{"id":52802,"date":"2023-08-23T06:31:41","date_gmt":"2023-08-23T04:31:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/?p=52802"},"modified":"2023-08-24T19:50:59","modified_gmt":"2023-08-24T17:50:59","slug":"a-big-risk-for-the-right-wing-the-temptation-to-confuse-friends-with-enemies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2023\/08\/23\/a-big-risk-for-the-right-wing-the-temptation-to-confuse-friends-with-enemies\/","title":{"rendered":"A big risk for the right-wing: the temptation to confuse friends with enemies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When we speak of \"right\" we refer to different ways of thinking that are broadly opposed to socialism and communism.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2023\/07\/25\/the-challenge-and-the-need-to-keep-together-the-three-families-of-the-first-right\/\">The challenge and the need to keep together the three families of the first right<\/a><\/rel><br \/>\n<rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2022\/03\/27\/the-third-right-that-is-coming-to-light-in-the-west-with-the-russian-invasion-of-ukraine\/\">The third right that is coming to light in the West with the Russian invasion of Ukraine<\/a><\/rel><\/p>\n<p><big>The germ of disunity within the right-wing<\/big><\/p>\n<p>There is no exclusive way of being on the right, just as there is no exclusive way of being on the left. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2023\/07\/25\/the-challenge-and-the-need-to-keep-together-the-three-families-of-the-first-right\/\">As I pointed out last month<\/a>, <strong>within the right there are classic liberals, conservatives and patriots<\/strong>, without going into more nuances. What distinguishes these three families on the right are their special concerns, as I already indicated then. <strong>One of the risks of these three families on the right is assuming the false accusations that others make against them.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>That is what would happen <strong>if, for example, some patriots accused classic liberals of being unpatriotic<\/strong>, assuming the erroneous idea that liberalism is incompatible with love for the Homeland and defense of the national sovereignty, <strong>and some liberals responded clumsily by simply disqualifying patriotism<\/strong>, presenting it as a refuge for the enemies of freedom and abhorring it.<\/p>\n<p>A similar situation would occur <strong>if some classic liberals accused patriots of being enemies of freedom<\/strong>, simply ignoring their contributions to the defense of our fundamental rights, <strong>and some patriots responded by simply disqualifying the liberalism<\/strong>, detesting it and attacking all liberals, without distinction and without taking into account that <strong>within liberalism there is a branch, conservative liberalism, which is right-wing<\/strong> and which is perfectly compatible with patriotism.<\/p>\n<p><big>The effects of an illogical position: generalization<\/big><\/p>\n<p>These types of attitudes are frequent. <strong>They represent the triumph of a position contrary to logic, such as generalization<\/strong>, that is, confusing a part with the whole. It is the same clumsy attitude that we sometimes encounter when, for example, <strong>there are people who insult Catalans to show their rejection of separatists, as if all Catalans were separatists<\/strong>. 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. <strong>By doing this, some are doing nationalism a great favor<\/strong>, for by doing so they confirm the worst caricatures they make of their rivals.<\/p>\n<p>In the same way, <strong>right-wing people who attack all liberals, without distinction<\/strong>, for the mere fact of having received criticism from some liberals, and those who attack all patriots, for a reason Similarly, deep down <strong>they are doing the left a favor, contributing to disunite and confront the right<\/strong> 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, <strong>believing that all liberals or that all patriots are the same is more than just a mistake: it is a sign of laziness intellectual<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><big>In search of excuses to attack another family of the right<\/big><\/p>\n<p>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 <strong>if a liberal criticizes you, it doesn't mean that all liberals are against you or think like that person<\/strong>. The same can be said about patriots or conservatives. Of course, there is also the possibility that <strong>someone is just looking for excuses to attack an entire right-wing family by generalizing the attitude of some of its members<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>For example, among anti-liberals, <strong>it will be enough for a liberal to commit a sin for all liberals to automatically become sinners<\/strong>. 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 <strong>prejudice: the tendency to judge someone without knowing them<\/strong>, assuming that knowing one, two or ten liberals already gives you enough experience in order to rate them all. <strong>It is the same illogical position of someone who speaks ill of all the inhabitants of a country after meeting only one of them.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><big>Mistaking friends for enemies: a great favor for the left<\/big><\/p>\n<p>If I am encouraged to write this reflection, it is because <strong>these generalizations tend to serve, within the right, to confuse friends with enemies<\/strong>, generating hostilities where there is no logical reason for them to exist. The risk that this entails is <strong>ending up turning those three families on the right into sects<\/strong>, which do not admit any other way of thinking within the right that is not strictly theirs.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Accepting the diversity that exists within the right implies recognizing that each family has something good to contribute<\/strong>, 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. <strong>The opposite attitude leads to a destructive environment, which always focuses on disagreements<\/strong> and which ends up reducing the ability to recognize each other's possible mistakes and, therefore, leaves little room for improvement. <strong>This last attitude is very beneficial for the left<\/strong>, because it contributes to generating discord and disunity on the right, reducing its chances of success.<\/p>\n<p>In case anyone understands it better, I leave you with <strong>this fragment from \"Life of Brian\" (1979), which is a parody of the left<\/strong>, but which is also very suitable for illustrating certain internal struggles between the right:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Dissidents\" width=\"665\" height=\"374\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/hgxaYJLehsU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>---<\/p>\n<p><small>Image: frame of 'Life of Brian' (1979).<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When we speak of \u00abright\u00bb we refer to different ways of thinking that are broadly opposed to socialism and communism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10863],"tags":[10367,10368,11115],"class_list":["post-52802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflexions","tag-conservatism","tag-liberalism","tag-patriotism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52802"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52802\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}