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.

It is to some degree.

If you run a business aren’t you more likely to employ family and friends? Again rather than the best candidate?

I work for a local authority, and we no longer get pay awards or go on to the next level we have to apply along with everyone else! No longer the bosses BFF gets a leg up.

I am not sure why you don't understand wanting other people to do well?

Very odd outlook - in my view society without equality and fair treatment is a society that leads to crime, poverty and social issues - which impact on ME no matter how high my ivory tower.

I want my children to do well (although define 'success') but not at the expense of others - I work with young people who are extremely disadvantaged educationally and in general - I make sure my own kids understand the advantages they have and that they understand with advantage comes social responsibility - you don't just take without giving back.

Liberal and left aren't the same. Left wing would be most usually associated with socialism. Liberalism is about personal freedom.

This has to be a wind up? You can’t possibly find it baffling as to why people would “want good for others” or that people would care about human rights or minority groups. You might not care about these things and only care about yourself but why would you find it so difficult to comprehend why other people don’t just care about themselves and their immediate family?

And why would you think someone who believes in equality and diversity or human rights would think participating in competitive sport is unacceptable?
If my daughter takes part in a race and wins because she is the fastest runner that’s fantastic. If she wins because someone told everyone who wasn’t white they couldn’t set off running until she had a 30 second head start and then she won, her “success” in that competition means nothing. She hasn’t been the best, she has been given an unfair advantage by other people being prevented from having the chance to win.
The same applies to jobs. If she gets a job because she was the best candidate that’s great, if she gets a job but the other candidates were all more qualified, more experienced and performed better at interview but were not hired because their skin wasn’t white than that isn’t acceptable.

You don’t seem to have any understanding of what equality and diversity actually means. It’s not pushing people from minority groups ahead undeservedly, it’s about ensuring they are given the exact same opportunities to succeed as others are.
Wanting to hold others back based on their “otherness” so white kids can succeed is vile. Wanting all people to have access to get the same opportunities to enable them to succeed doesn’t mean you want your own child to go without. I’ve never come across a single left / left leaning person who would ever think that because they care about another person rights being violated or repressed or being discriminated against that their own child should have to be held back or persecuted instead. And in no way does a child from a minority group not being discriminated against prevent my child from succeeding in life.
And if she isn’t on the winning team, or isn’t successful at a job interview that will be because of her and the effort and ability she has been able to apply to her education, hobbies, interests - not because non white kids were allowed a fair chance to succeed themselves.

Oh god, I could never work with family or friends...

I begrudgingly work with DW.

Much prefer genuine employees..

Being left leaning politically means I value equity over equality.

This means some people appear to have a bigger helping hand, but in reality it's just making things fair across the board.

That applies to taxes, healthcare, access to education, access to jobs...pretty much most things across society.

Being truly competitive means you believe that everyone has the same chance to excel when you remove the built in obstacles like race, disability, sex and the other 6 protected characteristics that the UK currently recognise. If you start a race 100m in front of the next competitor you're only fooling yourself that there's a competition in any true sense.

It's rather disappointing that people still don't understand this basic concept of being a decent human being.

The current right led government don't believe in equity, equality or even competition. They are all about cronyism...that's not necessarily true for all conservatives, but definitely true for the current leaders which just perpetuates the idea that all Tories are evil.

OP very simply, I believe in collectivism not individualism. I believe we are all better off when we act for the greater good. So I believe that we should invest in housing, welfare, healthcare, schools, transport and affordable utilities to improve quality of life for all, and I think the most fortunate should pay a little extra to help pay for that. They benefit too, and a lot of time may have increased their good fortunate through their cheap labour force, or utilising the infrastructure around them, or the employees the state has educated etc etc.
I don’t believe at all that life is a level playing field where those that succeed just wanted it more or worked harder, so yes I think we need to do all we can to improve equality of opportunity even if that disbenefits me personally

Ask

Why do some not care about others
Why do some not care that food banks are needed in such a rich country
Why do some children live in overcrowded poor housing
Why do some children get an easy ride and a step up given by wealth and connections when others don't
Why is it OK to have huge wealth when spreading it around will bring standards of living up for all
Why is greed good?
Destroy the environment
Why fly around the world numerous times but berate someone that doesn't eat organic/vegan/farm shop etc etc
Etc etc etc

A scale from full on greed and selfishness right over to give everyone the same

@Lifeaintalwaysempty

OP very simply, I believe in collectivism not individualism. I believe we are all better off when we act for the greater good. So I believe that we should invest in housing, welfare, healthcare, schools, transport and affordable utilities to improve quality of life for all, and I think the most fortunate should pay a little extra to help pay for that. They benefit too, and a lot of time may have increased their good fortunate through their cheap labour force, or utilising the infrastructure around them, or the employees the state has educated etc etc. I don’t believe at all that life is a level playing field where those that succeed just wanted it more or worked harder, so yes I think we need to do all we can to improve equality of opportunity even if that disbenefits me personally

Much better than I could ever say......This

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

Agree. I don't either. (I'm not competitive though but agree with the premise of this. They can both exist).

Even if you don't personally see the need for any kind of equality, or have any issues with those who are born ahead ending their lives even further ahead, haven't you read anything about the French Revolution, or many others through history?

Too much inequality always ends badly.

Politically I’m left of centre and very liberal. But for me OP your question isn’t a political one but rather a human one. Essentially it’s about empathy. I’m no saint, and my altruism isn’t infinite - like most people I care about my own well-being and that of my loved ones before a random stranger’s needs. But I also care deeply about human rights, and wherever I can I want to try to make the world a better place for others.

This is partly out of empathy for those less fortunate than myself - I’m very alert to my own privilege and through past work with families and young people have become increasingly aware that my comfortable middle-class life is not the norm. I’m also pretty good at thinking about the bigger picture where it comes to small issues that are not obviously political - for example, Covid has made our local library very difficult to access, and I got quite angry today while trying to navigate their convoluted appointment booking system because I could immediately see that it would lead to many less advantaged kids being completely shut out from their services. My DD will get her slot because I persevered, but many children needier than her will not.

But I also think there’s such a thing as ‘selfish altruism’, and some of my politics is informed by that too. Unless you are pretty reclusive or wealthy enough to be able to insulate yourself entirely from wiser society, the things that adversely impact on the most vulnerable groups will also impact you somewhere along the line. For example, my DD will soon be attending a state primary school - a fairly ‘naice’ middle class one, but one that, like most in London, still has its fair share of children from more challenging backgrounds. I want DD to be able to enjoy school, make nice friends and get on with her learning with minimal disruption - something which is less likely to happen if schools are underfunded and the children in them are increasingly needy and difficult as a result of growing societal deprivation. So I vote for any party that pledges to support vulnerable families and properly fund public services. Similarly it makes me unhappy to walk around my local town centre and see creeping signs of deprivation, anti-social behaviour, people with obvious drug issues, homeless people sitting in shop doorways etc - both out of empathy for those people who are themselves suffering, and out of selfishness because witnessing those things affects my own well-being too.

I’m sure some people must live entirely in their own bubbles and are genuinely impervious to other people’s differing experiences - the genuine inability of many to recognise the myriad harms done by repeated lockdowns is evidence enough for that - but I personally couldn't ever comprehend such a mindset.

@BluebellsGreenbells

It is to some degree.

If you run a business aren’t you more likely to employ family and friends? Again rather than the best candidate?

I work for a local authority, and we no longer get pay awards or go on to the next level we have to apply along with everyone else! No longer the bosses BFF gets a leg up.

It depends, I suppose if you want to have a successful business. If I have a business I want the best person for the job not a naff relation. The small family owned businesses that I've seen fail do so as they have employed their children and they have little to no work ethic so work/invoicing or whatever isn't done, or they have high staff turnover as the staff resent the MD's son/daughter being on the payroll while never attending work.

Just done the test @topcat2014. Apparently, I'm a left wing libertarian.

@Linguistmum I hope you come back and respond, I'd be really interested to hear what you think and how people's replies have affected you.

@notalwaysalondoner

I don't think OP phrased it very well, but she makes a fair point that there are a LOT of 'liberals' out there who don't make any choices themselves that actually supports the values they claim to uphold. For example, I have friends who claimed aggressively in their twenties they'd send their child to the local school even if it was the worst sink school in the worst area of a big city, rather than support inequality. Of course, by the time they're mid-thirties and their children are school age, they've moved to a catchment area of a naice top-end state school, so they don't actually have to make that trade-off.

This is the problem. We can see a lot of this type of hypocrisy in the behaviour of MPs.

I am happy to make some personal sacrifices in order to live in a better society where everyone thrives. I prefer that than the idea of me being rich and profiting myself, but many other people suffering.

My outlook on life is about society as a whole, and that I and my family are a small part of something bigger. Of course that doesn't mean I don't care about my own interests, it just means I also care about the larger society I live in. To me they are one and the same anyway.

Of course, this taken to the extreme is communism, so I see myself as somewhere left of centre.

I think that there is a genuinely interesting point about HOW people vote - that has been debated by political theorists. Basically, some theories say that the "right" way to vote is to vote for your own interests/preferences. When magnified by the whole population this results in a model that shows what is best for the most people. Alternatively however, others argue that the "right" way to vote is about your values, even if those go against your own immediate (and that bit is impotant) interests because then the result at the end is an indication of what most people want to happen.
It becomes more complicated because lots of people appear to vote "irrationally" anyway - e.g. people voting for something that is considered "bad for the economy" or them personally even though they say they are voting for their own interests. (And of course that opens the question of who gets to decide what is "rational")
It becomes even more complicated because are you voting for what you think is best for you now (as someone e.g. unemployed) or where you want to be in the future ("this time next year Ill be a millionnaire and then those tax breaks will be handy.") Alternatively - I might calculate as a well off person that lower tax is good for me in the short term, but in the long term spending on social welfare, education, infrastructure is better for me as it creates a better society - lower crime, better social cohesion, other peoples kids in school not trying to mug me. So I vote for higher taxes outside of self interest.
So long term V short term matters. So does our own theories on what particular policies will do. (Maybe increased spending on schools will just create cleverer criminals)
And I might want a meritocracy because my child deserves the chance to succeed. But what if my child turns out to not be bright/good at much. Do I want a safety net or do I want to risk him starving because he cant get a job? (This is a problematic one because hardly anyone thinks their child wouldnt succeed in a true meritocracy)

So -to summarise. Its a lot more complicated than selfishValtruistic voting.

@Topcat2014 There is a website where, if you answer survey type questions, it tells you where your political affiliation should lie

Reminds me of a movie where a woman was a staunch Democrat (American) and her granddaughter was asking her questions from a list of viewpoints. Turned out 9 out of 10 of her answers were that of a Republican. Blew her mind and she refused to accept that she could in anyway agree with Republicans. Lol

But to take the point about hypocrisy...

If I was on a cruise ship and they decided to have a vote on whether or not we should get rid of half the lifeboats to make space for a tennis court, I would vote to keep the cruise ships.
If however the majority voted to get rid of the lifeboats and then the cruise ship hit an iceberg I can guarantee you I would fight tooth and nail to ensure my child got a place on the few lifeboats that remained.

So someone (and I think a lot of people do) can vote for the society they WANT. When it comes to their individual choices (and paticularly fo their children) most will act according to to the society they are actually in. It doesnt have to be hypocrisy. (Although sometimes it might be. e.g voting for Brexit and then applying for a German passport).

Engaging in sports is choosing to step into competition with a set of rules. None of us choose to be born or to require what humans require to survive or the societal playing field that are all around us to get those things we require to survive. Some things are great as competition, but not everything needs or is better as an individual competition against everyone else - we can also have cooperative competition (that's how we got COVID vaccines, more cooperative funding and information sharing, but also different teams with different ways of doing things wanting to excel).

I am not a white upper/middle class woman, I am a mixed race disabled immigrant woman. My definition of success might look different, and I think there are a lot of ways to help children succeed in different ways. I home educate my children in primary, but I also support better resources for primary schools. I support wider curriculum access so that there is both academic and vocational education in secondary - this is good both for my children to have more options and wider society. I support better adult education so people have more options, whether it's my children or someone else's.

With hiring, I'd want processes that reduce bias in areas that have nowt to do with the job. Just because someone might be poorer than my children doesn't mean they haven't excelled in other ways in either experience or in interview. It's impossible for the hypothetical two people to be identical, and yes I support methods to ensure marginalized groups get more chances to interview because there is enough data that bias gets in the way of hiring better people. There is the now long old story of an orchestra putting in a barrier and putting down carpet so that all they could judge on is how someone played and the impact that had.

The left-right spectrum concept has a lot of flaws. Neither is a monolith. Whether Left/Right, Libertarian/Authoritarian, Progressive/Traditionalist, Reformist/Radicalist, or however else we want to slice up politics, no one is entirely on one side or the other on everything. How much people care on any topic will be very individual. Yeah, there are people in any of those categories that do not actually care about what they're talking about (how many traditionalists on the right talking about family values have been caught having affairs?), people are are complicated.

As much as commentary and the certain news outlets like to make liberal and left synonymous, there are liberals in all of those groups: it's a philosophy on individual liberty and equality before the law. There are plenty of right-wing liberals (before even getting into neoliberals which is possibly the large swathe of politicians across the political landscape over the last few decades even if they dress it up in different ways).

I think I'm jaded with the idea that people care about others because of Twitter. So much nastiness going around from both sides. What I can't understand is the vitriol poured on the head of Keir Starmer by the more left wing side of the Labour party.

@YellowFish1647

I think we need to stop viewing people as just all left or all right. In my view, people are a barrel of contradictions and are far more complex than simple labels.

I have a friend who is very “left” in her views, all about re-shaping the capitalist system. However, she works in an industry that is very much not “left” (on the whole) and in an area of that industry that is driven by overt capitalism. She happily picks up her salary every month and doesn’t make the connection between the two.

I have another friend who is similar. Very left wing, all about environmental and social causes, and a feminist. However, on some nights out she occasionally takes recreational drugs - drugs that were possibly manufactured by organised criminals using slave labour. Again, doesn’t see the disconnect.

For the record, I’m not saying either of them are wrong, I’m just saying people are a mass of contradictions and don’t easily fit an homogenous “box”.

I agree with this.

Right wing - smallest government possible so lowest possible taxes, capitalism is the underpinning philosophy. Focus is on personal responsibility to care for oneself.

Left wing - based on socialist principles (extreme example is communism) believing everyone should receive what they want according to need. So larger governments, and higher taxes. Focus is on societies responsibility.

I once watched a short clip about Norwegian prisons. It showed how they are basically hotels with access to dentistry, sports facilities, education, music lessons, therapy, etc.
One of the guys working in the prison was asked something along the lines of "do you think it's right that these criminals get such good treatment paid for by tax payers?"
"The question is rather which prisoner would I like living next door to my grandma? The one from a Norwegian prison, or the one from yours?"

This is what I think it means to think left. You want the best for your own family but understand that you can only achieve that by making life better for everyone. We all share this world.