Preface and Definitions
I'll preface by admitting that I'm not terribly politically literate or well-read, so I'll appreciate it if people in the know correct, or even shoot down my ideas (gently, please). But with that said, here are some thoughts that occurred to me lately.
I'm going to talk about the left-wing and the right-wing in terms of the focus of their political energies rather than the common definitions that divide them by, say, economic beliefs, desired size of government, etc. So I'll define "left" and "right", only for the purposes of this post, as "those whose primary focus is on internal matters of the state", vs "those whose primary focus is on external matters of the state".
I understand that these definitions are not even close to universal. Many factions that are considered right-wing in US politics will end up under the left-wing umbrella, such as Libertarians or more traditional (isolationist) conservatives, while the converse may also be true, with some modes of thought that are considered left-wing favoring external interventions (the phrase "exporting the revolution" comes to mind).
However, political definitions being, in my experience, inevitably imprecise, I chose to classify the two sides the way I did because that's the largest common denominator I see all across the world. If these definitions bother you, I suggest just replacing "left" with "dove" and "right" with "hawk" in your head, or use other terms if even that is not a good enough approximation for real-life factions for you.
Similarly, I also want to put aside the debate of "appearances" for now. Whether the left and right wing are truly what they are at their core, or just pretend to be for the sake of populism and their own selfish reasons, is not terribly relevant when they end up behaving in ways that are consistent with that image of them. Likewise, the success or failure of particular left/right-wing leaders in the context of these definitions is not something I'm particularly interested in discussing.
In the end, these definitions are purely for my convenience as I lay out my thoughts on a specific aspect of struggles within any society. What label we apply to both sides is kind of arbitrary.
With that disclaimer laid down, let's go on to talk about what you really came here to read.
The Left Wing
The left sees the primary threat to the well-being of society as coming from within, and so are the primary reasons for people's suffering. Poverty, corruption, oppression, these are all internal issues that affect people in the present—people are hungry, frustrated, preyed upon by corrupt officials, police and radicals who targets them either because they're in the way of their corrupt agendas, or simply for who they are.
By comparison, the external threat of war is seen as secondary at best, manageable and negligible. Other nations are to be reasoned with via diplomacy, and if that doesn't work then there should be a network of allies the nation can rely upon to defend itself. Funding a large, unwieldy military force that will be idle most of the time but will drain the treasury immensely is inefficient, unnecessary, and wasteful.
That is not to say the foreign affairs aspect is neglected entirely, or that a left-wing government will refuse to defend the country in case of an overt attack. However, the chess board in the mind of the left-wing leader, the strategy by which he navigates the world of politics, is mostly built around solving the inherent injustices of society, rather than safeguarding the state from external threats. The left-wing leader will readily navigate in the international political minefield, but mostly to promote the ever-crucial internal goals, such as signing various international agreements pertaining to human rights, or trade agreements that would improve the quality of life for all citizens.
To summarize the left-wing mentality in one sentence: "Threats come from within."
The Right Wing
The right wing, as in any dichotomy by definition of the word, is the opposite. It views the primary threat to the well-being of society as coming from without. Hostile regimes can resort to trade wars, military blockades and outright war to threaten the well-being of the state and its people. The threats other countries pose to our state are absolute—if our state is conquered by an enemy state it will not only result in suffering for the people, but it will mean the complete end to our state, and placing the very lives of all our citizenry in the hands of those who don't care about them at best (in a much worse way than any politician they could have elected themselves), or actively despise them at worst. The right-wing leader looks at the world as a pack of wolves with a thin veneer of civilization. Everyone acts politely, but holds a knife behind their back, ready to strike at the moment of weakness. It's the state's responsibility to present a powerful, unified front, to make sure not only that vital international interests are preserved (if they aren't it could lead to economic ruin), but that nobody will even think of mounting a direct attack.
That is not to say that internal issues are of no consequences to the right-wing mentality, however, they are seen differently than in the left. If the dove looks at his own country and sees a complex web of societal struggles and oppression, the hawk sees a monolith with proud roots and traditions, that is at worst threatened by the rot of dissent and revolution from within. Where the leftist sees something ugly and sad, the rightist sees something vital and beautiful that should be preserved at all costs.
However, just like in the case of the left-wing viewing external affairs as secondary, the right-wing views internal affairs in a similar light. Yes, the right is very interested in preserving (conserving!) the fabric of society, and especially in preserving morality. However, it also has a strong belief in the ability of society and the political process to self-correct (at least in a healthy society, a society on the brink of upheaval, where the left-right balance is broken, is a separate issue I'll discuss in a bit). The rightist believes in the constitution of his country, in the laws and ideals the country's forefathers have instilled, and in the ability of the above to solve any issues that crop up. He or she does not believe that truly radical changes are needed to manage society, at most minor corrections. It's not where most of the mental and political energy is focused on.
To summarize the right-wing mentality in one sentence: "Threats come from without."
On Tribalism
Humans are tribal creatures by nature. Even those who believe in a utopian vision of world peace, abolishing nationalism and such are divided into factions of their own, of which they are fiercely possessive and defensive, and by which they at least partially define their identity. A human that is truly a "free agent" and doesn't swear loyalty to a larger faction of humans (whether the embodiment of an ideal or simply a gang with a different-colored shirt than the other gang) is a rare animal.
Even those who belong to a certain faction because they intellectually believe in the validity of its ideas will usually end up emotionally entangled with said faction, and in defending it and its ideals will react emotionally and viscerally to the perceived threat (even if the threat is merely intellectual).
For example let's consider an atheist (like, in fact, myself). I'm using this particular example purposefully, both because I'm intimately familiar with it, but also because there is no single faction that can be considered "the Atheist faction", so in a sense it serves as the ideal example to demonstrate that the principles of tribalism hold even when the tribe in question is nebulously defined. The perception that "some people somewhere think and behave similarly to myself" is sufficient to trigger the tribalism instinct
The atheist may have gotten to believe what he believes through pure logic (you can agree or disagree with the validity of said logic, but that's how atheists see the matter), but watch his (or her) reaction when a religious person simply calls him stupid, or a heathen who will burn in hell. Some will react with smug condescension, others with rage, but not many will react with indifference. There's a reason why religious debates get so heated on the internet, and it's not solely the religious side's fault by a long shot. You can see it in the insults atheists give to religious people: "you believe in a fairy tale" is a common one, it is a visceral reaction that is meant to establish the validity of one's beliefs at the expense of one's opponent, and it's also calculated to hit the opponent where it hurts the most, by denying their core beliefs in the most degrading way possible, by comparing them to silly children. This, my friends, is not something that's done in cold blood. The beliefs (or, as the case may be, lack of them) that the person holds turn inevitably to emotional entanglement, and with that he will seek validation from his peers and viola, a tribe is born.
Another aspect of it is that an atheist that sees another atheist under attack for his beliefs will usually feel the urge to come to the rescue, even if such an action doesn't make much logical sense in the moment. An atheist that was browsing the internet for completely different reasons and may have had better things to do with his day may find himself entangled in hours of exhausting and emotional debate, simply because he couldn't stand by to see someone such as himself under attack.
Of course, everything said about atheism here is equally valid to religious people. In fact, most ideologies, provided they are at least a little bit attractive and not just hypothetical ideologies on paper (I don't see people that want to bring ritual human sacrifice back) tend to form factions around them, and these factions will be emotionally invested in their beliefs even if they originally evolved from the coldest of logics.
Humans will usually stick fiercely to their chosen faction, whether it makes sense to or not. Note the word "usually" there. Exceptions are always possible, but in a faction as a whole, the law of averages will dictate that the faction will stick mostly together through hardship, even if, in terms of pure logic or even self-interest, it shouldn't. Not many factions choose to simply voluntarily disband in the face of pressure. All around the world we see examples of political, religious and ideological factions fighting tooth and nail in the bombed out ruins of their countries, with the cheapest rifles and bombs they can cobble together, and if they can't manage even that, then with knives. They will choose to live like shit rather than abandon the ideals that define parts of their identity, and with them the tribe (in many cases in the literal sense of the word) they belong with.
So tribalism exists in all societies and is an inextricable part of the human experience. Whether a snobbish intellectual, a bible thumper, a BLM activist, or a member of the Taliban, tribalism infuses the human world.
What am I driving at? Admittedly I got sidetracked a bit, but this point will become important in my analysis below.
A Healthy Balance
Let's examine a hypothetical healthy country, a spherical cow in vacuum, so to speak.
During the life of such a country it will be inevitably exposed to threats from without. Sooner or later, as history shows, war in some form comes to everyone, everywhere, whether they like it or not, whether it takes a decade or a century. At times of war and strife, the right-wing will tend to come to power, whether by democratic election or by having the ear of the despotic ruler. They are the right (ha!) tool in the toolbox for dealing with a situation of this sort.
At times of peace in between wars, the country is free to relax its guard a little-bit and turn inward, to fix the ever-creeping internal issues, disagreements and injustices that plague any gathering of more than a handful of humans since the dawn of our evolution. During these times, holding on to a huge military force to ward-off a nonexistent threat is an exorbitant luxury, the country as a whole, free from the worry of war, turns its gaze inwards, and so the left-wing come to power to manage the internal crises that start to interest the public more.
I want to note that these changes, in a model society, are driven by the common citizen's will and are not just some game played by the elite. That's where my rant on tribalism comes in play. People may be poor, oppressed, living without adequate access to water or working plumbing, but when someone threatens their country they forget about all this and get pissed, or afraid. Our healthy spherical vacuum-bound country is, of course, not so divided among internal tribal lines as to cause complete disengagement or even hostility toward the country-tribe. We're not discussing Syria here. So a person, even if he lives a thousand miles away from the actual physical threat to his fellow citizens, will still react emotionally, and would be likely to elect (in a democracy) or otherwise support factions that promise to combat said threat, even at the cost of (temporarily?) sidelining issues that affect them more directly, such as the aforementioned plumbing etc.
When there is no external threat that plays on the inherent tribalism of the people, their attention is set on the more mundane issues relevant to the day to day existence. The internal issues. The left-wing, that promises a fix to these issues, is their savior at these times.
Thus we get the infamous pendulum. The sine wave. The beating pulse of society. Left, right, left right, the power ebbs and flows according to the external threats that face the country at the time.
Unless something goes wrong.
Imbalance - Gaming the System
This type of imbalance is perhaps the one that left-wing people like to emphasize the most. It is when either the right or the left manage to convince the public of either the existence or nonexistence of an external threat regardless of the reality of the situation, purely as a path to power. The left-wing constantly and consistently warns us that the right-wing is trying to game the system by claiming an external threat where there is none, in order to swing the pendulum to its own side artificially, purely as a selfish path to power. Fascist or similar governments arose on similar premises.
And this really is an issue that should be considered with all seriousness. It really is, from a game theory perspective, the interest of the right-wing to emphasize external threats to society, imagined or not.
However, there are two important aspects that should be kept in mind here:
In conclusion, there is absolute symmetry in the political struggle. Exaggeration of external threats may lead to the rise of fascism in the extreme case, while exaggeration of the internal threats may lead to revolution and a communist regime in the other extreme.
And, sadly, it is in the political interest of both sides to pull each other in their direction regardless of the reality on the ground, which is a destabilizing factor in society.
How to mitigate this effect? Disincentives to both sides behaving this way have to be constructed and maintained through the constitution and/or some other political/legal mechanism. How? I'll leave this question to the comment section.
Imbalance - Pendulum Malfunction
A force that may work in conjunction with the aforementioned issue is "the sticky pendulum". It does not afflict all nations of the world, but it certainly afflicts many, and especially the wealthy and powerful ones.
I'm talking about a situation where a powerful external threat fails to relent for a very long period of time, locking the pendulum in the right-wing portion of its swing, or the opposite, no external threat succeeds at materializing for a very long time, locking it to the left.
While many will probably argue that it's beneficial for the pendulum to stay in the section of their favorite political side, I'd argue that the healthiest state is a properly swinging pendulum, and getting stuck in either position for too long is dangerous and destabilizing for society.
First, examples.
Europe: With the lack of a credible external threat after the defeat of Nazi Germany and the fall of the Soviet Union, most European countries turned inwards.
United States: Every powerful empire will always have threats against it by its very nature. No nation can wield great power on an international scale and impose its will on other nations without attracting animosity. Whether it's the USSR, China, Iran or other middle eastern country, America is never fully free of powerful external threats.
To be precise, the "pendulum malfunction" I'm discussing here is one that is created by real-life circumstances, i.e. the existence or lack thereof of an external threat to a country.
Imbalance - Pendulum Malfunction: Stuck on the Left
What happens when the pendulum is stuck on the leftward swing?
As decades pass and the left-wing establishment remains intrenched in politics, the ability to respond to credible external threats (such as refugee waves, Russian shenanigans in Ukraine, or Turkey's threats in the Mediterranean) is eroded.
Conversely, the constant magnification of internal issues, gleefully encouraged by politicians and the media, instead of solving said issues have resulted in internal unrest. Hyper-focusing on these issues means any and all internal flaws in society will be always magnified and over-scrutinized, locking the countries into an ever-increasing race of trying to fix everything that's wrong, expending more and more resources in a never-ending black hole of financial drain. Worse, this does not actually mitigate the unrest or dramatically improves living conditions, both because there's are diminishing returns at some point, and because the obsessive magnifying glass, in the absence of external threats to distract the population, will always find something new to focus on and criticize. It's an unwinnable battle that is fated to shake the country apart into smaller tribes, divided by their internal issues of choice.
This, by the way, is the inevitable fate of a hypothetical world government. Unless they can find aliens to fight against or something.
Imbalance - Pendulum Malfunction: Stuck on the Right
What happens when the pendulum is stuck on the rightward swing?
As in the other case, there is a financial drain on the country imposed by the large military force and constant high readiness (at least compared to less threatened countries). There is a limit to how long a population can maintain a "fighting spirit" or an emotionally charged "protect my tribe" state. As the decades wear on and the disadvantaged see that the country is standing despite the external threat but nothing has changed for the better in their miserable lives, discontent will start and the pendulum will start swinging to the left.
However, the external threat is still present and has to be addressed. But under a left-wing government and the public pressure to reduce the national tension, it won't be. This leaves the country vulnerable to this external threat. The alternative is for the right-wing to stand its ground and do everything it can to hold onto power and protect the country, which gives the left-wing an opening to accuse the right of gaming the system and exaggerating the threats as discussed above. And if the right actually succeeds in holding on to power, the internal discontent will only increase, unless it relents at least part-way in its military policies. This, in time, can cause an explosive rise of the left to power, a dangerous one, maybe even a revolution that can threaten the country.
Note that this meshes really well with the idea that all empires succumb to a combination of pressures from within and without. The external threats don't relent the pressure, while the population keeps pushing for the nation to stand down and "rest", eventually resulting in the worst outcomes of both approaches.
What To Do About It
So obsessing about internal threats for too long, no matter how real they are, is unhealthy to a country, as well as obsessing over external threats for too long, no matter how real they are, is unhealthy to a country. What can be done about it?
Sadly, the sine wave or pendulum, with all the consequences it entails, seems to be the healthiest for a country. That means that a country needs a war (even if a cold one) once in a while, even though it's horrible from an ethical viewpoint, to keep functioning without fracturing, and it also needs a rest from wars once in a while to maintain a decent existence for as many people as possible.
Many people will find this state of affairs unacceptable, because war is horrible (no matter where you stand politically, that is an immutable truth). What alternatives are there?
We can accept the country fracturing and losing its identity as a desirable goal. Many left-wing factions adopt this view in the modern western world, even if they are, as of yet, not very mainstream. This, of course, runs contrast to the inherent tribal nature of a national identity, and will result in civil war if imposed by force, unless these factions act across a long period of time to undermine and weaken the people's attachment to the country-tribe, in preparation for eventually severing it completely.
Of course, they fail to understand that such an outcome will simply create smaller tribal units that will fall into exactly the same trap and will become beholden to the pendulum, with the additional disadvantage of being more vulnerable to the true external threats, since they no longer have unity of spirit and resources on their side.
To take the idea a step further, we can embrace anarchy as the desired goal. When a household is the largest political unit of the land, concepts like "internal strife" become irrelevant. I hope I don't need to enumerate the evident disadvantages of such a "system". It's not a much better state of existence than that of primitive hunter-gatherers, and hardly a fitting alternative to the pendulum dynamic. It's basically the cop-out answer, commit suicide in order to save oneself.
A highly hierarchical society that is ruled by an iron fist, the polar opposite of anarchy, is simply a pendulum stuck on the right, with all the inherent issues thereof.
How about keeping the pendulum system intact, but instead of engaging in a real war, we somehow simulate a war, or some equivalent event that coalesces the country together. But how? International sports come to mind, and while they can sometimes inflame the spirit of a nation, in most of the population it doesn't garner the same visceral emotion as a true external threat. Moreover, any simulation of an external threat will face the problem of real external threats still existing, so only a country that is at prolonged peace, such as those of western Europe, can even consider such an approach, much less actually cobble together something that works.
Conclusion
In the end, I'm not sure humans can escape the predicament of war. Like it or not, the nature of the human psyche and how it expresses itself in a social context dictates that occasionally people will drown in blood and fire. This is what, ultimately, drives the left and right wing sentiments (as narrowly defined in this post) of a nation.
If anyone has any ideas how to save ourselves from ourselves, please voice them in the comments.
I'll preface by admitting that I'm not terribly politically literate or well-read, so I'll appreciate it if people in the know correct, or even shoot down my ideas (gently, please). But with that said, here are some thoughts that occurred to me lately.
I'm going to talk about the left-wing and the right-wing in terms of the focus of their political energies rather than the common definitions that divide them by, say, economic beliefs, desired size of government, etc. So I'll define "left" and "right", only for the purposes of this post, as "those whose primary focus is on internal matters of the state", vs "those whose primary focus is on external matters of the state".
I understand that these definitions are not even close to universal. Many factions that are considered right-wing in US politics will end up under the left-wing umbrella, such as Libertarians or more traditional (isolationist) conservatives, while the converse may also be true, with some modes of thought that are considered left-wing favoring external interventions (the phrase "exporting the revolution" comes to mind).
However, political definitions being, in my experience, inevitably imprecise, I chose to classify the two sides the way I did because that's the largest common denominator I see all across the world. If these definitions bother you, I suggest just replacing "left" with "dove" and "right" with "hawk" in your head, or use other terms if even that is not a good enough approximation for real-life factions for you.
Similarly, I also want to put aside the debate of "appearances" for now. Whether the left and right wing are truly what they are at their core, or just pretend to be for the sake of populism and their own selfish reasons, is not terribly relevant when they end up behaving in ways that are consistent with that image of them. Likewise, the success or failure of particular left/right-wing leaders in the context of these definitions is not something I'm particularly interested in discussing.
In the end, these definitions are purely for my convenience as I lay out my thoughts on a specific aspect of struggles within any society. What label we apply to both sides is kind of arbitrary.
With that disclaimer laid down, let's go on to talk about what you really came here to read.
The Left Wing
The left sees the primary threat to the well-being of society as coming from within, and so are the primary reasons for people's suffering. Poverty, corruption, oppression, these are all internal issues that affect people in the present—people are hungry, frustrated, preyed upon by corrupt officials, police and radicals who targets them either because they're in the way of their corrupt agendas, or simply for who they are.
By comparison, the external threat of war is seen as secondary at best, manageable and negligible. Other nations are to be reasoned with via diplomacy, and if that doesn't work then there should be a network of allies the nation can rely upon to defend itself. Funding a large, unwieldy military force that will be idle most of the time but will drain the treasury immensely is inefficient, unnecessary, and wasteful.
That is not to say the foreign affairs aspect is neglected entirely, or that a left-wing government will refuse to defend the country in case of an overt attack. However, the chess board in the mind of the left-wing leader, the strategy by which he navigates the world of politics, is mostly built around solving the inherent injustices of society, rather than safeguarding the state from external threats. The left-wing leader will readily navigate in the international political minefield, but mostly to promote the ever-crucial internal goals, such as signing various international agreements pertaining to human rights, or trade agreements that would improve the quality of life for all citizens.
To summarize the left-wing mentality in one sentence: "Threats come from within."
The Right Wing
The right wing, as in any dichotomy by definition of the word, is the opposite. It views the primary threat to the well-being of society as coming from without. Hostile regimes can resort to trade wars, military blockades and outright war to threaten the well-being of the state and its people. The threats other countries pose to our state are absolute—if our state is conquered by an enemy state it will not only result in suffering for the people, but it will mean the complete end to our state, and placing the very lives of all our citizenry in the hands of those who don't care about them at best (in a much worse way than any politician they could have elected themselves), or actively despise them at worst. The right-wing leader looks at the world as a pack of wolves with a thin veneer of civilization. Everyone acts politely, but holds a knife behind their back, ready to strike at the moment of weakness. It's the state's responsibility to present a powerful, unified front, to make sure not only that vital international interests are preserved (if they aren't it could lead to economic ruin), but that nobody will even think of mounting a direct attack.
That is not to say that internal issues are of no consequences to the right-wing mentality, however, they are seen differently than in the left. If the dove looks at his own country and sees a complex web of societal struggles and oppression, the hawk sees a monolith with proud roots and traditions, that is at worst threatened by the rot of dissent and revolution from within. Where the leftist sees something ugly and sad, the rightist sees something vital and beautiful that should be preserved at all costs.
However, just like in the case of the left-wing viewing external affairs as secondary, the right-wing views internal affairs in a similar light. Yes, the right is very interested in preserving (conserving!) the fabric of society, and especially in preserving morality. However, it also has a strong belief in the ability of society and the political process to self-correct (at least in a healthy society, a society on the brink of upheaval, where the left-right balance is broken, is a separate issue I'll discuss in a bit). The rightist believes in the constitution of his country, in the laws and ideals the country's forefathers have instilled, and in the ability of the above to solve any issues that crop up. He or she does not believe that truly radical changes are needed to manage society, at most minor corrections. It's not where most of the mental and political energy is focused on.
To summarize the right-wing mentality in one sentence: "Threats come from without."
On Tribalism
Humans are tribal creatures by nature. Even those who believe in a utopian vision of world peace, abolishing nationalism and such are divided into factions of their own, of which they are fiercely possessive and defensive, and by which they at least partially define their identity. A human that is truly a "free agent" and doesn't swear loyalty to a larger faction of humans (whether the embodiment of an ideal or simply a gang with a different-colored shirt than the other gang) is a rare animal.
Even those who belong to a certain faction because they intellectually believe in the validity of its ideas will usually end up emotionally entangled with said faction, and in defending it and its ideals will react emotionally and viscerally to the perceived threat (even if the threat is merely intellectual).
For example let's consider an atheist (like, in fact, myself). I'm using this particular example purposefully, both because I'm intimately familiar with it, but also because there is no single faction that can be considered "the Atheist faction", so in a sense it serves as the ideal example to demonstrate that the principles of tribalism hold even when the tribe in question is nebulously defined. The perception that "some people somewhere think and behave similarly to myself" is sufficient to trigger the tribalism instinct
The atheist may have gotten to believe what he believes through pure logic (you can agree or disagree with the validity of said logic, but that's how atheists see the matter), but watch his (or her) reaction when a religious person simply calls him stupid, or a heathen who will burn in hell. Some will react with smug condescension, others with rage, but not many will react with indifference. There's a reason why religious debates get so heated on the internet, and it's not solely the religious side's fault by a long shot. You can see it in the insults atheists give to religious people: "you believe in a fairy tale" is a common one, it is a visceral reaction that is meant to establish the validity of one's beliefs at the expense of one's opponent, and it's also calculated to hit the opponent where it hurts the most, by denying their core beliefs in the most degrading way possible, by comparing them to silly children. This, my friends, is not something that's done in cold blood. The beliefs (or, as the case may be, lack of them) that the person holds turn inevitably to emotional entanglement, and with that he will seek validation from his peers and viola, a tribe is born.
Another aspect of it is that an atheist that sees another atheist under attack for his beliefs will usually feel the urge to come to the rescue, even if such an action doesn't make much logical sense in the moment. An atheist that was browsing the internet for completely different reasons and may have had better things to do with his day may find himself entangled in hours of exhausting and emotional debate, simply because he couldn't stand by to see someone such as himself under attack.
Of course, everything said about atheism here is equally valid to religious people. In fact, most ideologies, provided they are at least a little bit attractive and not just hypothetical ideologies on paper (I don't see people that want to bring ritual human sacrifice back) tend to form factions around them, and these factions will be emotionally invested in their beliefs even if they originally evolved from the coldest of logics.
Humans will usually stick fiercely to their chosen faction, whether it makes sense to or not. Note the word "usually" there. Exceptions are always possible, but in a faction as a whole, the law of averages will dictate that the faction will stick mostly together through hardship, even if, in terms of pure logic or even self-interest, it shouldn't. Not many factions choose to simply voluntarily disband in the face of pressure. All around the world we see examples of political, religious and ideological factions fighting tooth and nail in the bombed out ruins of their countries, with the cheapest rifles and bombs they can cobble together, and if they can't manage even that, then with knives. They will choose to live like shit rather than abandon the ideals that define parts of their identity, and with them the tribe (in many cases in the literal sense of the word) they belong with.
So tribalism exists in all societies and is an inextricable part of the human experience. Whether a snobbish intellectual, a bible thumper, a BLM activist, or a member of the Taliban, tribalism infuses the human world.
What am I driving at? Admittedly I got sidetracked a bit, but this point will become important in my analysis below.
A Healthy Balance
Let's examine a hypothetical healthy country, a spherical cow in vacuum, so to speak.
During the life of such a country it will be inevitably exposed to threats from without. Sooner or later, as history shows, war in some form comes to everyone, everywhere, whether they like it or not, whether it takes a decade or a century. At times of war and strife, the right-wing will tend to come to power, whether by democratic election or by having the ear of the despotic ruler. They are the right (ha!) tool in the toolbox for dealing with a situation of this sort.
At times of peace in between wars, the country is free to relax its guard a little-bit and turn inward, to fix the ever-creeping internal issues, disagreements and injustices that plague any gathering of more than a handful of humans since the dawn of our evolution. During these times, holding on to a huge military force to ward-off a nonexistent threat is an exorbitant luxury, the country as a whole, free from the worry of war, turns its gaze inwards, and so the left-wing come to power to manage the internal crises that start to interest the public more.
I want to note that these changes, in a model society, are driven by the common citizen's will and are not just some game played by the elite. That's where my rant on tribalism comes in play. People may be poor, oppressed, living without adequate access to water or working plumbing, but when someone threatens their country they forget about all this and get pissed, or afraid. Our healthy spherical vacuum-bound country is, of course, not so divided among internal tribal lines as to cause complete disengagement or even hostility toward the country-tribe. We're not discussing Syria here. So a person, even if he lives a thousand miles away from the actual physical threat to his fellow citizens, will still react emotionally, and would be likely to elect (in a democracy) or otherwise support factions that promise to combat said threat, even at the cost of (temporarily?) sidelining issues that affect them more directly, such as the aforementioned plumbing etc.
When there is no external threat that plays on the inherent tribalism of the people, their attention is set on the more mundane issues relevant to the day to day existence. The internal issues. The left-wing, that promises a fix to these issues, is their savior at these times.
Thus we get the infamous pendulum. The sine wave. The beating pulse of society. Left, right, left right, the power ebbs and flows according to the external threats that face the country at the time.
Unless something goes wrong.
Imbalance - Gaming the System
This type of imbalance is perhaps the one that left-wing people like to emphasize the most. It is when either the right or the left manage to convince the public of either the existence or nonexistence of an external threat regardless of the reality of the situation, purely as a path to power. The left-wing constantly and consistently warns us that the right-wing is trying to game the system by claiming an external threat where there is none, in order to swing the pendulum to its own side artificially, purely as a selfish path to power. Fascist or similar governments arose on similar premises.
And this really is an issue that should be considered with all seriousness. It really is, from a game theory perspective, the interest of the right-wing to emphasize external threats to society, imagined or not.
However, there are two important aspects that should be kept in mind here:
- It is just as advantageous for the left wing to either de-emphasize real external threats, or to exaggerate internal threats, even imagined ones, as a path to pure power. This is a view that's often neglected in the public discourse, but that does not make it any less real. Pervasive threat of neo-Nazis that want to make America fascist, discrimination against women, POC and LGBT beyond every corner and under every rock even after decades of steady emancipation and corrective action, anyone?
- Sometimes the external threat truly is real. If you're a leftist too busy fighting the left/right political war, and you're doing everything to undermine the right-wing, including dismissing warnings of external threats as ploys (that would be the advantageous move in a political struggle, to deny the right its path to power), you may overlook a real threat and end up paying the ultimate price, getting caught-up in a war with your pants down, and ultimately risk losing said war (with all that entails, up to and including the dissolution of the country).
In conclusion, there is absolute symmetry in the political struggle. Exaggeration of external threats may lead to the rise of fascism in the extreme case, while exaggeration of the internal threats may lead to revolution and a communist regime in the other extreme.
And, sadly, it is in the political interest of both sides to pull each other in their direction regardless of the reality on the ground, which is a destabilizing factor in society.
How to mitigate this effect? Disincentives to both sides behaving this way have to be constructed and maintained through the constitution and/or some other political/legal mechanism. How? I'll leave this question to the comment section.
Imbalance - Pendulum Malfunction
A force that may work in conjunction with the aforementioned issue is "the sticky pendulum". It does not afflict all nations of the world, but it certainly afflicts many, and especially the wealthy and powerful ones.
I'm talking about a situation where a powerful external threat fails to relent for a very long period of time, locking the pendulum in the right-wing portion of its swing, or the opposite, no external threat succeeds at materializing for a very long time, locking it to the left.
While many will probably argue that it's beneficial for the pendulum to stay in the section of their favorite political side, I'd argue that the healthiest state is a properly swinging pendulum, and getting stuck in either position for too long is dangerous and destabilizing for society.
First, examples.
Europe: With the lack of a credible external threat after the defeat of Nazi Germany and the fall of the Soviet Union, most European countries turned inwards.
United States: Every powerful empire will always have threats against it by its very nature. No nation can wield great power on an international scale and impose its will on other nations without attracting animosity. Whether it's the USSR, China, Iran or other middle eastern country, America is never fully free of powerful external threats.
To be precise, the "pendulum malfunction" I'm discussing here is one that is created by real-life circumstances, i.e. the existence or lack thereof of an external threat to a country.
Imbalance - Pendulum Malfunction: Stuck on the Left
What happens when the pendulum is stuck on the leftward swing?
As decades pass and the left-wing establishment remains intrenched in politics, the ability to respond to credible external threats (such as refugee waves, Russian shenanigans in Ukraine, or Turkey's threats in the Mediterranean) is eroded.
Conversely, the constant magnification of internal issues, gleefully encouraged by politicians and the media, instead of solving said issues have resulted in internal unrest. Hyper-focusing on these issues means any and all internal flaws in society will be always magnified and over-scrutinized, locking the countries into an ever-increasing race of trying to fix everything that's wrong, expending more and more resources in a never-ending black hole of financial drain. Worse, this does not actually mitigate the unrest or dramatically improves living conditions, both because there's are diminishing returns at some point, and because the obsessive magnifying glass, in the absence of external threats to distract the population, will always find something new to focus on and criticize. It's an unwinnable battle that is fated to shake the country apart into smaller tribes, divided by their internal issues of choice.
This, by the way, is the inevitable fate of a hypothetical world government. Unless they can find aliens to fight against or something.
Imbalance - Pendulum Malfunction: Stuck on the Right
What happens when the pendulum is stuck on the rightward swing?
As in the other case, there is a financial drain on the country imposed by the large military force and constant high readiness (at least compared to less threatened countries). There is a limit to how long a population can maintain a "fighting spirit" or an emotionally charged "protect my tribe" state. As the decades wear on and the disadvantaged see that the country is standing despite the external threat but nothing has changed for the better in their miserable lives, discontent will start and the pendulum will start swinging to the left.
However, the external threat is still present and has to be addressed. But under a left-wing government and the public pressure to reduce the national tension, it won't be. This leaves the country vulnerable to this external threat. The alternative is for the right-wing to stand its ground and do everything it can to hold onto power and protect the country, which gives the left-wing an opening to accuse the right of gaming the system and exaggerating the threats as discussed above. And if the right actually succeeds in holding on to power, the internal discontent will only increase, unless it relents at least part-way in its military policies. This, in time, can cause an explosive rise of the left to power, a dangerous one, maybe even a revolution that can threaten the country.
Note that this meshes really well with the idea that all empires succumb to a combination of pressures from within and without. The external threats don't relent the pressure, while the population keeps pushing for the nation to stand down and "rest", eventually resulting in the worst outcomes of both approaches.
What To Do About It
So obsessing about internal threats for too long, no matter how real they are, is unhealthy to a country, as well as obsessing over external threats for too long, no matter how real they are, is unhealthy to a country. What can be done about it?
Sadly, the sine wave or pendulum, with all the consequences it entails, seems to be the healthiest for a country. That means that a country needs a war (even if a cold one) once in a while, even though it's horrible from an ethical viewpoint, to keep functioning without fracturing, and it also needs a rest from wars once in a while to maintain a decent existence for as many people as possible.
Many people will find this state of affairs unacceptable, because war is horrible (no matter where you stand politically, that is an immutable truth). What alternatives are there?
We can accept the country fracturing and losing its identity as a desirable goal. Many left-wing factions adopt this view in the modern western world, even if they are, as of yet, not very mainstream. This, of course, runs contrast to the inherent tribal nature of a national identity, and will result in civil war if imposed by force, unless these factions act across a long period of time to undermine and weaken the people's attachment to the country-tribe, in preparation for eventually severing it completely.
Of course, they fail to understand that such an outcome will simply create smaller tribal units that will fall into exactly the same trap and will become beholden to the pendulum, with the additional disadvantage of being more vulnerable to the true external threats, since they no longer have unity of spirit and resources on their side.
To take the idea a step further, we can embrace anarchy as the desired goal. When a household is the largest political unit of the land, concepts like "internal strife" become irrelevant. I hope I don't need to enumerate the evident disadvantages of such a "system". It's not a much better state of existence than that of primitive hunter-gatherers, and hardly a fitting alternative to the pendulum dynamic. It's basically the cop-out answer, commit suicide in order to save oneself.
A highly hierarchical society that is ruled by an iron fist, the polar opposite of anarchy, is simply a pendulum stuck on the right, with all the inherent issues thereof.
How about keeping the pendulum system intact, but instead of engaging in a real war, we somehow simulate a war, or some equivalent event that coalesces the country together. But how? International sports come to mind, and while they can sometimes inflame the spirit of a nation, in most of the population it doesn't garner the same visceral emotion as a true external threat. Moreover, any simulation of an external threat will face the problem of real external threats still existing, so only a country that is at prolonged peace, such as those of western Europe, can even consider such an approach, much less actually cobble together something that works.
Conclusion
In the end, I'm not sure humans can escape the predicament of war. Like it or not, the nature of the human psyche and how it expresses itself in a social context dictates that occasionally people will drown in blood and fire. This is what, ultimately, drives the left and right wing sentiments (as narrowly defined in this post) of a nation.
If anyone has any ideas how to save ourselves from ourselves, please voice them in the comments.
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