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[Loud Whispers]

You could substitute left and right with red and blue, it is largely a meaningless difference at this point, whose sole existence only remains because it is a convenient frame of reference for people to self identify with

[Quarque]

What does political ''left'' and ''right'' mean? I see wildly varied definitions for both. They mean different things in different nations.

What are they?

Just rough terms for a bunch of loosely defined opinions that often go together. The murky meaning is on purpose, to make it easier to talk about complicated things in simple language. If you want to be precise there are other words.

[Kagus]

They're basically just meant as definitions referring to either "side" of a political spectrum as defined by looking at the fiscal and social ideals of the given parties, grading them on a scale of difference with each other, and then aggregating that into a kind of general position on the spectrum. "Left", at least in the case of the US and Norway, tends to refer to more of a liberal position of socialized services, while "Right" tends to refer to a more conservative position of privatized services. That's a massive oversimplification, but digging into the meat of "liberal" vs. "conservative" is... Tricky. Especially when trying to maintain some degree of neutrality in it.

Places like the US tend to view left-right as a... Well, a binary spectrum. It's just a different way of writing "us versus them". Blues against Reds.


Norway is a bit more nuanced, which also often leads to hilarity. With the "Right" party being right of center, the "Left" party officially being left of center but frequently allying with the Right party in order to gain traction, the "Center" party honestly being kinda right-ish too but simply not caring about external affairs enough to be classed effectively, the "Progressive" party being farther right than Right (to the point where they ended up bailing out of the last conservative coalition, because they didn't like how left Right was being, so they left), and the Christian People's Party (not to be confused with the People's Party of Christians. No, really) being split between the leftist views of the members following the teachings of Christ and the rightist views of the Christian members.

Also red/blue have opposite definitions compared to the US, and there's also green and yellow (plus orange, but nobody actually gives a shit about orange)

[delphonso]

Right - fascist, conservative, authoritarian, capitalist.
Left - liberal, socialist, anarchic, communist.

In the US, our party on the 'left' is nowhere near those ideals, and is right of the global spectrum center. Being a 'real leftist' in the US is to participate in local mutual aid or other anarchist activities, the Dems don't represent that even at their best. Our party on the 'right' is further right than them, and frequently dip into fascist politics.

[feelotraveller]

Whatever it is today it all evolved in the wake of the french revolution. 

The terms "left" and "right" appeared during the French Revolution of 1789 when members of the National Assembly divided into supporters of the king to the president's right and supporters of the revolution to his left.

Worth keeping that touchstone in mind.

[King Zultan]

What are they?

A bunch of crap that depending on how you look at them could appear completely the same at some points.

[MaxTheFox]

Left/right as a spectrum as the sole political classification is bullshit for the reasons Zultan described. The left isn't monolithic, nor is the right. The political compass is better but it's still flawed. https://8values.github.io/ is, IMO, the best political classification system. I got Democratic Socialism which more-or-less fits me.

[Rolan7]

Definitely unrelated:
Link your hands together, interlocking your fingers (like you're going to make a deal, like the meme).

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Which hand is higher?
Which hand is dominant, or neither?

[feelotraveller]

One of my childhood friends was left-handed - but always kicked balls with their right foot.  Turns out their right eye was not so good.  (Guess hand-eye coordination, being closer, preferenced the ablility to see more than foot-eye coordination.) Thinking in mirror images is usually quite deceptive.

[scriver]

Definitely unrelated:
Link your hands together, interlocking your fingers (like you're going to make a deal, like the meme).

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Which hand is higher?
Which hand is dominant, or neither?

Right and right, if I understood you correctly.

Which meme though? Crafty finger posturing most often involves touching tips but no interlocking in my mind.

[delphonso]

One of my childhood friends was left-handed - but always kicked balls with their right foot.  Turns out their right eye was not so good.  (Guess hand-eye coordination, being closer, preferenced the ablility to see more than foot-eye coordination.) Thinking in mirror images is usually quite deceptive.

My brain assumed you meant kicking testicles and I assume I'm correct.

[hector13]

One of my childhood friends was left-handed - but always kicked balls with their right foot.  Turns out their right eye was not so good.  (Guess hand-eye coordination, being closer, preferenced the ablility to see more than foot-eye coordination.) Thinking in mirror images is usually quite deceptive.

I write left-handed, kick balls left-footed, my right eye is dominant (though my right eye is also much stronger than my left)

I eat with utensils left-handed, I eat right-handed without, I use scissors left-handed, I bowl left-handed, I would throw a baseball right-handed, I would bat right-handed in baseball.

Other things like that.

[King Zultan]

I'm also left handed with my left eye being dominant, but my eyes are weird as one is near sighted and the other is far sighted.

[Kagus]

My right hand is dominant, but my left thumb is the dominant thumb (when interlocking fingers). Apparently this is somewhat uncommon.

Lefty is generally pretty useless outside of wielding a fork or WASDing, so I dunno. And yeah, I've got a noticeably stronger dominant right eye to boot.

[Frumple]

Lefty probably helps notice how pervasively right hand dominant most cultures' design processes are, though. Even as a righty I'll occasionally spend a while having trouble ignoring how much basically everything is designed around right handed folks as a default. Doors tend to be designed around it, building construction, all sorts of stuff has a clear bias towards right-handed people. It's honestly kinda' distracting when you're picking up on it...