Flick 🇬🇧 on Nostr: https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/06/12/time-to-retire-the-far-right-slur/ > The ...
https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/06/12/time-to-retire-the-far-right-slur/
> The labels ‘right’ and ‘left’ do not help us understand what drives politics today. In the past, far-right views were firmly associated with anti-Semitism. But in an age of Queers for Palestine, when boycotting Israel is an obsession of the campus left, and when activists throw paint at banks thought to have links to the world’s only Jewish state, it is now perceived as right-wing to defend Israel’s right to exist. Or take Net Zero. Once the left argued for raising the living standards of the working class. Now, the green consensus on the left demands that people are priced out of owning cars, heating their homes and foreign travel. The same inversion has happened in relation to cultural issues. Those who argue for protecting women’s sex-based rights, or a colourblind approach to racial equality, soon find themselves being labelled right wing or even far right. When all popular opposition to the status quo is branded ‘far right’, the phrase no longer carries much meaning.
> The labels ‘right’ and ‘left’ do not help us understand what drives politics today. In the past, far-right views were firmly associated with anti-Semitism. But in an age of Queers for Palestine, when boycotting Israel is an obsession of the campus left, and when activists throw paint at banks thought to have links to the world’s only Jewish state, it is now perceived as right-wing to defend Israel’s right to exist. Or take Net Zero. Once the left argued for raising the living standards of the working class. Now, the green consensus on the left demands that people are priced out of owning cars, heating their homes and foreign travel. The same inversion has happened in relation to cultural issues. Those who argue for protecting women’s sex-based rights, or a colourblind approach to racial equality, soon find themselves being labelled right wing or even far right. When all popular opposition to the status quo is branded ‘far right’, the phrase no longer carries much meaning.