Alternatives to the political terms "left" and "right"

Augenis

Augenis

The usage of "left" and "right" in politics comes from the French Revolution, where, in the National Assembly, the more conservative/upper class representatives would sit on the right and the more liberal/lower class representatives would sit on the left of the King.

If this usage never came to be - say, if the French Revolution was butterflied away by an early POD - what could the alternative to these terms be?
 
Skallagrim

Skallagrim

Banned
Classifications such as "Conservative", "Moderate" and "Radical" and "Reformist" precede the French revolution. Economically, a divide between mercantillists/protectionists/nationalists and free traders/free trade advocates was also emerging. Often, political factions have been associated with symbols and/or colours. Such symbolism could take any form. White was the royal colour in France, but traditionally purple has been used as well. Red was often associated with radicalism, while blue has often been seen as conservative. (But wouldn't that make purple moderate?) In the USA, black and white were federalist colours.

So, just to come up with an example, you might end up with a world where the Blues are the conservatives, the Purples are the moderates, the Reds are the radicals/refomists/progressives, the Whites are explicit monarchists, the Blacks are economic protectionists (a hallmark of the Federalists) while the Yellows/Golds are free trade advocates (gold standing for capital, one might imagine).

Potentially, any party or politician could use multiple colours. A Blue-White-Gold faction would be one of conservative monarchists who favour free trade, for instance. In that way, it could be more nuanced and accurate than the crude left-right divide, which I personally dislike immensely.
 

Comte de Geneve

Why would there need to be alternative universal mis-used short-hand terms to the OTL universal mis-used short-hand terms. Possibly, in a world where Monarchy remains quasi-universal and unchallenged, the proper terms would be Court vs Country as almost all monarchies divided between factions based on the clients of the monarchy, centered obviously at court and/or in the capital, versus nobility/gentry whose power base was their rural domains. But if we were saved from the need to shoehorn all factions in all countries into a right/left dichotomy then we could use more meaningful terms appropriate to each political entity.
 
Salvador79

Salvador79

@Augenis,
I thought Left / Right came from the Westminster Parliament instead (Tories on the right, Whigs on the left).
Weren`t the French parliamentarians during the Revolution rather seated on different tiers? (Radical Jacobins up high - the "Montagnards" - and more conservative Girondistes sitting further below?)

In the 20th century, the idea of a two-dimensional spectrum came up (the PoliticalCompass uses it). At the end of the day, it´s a cultural cognitive mechanism for reducing complexity, so it should be rough-and-easy, but of course still of heuristic value. The criticism that it`s simplistic is therefore true, but moot.

Alternative metaphorical or symbolical denominations for the two poles of a one-dimensional axis are legion, of course: Warm/Cold, Black/White, Up/Down, Front/Back, Forward/Backward, Slow/Fast, ...
And indeed we use some of these, too, e.g. in the polar pair progressive / conservative (one moves forward, the other maintains his position)
 

Pempelune

fjihr said:
You could have the groups sit on opposite sides of the king and theoretically swap the terms.
Click to expand...
Actually, the traditionalists sitting on the right of the king is not random. Being on the right of the king is an honorary position, thus reserved to people the king would agree with...
 
Planet of Hats

Planet of Hats

Donor
fjihr said:
"Reds" works, though blue was initially a colour of the French Revolution.

Red and white, maybe?
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So ITTL, "White power" has a benign political meaning?

Though if the whites are consistent with the OTL right, this timeline's Trumpers would be the alt-white.

They'd feel right at home.
 
Indicus

Indicus

Planet of Hats said:
So ITTL, "White power" has a benign political meaning?

Though if the whites are consistent with the OTL right, this timeline's Trumpers would be the alt-white.

They'd feel right at home.
Click to expand...

White would probably be associated with regal authoritarianism, like absolute monarchies or crowned oligarchies.

Though the term may be expanded to encompass all right-of-centre ideologies.

But yes, it leaves the "whites" open to an attack of puns.
 

Deleted member 67076

Colors are probably your best bet. Easy to identify, have plenty of gradients that make them easy to hybridize and customize (to a party's benefit) and can be used in banners.
 
Planet of Hats

Planet of Hats

Donor
fjihr said:
White would probably be associated with regal authoritarianism, like absolute monarchies or crowned oligarchies.

Though the term may be expanded to encompass all right-of-centre ideologies.

But yes, it leaves the "whites" open to an attack of puns.
Click to expand...
So since they're a mix of white and red, would centrists be called "pinkies" in this universe?
 

Analytical Engine

Skallagrim said:
Classifications such as "Conservative", "Moderate" and "Radical" and "Reformist" precede the French revolution. Economically, a divide between mercantillists/protectionists/nationalists and free traders/free trade advocates was also emerging. Often, political factions have been associated with symbols and/or colours. Such symbolism could take any form. White was the royal colour in France, but traditionally purple has been used as well. Red was often associated with radicalism, while blue has often been seen as conservative. (But wouldn't that make purple moderate?) In the USA, black and white were federalist colours.
Click to expand...

Purple was equated with monarchism, because historically only royals and very senior persons like bishops were allowed to wear purple clothing. Mauve, on the other hand, was adopted as a colour of British radicalism (alongside the sea-green of the Levellers) because mauveine was the first artificial dye, so it could work.

Tyrian Purple was the most expensive good of its time, which was used to dye the robes of Roman Emperors.
 

Deleted member 97083

Besides flags and colors, other things could be used to differentiate different political ideologies symbolically: wild animals (e.g. lions for royalty), Greek letters (e.g. delta for change), mythological figures (e.g. Hephaestus for laborers), cities with symbolic connotations (e.g. Versailles for royalty).

Direct Latin words from Roman history are possible, such as populares, optimates, patricians, plebeians, proletarians, and so on.

Borrowed French, German, Russian words are also possible, where every language uses a loanword, such as bourgeois, proletariat, soviet, and so on, borrowed from French, German, Russian, or another language.

Classic fables could be referenced; the tortoise and the hare could be one.
 
Indicus

Indicus

Analytical Engine said:
Purple was equated with monarchism, because historically only royals and very senior persons like bishops were allowed to wear purple clothing. Mauve, on the other hand, was adopted as a colour of British radicalism (alongside the sea-green of the Levellers) because mauveine was the first artificial dye, so it could work.
Click to expand...

So, if you got someone to create mauveine in the 1790s (it's a pretty simple reaction, anyways), you could get French revolutionaries wearing mauve cockades?
 

John Fredrick Parker

Donor
The interesting thing is, not only do the names "left" and "right" have relatively recent origins, but the idea that the very spectrum it alludes to as the ultimate political shorthand* is even more so.

*AIUI, this can be pretty well summarize as the struggle between equality and order as competing values
 
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