A big risk for the right-wing: the temptation to confuse friends with enemies

@ElentirENG ES 8·23·2023 · 6:31 0

When we speak of "right" we refer to different ways of thinking that are broadly opposed to socialism and communism.

The challenge and the need to keep together the three families of the first right
The third right that is coming to light in the West with the Russian invasion of Ukraine

The germ of disunity within the right-wing

There is no exclusive way of being on the right, just as there is no exclusive way of being on the left. As I pointed out last month, within the right there are classic liberals, conservatives and patriots, without going into more nuances. What distinguishes these three families on the right are their special concerns, as I already indicated then. One of the risks of these three families on the right is assuming the false accusations that others make against them.

That is what would happen if, for example, some patriots accused classic liberals of being unpatriotic, assuming the erroneous idea that liberalism is incompatible with love for the Homeland and defense of the national sovereignty, and some liberals responded clumsily by simply disqualifying patriotism, presenting it as a refuge for the enemies of freedom and abhorring it.

A similar situation would occur if some classic liberals accused patriots of being enemies of freedom, simply ignoring their contributions to the defense of our fundamental rights, and some patriots responded by simply disqualifying the liberalism, detesting it and attacking all liberals, without distinction and without taking into account that within liberalism there is a branch, conservative liberalism, which is right-wing and which is perfectly compatible with patriotism.

The effects of an illogical position: generalization

These types of attitudes are frequent. They represent the triumph of a position contrary to logic, such as generalization, that is, confusing a part with the whole. It is the same clumsy attitude that we sometimes encounter when, for example, there are people who insult Catalans to show their rejection of separatists, as if all Catalans were separatists. It is something that I have experienced on some occasions when denouncing the abuses committed by nationalism in my homeland, Galicia: there are people who respond, without further ado, criticizing all Galicians, as if we all thought the same. By doing this, some are doing nationalism a great favor, for by doing so they confirm the worst caricatures they make of their rivals.

In the same way, right-wing people who attack all liberals, without distinction, for the mere fact of having received criticism from some liberals, and those who attack all patriots, for a reason Similarly, deep down they are doing the left a favor, contributing to disunite and confront the right based on illogical positions. At this point in history, and even more so since the Internet makes any information available to us in a matter of seconds, believing that all liberals or that all patriots are the same is more than just a mistake: it is a sign of laziness intellectual.

In search of excuses to attack another family of the right

Among the people who call themselves liberal there are liberal-conservatives (like this one who writes), liberal-progressives, libertarians, etc. There is no single spokesperson for liberalism, so if a liberal criticizes you, it doesn't mean that all liberals are against you or think like that person. The same can be said about patriots or conservatives. Of course, there is also the possibility that someone is just looking for excuses to attack an entire right-wing family by generalizing the attitude of some of its members.

For example, among anti-liberals, it will be enough for a liberal to commit a sin for all liberals to automatically become sinners. The same goes for people on the right who are suspicious of conservatives or patriots. In this case, we are not just dealing with a generalization, but with prejudice: the tendency to judge someone without knowing them, assuming that knowing one, two or ten liberals already gives you enough experience in order to rate them all. It is the same illogical position of someone who speaks ill of all the inhabitants of a country after meeting only one of them.

Mistaking friends for enemies: a great favor for the left

If I am encouraged to write this reflection, it is because these generalizations tend to serve, within the right, to confuse friends with enemies, generating hostilities where there is no logical reason for them to exist. The risk that this entails is ending up turning those three families on the right into sects, which do not admit any other way of thinking within the right that is not strictly theirs.

Accepting the diversity that exists within the right implies recognizing that each family has something good to contribute, an attitude that creates a constructive environment, in which coincidences are valued and in which there is a considerable margin to assume the own errors and successes. The opposite attitude leads to a destructive environment, which always focuses on disagreements and which ends up reducing the ability to recognize each other's possible mistakes and, therefore, leaves little room for improvement. This last attitude is very beneficial for the left, because it contributes to generating discord and disunity on the right, reducing its chances of success.

In case anyone understands it better, I leave you with this fragment from "Life of Brian" (1979), which is a parody of the left, but which is also very suitable for illustrating certain internal struggles between the right:

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Image: frame of 'Life of Brian' (1979).