Does it make sense in today’s world to continue pigeonholing people into supposedly left-wing or right-wing ideologies, as was the case before the end of the Cold War at the end of the last century? This is a debate that should be initiated by the intellectuals of our times, even recognizing the fact that the concept of “intellectual” is also being questioned.
It was in 1789, at the beginning of the French Revolution, when in Paris parliamentarians began to be ideologically placed according to their political positions, because those in favor of maintaining the privileges of the monarchy headed by the King sat on the right and those who advocated for its elimination on the left, in the hall of the National Assembly.
The ideological label could be accepted as long as the world was divided between models that fought for the preservation or change of the capitalist system. Those on the left aspired to overthrow capitalism in order to establish socialism or communism. The power of the bourgeoisie was to be replaced by the dictatorship of the proletariat. The truth is that the little that could be achieved with the leftist goal in Russia and China evolved into a “capitalism” more savage than that which was imposed in the United States and Europe.
The political situation in Venezuela, with the decision of the ruler Nicolás Maduro to remain in power above the popular will, has plunged many who have supported him into a dilemma because they consider him politically leftist, because his style coincides with that of the right-wing dictators who predominated for many years in Latin America.
Many have tried to maintain the division between leftists and rightists based on the former’s support for abortion, gay marriage and state protectionism, and the latter’s opposition to the three causes, support for the nuclear family and economic neoliberalism. But economics and morality do not always coincide.
It is almost impossible to divide “leftists” and “rightists” today in the decadent “postmodern era.”
