different sect of christianity, so the conservative bet would have been to go with the Anglican Church that had existed for sometime at that point, and the really conservative bet would have been to go with the Roman Catholic Church which had existed for a millennium and had massive political power at that point.
Now, on the other hand the Puritans also represented an attempt to return to a more pure morality that wasn't held up by the current institutions of the churches in europe,. So in that sense they were more conservative, but it just goes to show you that it's a complicated and multifaceted discussion.
If we even go back 100 years, we think that we can relate those people to the present day, but the devil's in the details, and I think that most people on both sides of political spectrum might be shocked to discover just how different those people were than us. Their entire way of living was different. Things that we consider to be just the way of the world were completely alien for the way those people thought back then. 100 years ago, so-called progressives of the time believed in eugenics, something today we consider overwhelmingly taboo. The father of Canadian public healthcare, Tommy Douglas, was a strong proponent of eugenics.
Corporations as we conceive of them today were just on the cusp of existing around the 1600s. Imagine a world so alien that the modern conception of the corporation which has become one of the biggest things that we are constantly talking about it didn't even exist. Not to mention other things such as income taxes, modern police forces, healthcare that wasn't insane and based on 2000 year old false theories from the Greeks...
"Right" and "left" really are nearly meaningless and nebulous adjectives and seem to serve two purposes:
1. End conversations about what is important.
2. Put everyone into red team vs blue team buckets to fight endlessly.
1. End conversations about what is important.
2. Put everyone into red team vs blue team buckets to fight endlessly.
I think there's some conversations that should be had whose elements are specifically split along partisan lines.
Why are there homeless people when the government is taking half of my income? My great grandfather didn't pay income tax at all.
If you think about that question, it's split right down the middle. Part of it is "left", part of it is "right", but really, it's a question that everyone should be asking -- What's the effectiveness of the single most expensive thing we pay for by an order of magnitude? Instead we fight over "left" and "right" which successfully distracts from the question we can all agree on.
Why are there homeless people when the government is taking half of my income? My great grandfather didn't pay income tax at all.
If you think about that question, it's split right down the middle. Part of it is "left", part of it is "right", but really, it's a question that everyone should be asking -- What's the effectiveness of the single most expensive thing we pay for by an order of magnitude? Instead we fight over "left" and "right" which successfully distracts from the question we can all agree on.
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