AIBU politically - want to understand the left but unable to

[Linguistmum]

I know a lot of people whose view of the world is politically more left than right and I have always come along with them very well. Personally I cannot define myself as "left-wing" even though so many friends of mine are like that. I'm sure I have badly misunderstood something about what being a left-wing/liberal means. I seem to think that being liberal is about acting like that, not about honestly caring of everyone but of yourself. For me, political right is easier to understand: you basically want to succeed and everything that you do is based on optimizing the best outcome for you and your family - it can include helping others, but the goal is still to benefit from it. The political left, in turn, is confusing. Why do you want good for others, why to care about human rights, why care about minorities? And --- do you really care?
Some examples I am confused with:
-Most parents want their children to succeed. If you are politically left and liberal politically, how is it possible at the same time to 1) promote diversity and equality and 2) help yout own child succeed?

-Let's think you are a white, middle- or upper class woman and you have two lovely children. You support human rights and want more diversity in the workplace and elsewhere. You don't like social hiearches. Does that change your own actions - if your own child is applying for a job and there is another applicant of a poor background, do you think that other applicant should get the job and your child should wait for another chance?

-If competition is seen as negative, why do left-wing liberals still engage in sports where competition is the whole idea? Does it feel bad that your football team wins and the other one loses?

I know these examples might sound completely strange and out of this world. But I've been thinking of these from time to time.

If you are politically left and liberal, please explain how you see the world in these cases! Thank you in advance.

The political left, in turn, is confusing. Why do you want good for others, why to care about human rights, why care about minorities?

What do you mean why? Why do I care about other people? What an odd question.

Posted too soon, was going to add that a better question would be to ask those who don’t care about other people, why not?

It's a bit difficult to know where to start with this, because your problem seems to be that you don't understand why everybody else isn't dyed-in-the-wool selfish

Left-wingers don't think all competition is bad. Using your sports analogy: yes, I would engage in a competitive sport and enjoy winning fairly and squarely, but if the other team were at an unfair disadvantage for some reason, I would want it rectified even if it meant fewer wins for my team. Wouldn't you?

If my son went for a job in a company which was trying to improve its diversity and equality profile, and he lost out to a candidate from an ethnic minority background or a woman, I'd expect him to understand why that had happened and move on. Apply for more jobs. The broader fairness and decency of the society we live in actually matters to me, yes. Even at my own expense.

Are you asking why people care about others? Have you never experienced empathy? Or sympathy? Or community? Or friendship even?
Is this your first day on the planet?

My father told me when I was little that Tories were people whose mothers never taught them to share. I'm starting to wonder whether he was right

How weird.

that first paragraph is garbled

both left & right care about people, they just have different perspectives on role of govt & responsibilities of individuals

OP, yes many, many people really do sincerely want good for everybody including themselves.

You have a 'scarcity' worldview. This is the idea that if someone else gets something (eg. a home, a job etc.) then you or your family will lose out in some way. This is only one way of viewing the world. It's not the 'truth' of human nature or the way the world works. Many other people take the view that there is enough for everyone if it is shared equally.

Where does your world view come from? It sometimes arises in societies or groups which have survived extreme situations like wars and are reduced to a kind of survival mentality.

I suppose I don't view personal success at the cost of exploitation and injustice for others as acceptable.

For me, political right is easier to understand: you basically want to succeed and everything that you do is based on optimizing the best outcome for you and your family - it can include helping others, but the goal is still to benefit from it.

I guess for me I am more intersted in optimising the best outcome for everyone in society, rather than just myself and my family.

That's not to say that I wouldn't want success for myself and my family, but I would be uncomfortable if that success came at the cost of making the world a worse place for everyone else.

Because I want to live in a society where everyone is ok rather than one where only my children and their peers are ok. That society will be safer, pleasanter and happier for my children too ( so it is basically a selfish desire).

That may mean my children will miss out on some jobs or opportunities but they get plenty so should understand the reasoning behind it.

I describe myself as left of centre, and crucial to that is the belief that we should judge a society by the way that it treats it's most vulnerable.

Of course I want my own children to succeed, but not to the detriment of others and of society. One of my DC is severely disabled, and I want them to succeed too, although their "success" may look a little different to that of their siblings. Yet, through work, I see situation after situation where people with disabilities/ poor health etc are left with less and less. UC has caused so many problems for a start. Funding cuts left right and centre leave vulnerable people in increasingly more hopeless situations. How can I not care about this?

I would love to have an intellectual / reason-based answer for this but the truth is I don’t really know how to explain to you that you should care about other people.

For me, it’s completely instinctive to know that it’s the right thing to do. I don’t want children to be denied opportunities or treated unfavourably because they’re not white and middle class. I don’t want people to work hard every day and be paid too little money to sustain a family and have a nice life. I don’t want others to go hungry, or live in fear, or struggle needlessly, even if I benefit from them doing so.

If you naturally don’t care about others I don’t know how to convince you that you should.

I also think your position is unusual. Most right-wing people do profess to care about others - they just (in my opinion) have entirely the wrong idea about what that looks like in practice. It’s quite unusual to have a person admit that they’re right wing because they don’t care about others and would happily profit at another’s expense.

So, what you seem to be saying is that, because you don't really care about anyone else, you assume that other people are just pretending when they say that they do?

I suspect that a lot of right wing people believe this tbh, so I don't think you are unusual in your point of view. You're wrong, though. There are thankfully lots of people who aren't motivated by selfish reasons.

I think a more equal society where basic needs are met = a healthier safer happier society.

No good my being wealthy if I have to constantly worry about being robbed by people who have turned to crime to survive.

For me, political right is easier to understand: you basically want to succeed and everything that you do is based on optimizing the best outcome for you and your family - it can include helping others, but the goal is still to benefit from it

I disagree with this. It's the characature, but it's not the truth. Many right wing people are libertarians who also value society.

OMG, I can't spell characature. Characterure? Charcuterie?!

@Umbivalent

OMG, I can't spell characature. Characterure? Charcuterie?!

🤣 at charcuterie

I think you mean caricature but thank you for this beautiful comment

Read Animal Farm by George Orwell

I don't like or respond to competitiveness OP. I've got no interest in sports. I'd like - and I'm aware this is idealistic - to live in a world where somehow we valued everyone without the need for comparisons.
For instance, I paint pictures. I watch Sky Arts landscape artist and portrait artist because I like watching people paint and see what they manage to do, but the whole thing of pitting one artist against another annoys and even sometimes upsets me. The point of art is not to 'win' anything for me.
Re the job thing, in a fairer society everyone would have a decent job and a decent wage. It's because we don't have that society that people HAVE to compete the way they do. I would like to do what I can to make society a better place for all, certainly not just for those people I know or am connected to. When I watch the news if I see, for instance, a suffering child, I don't have to be related to to them to feel pain. And also, if for instance I think the suffering has come about because of the greed of - for instance - the west - I'd actually like to see richer societies have less. Recently I've started to think we are going to all have to stop flying as richer people, because all of those Chinese people and Indian people - again just a for instance - have just as much right as I do to go on holiday in Italy. So if I was actually asked if I'd give up my right to fly in favour of a Chinese person's right to fly I actually would. None of this is easy but I really think my rights do not trump other peoples. I might want something, but I can recognise I'm being selfish and for the good of the whole human race I'm not gonna have it. It's a process. Hope this makes some sense I'm saying it very quickly and not really covering it properly or drilling down into the difficulties - which obviously exist.

I sort of get you Op, but you’ve phrased it really badly!

I’m inherently a competitive person and think competition is good.
I’m also empathetic, so I don’t think the 2 are mutually exclusive

Currently the conservative government don’t reward competitiveness. They reward their mates who went to Eton and that needs to change. If conservative values are about working hard and getting ahead, they’re not living those values themselves by ignoring the hard working folk and giving their mates a leg up, unfairly.

Why do I care about others?
Just do. Always have. Same as most people , I thought.

@sadpapercourtesan

My father told me when I was little that Tories were people whose mothers never taught them to share. I'm starting to wonder whether he was right

He wasn't. My late pil were both Tory councillors and did huge amounts for their community: this was openly acknowledged by their labour opposites. DH gives away 10pc of his income every year, and only didn't vote once Boris became leader cos he thinks Boris is a fool.

I'm just altruistic. I can sometimes see a personal link to being raised within a church community but I know there are lots of right wing religious people too.
I encourage my children to do their best but be considerate of others too.
They seem to be ok with that.