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The Myth of Left and Right
Studies in Postwar American Political Development
Steven Teles, Series Editor
Series Board Members
Jennifer Hochschild; Desmond King; Sanford Levinson; Taeku Lee; Shep Melnick; Paul Pierson;
John Skrentny; Adam Sheingate; Reva Siegel; Thomas Sugrue
The Delegated Welfare State: Medicare, Markets, Building a Business of Politics: The Rise of
and the Governance of Social Policy Political Consulting and the Transformation of
Kimberly J. Morgan and American Democracy
Andrea Louise Campbell Adam Sheingate
Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and Prison Break: Why Conservatives Turned
the Destruction of the Republican Party, From Against Mass Incarceration
Eisenhower to the Tea Party David Dagan and Steven Teles
Geoffrey Kabaservice
The Other Rights Revolution: Conservative
Engines of Change: Party Factions in American Lawyers and the Remaking of American
Politics, 1868–2010 Government
Daniel DiSalvo Jefferson Decker
Follow the Money: How Foundation Dollars When Bad Policy Makes Good Politics: Running
Change Public School Politics the Numbers on Health Reform
Sarah Reckhow Robert P. Saldin
The Allure of Order: High Hopes, Dashed Citizenship By Degree: U.S. Higher Education
Expectations, and the Troubled Quest to Remake Policy and the Changing Gender Dynamics of
American Schooling American Citizenship
Jal Mehta Deondra Rose
Rich People’s Movements: Grassroots Politics at Work: How Companies Turn Their
Campaigns to Untax the One Percent Workers into Lobbyists
Isaac William Martin Alexander Hertel-Fernandez
The Outrage Industry: Political Opinion Media The Cities on the Hill: How Urban Institutions
and the New Incivility Transform National Politics
Jeffrey M. Berry and Sarah Sobieraj Thomas K. Ogorzalek
Artists of the Possible: Governing Networks and Framing Inequality: Media, Public Opinion, and
American Policy since 1945 the Neoliberal Turn in U.S. Public Policy
Matt Grossman Matthew Guardino
Building the Federal Schoolhouse: Localism and Mobilized by Injustice: Criminal Justice Contact,
the American Education State Political Participation, and Race
Douglas S. Reed Hannah L. Walker
The First Civil Right: Race and the Rise of the Short Circuiting Policy: Organized Interests in
Carceral State the American States and the Erosion of Clean
Naomi Murakawa Energy Laws
Leah Cardamore Stokes
How Policy Shapes Politics: Rights, Courts,
Litigation, and the Struggle Over Injury The Rise of Political Action Committees: Interest
Compensation Group Electioneering and the Transformation of
Jeb Barnes and Thomas F. Burke American Politics
Emily J. Charnock
Ideas with Consequences: The Federalist
Society and the Conservative Separate but Faithful: The Christian Right’s
Counterrevolution Radical Struggle to Transform Law and Legal
Amanda Hollis-Brusky Culture
Amanda Hollis-Brusky and Joshua C. Wilson
No Day in Court: Access to Justice and the
Politics of Judicial Retrenchment Captive Market: Accountability and State Prison
Sarah Staszak Privatization
Anna Gunderson
The Business of America is Lobbying: How
Corporations Became Politicized and Politics The Myth of Left and Right: How the Political
Became More Corporate Spectrum Misleads and Harms America
Lee Drutman Hyrum Lewis and Verlan Lewis
How the Political Spectrum Misleads and Harms
America
HYRUM LEWIS
and
VERL AN LEWIS
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers
the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education
by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University
Press in the UK and certain other countries.
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.
© Oxford University Press 2023
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
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above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above.
You must not circulate this work in any other form

and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.
CIP data is on file at the Library of Congress
ISBN 978–0–19–768062–9 (pbk.)

ISBN 978–0–19–768021–6 (hbk.)
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197680216.001.0001
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Paperback printed by Marquis, Canada
Hardback printed by Bridgeport National Bindery, Inc., United States of America
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
1. The Myth of Left and Right 5
2. The Origins of Left and Right 17
3. The Development of Left and Right 26
4. The “Authentic” Left and Right 39
5. The Persistence of Left and Right 64
6. The Consequences of Left and Right 75
7. The Future of Left and Right 87
Conclusion 99
Notes 101
Index 149
v
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank Mark A. Smith of the University of Washington for carefully reading

over the manuscript and offering insightful feedback and encouragement. Thanks
also to the members of the American Politics Working Group at Harvard for
their critiques and support. Others who helped sharpen our ideas were Frances
Lee, Hans Noel, Richard Bensel, David Mayhew, Terry Moe, David Pulsipher,
John Thomas, Matt Miles, and the anonymous reviewers for Oxford University
Press. Thanks to Dave McBride for his hard work in bringing this book to pub-
lication. And, of course, a big thanks to all of our teachers and mentors over the
years who helped hone our thinking and taught us to challenge conventional
wisdom on political matters.
vii
Introduction
American politics is at a breaking point. This became obvious when a mob

of American citizens, upset with the results of the 2020 presidential election,
stormed the Capitol Building in Washington, DC, to stop Congress from
tabulating the election results. In order to work, democracies require citizens
who respect the rights of individuals, defer to the outcomes of elections, and
abide by the rule of law. But today’s toxic political culture has caused many
Americans to abandon these vital norms. Ideological tribalism and partisan ha-
tred have become so rampant that frightening numbers of American citizens
countenance violence against their political opponents to get their way.1
How did we get to this point? The standard explanations—media echo cham-
bers, party polarization, racism, status anxiety, internet misinformation, dem-
ographic sorting, fear, and social homophily—tell only part of the story. An
important but overlooked contributor to American political dysfunction today
is a widespread misunderstanding of ideology.2
Ideology dominates American politics, and since we are thinking about
ideology all wrong, we are thinking about politics all wrong. Concepts have
consequences, and when a society adopts an incorrect political model, the
results can be devastating.
The standard view of ideology says that politics is largely a clash between two
worldviews that can be modeled on a political spectrum.3 The left-wing world-
view, we are told, is expressed in a preference for greater government control
of the economy, social permissiveness, and foreign policy dovishness, while the
right-wing worldview is expressed in a preference for free markets, social re-
striction, and foreign policy hawkishness.4 Taking these worldviews to extremes
leads to totalitarianism—fascism at the far right or communism on the far left—
while the more respectable positions exist at the center left (“liberalism” or “pro-
gressivism”) and center right (“conservatism”).5
This model of politics frames our thinking, shapes our language, and sets
the terms of public debate. It creates a sense of personal identity for millions of
The Myth of Left and Right. Hyrum Lewis and Verlan Lewis, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2023.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197680216.003.0001
2 The Myth of Left and Right
Americans, is taught in classrooms across the country, and is used in nearly every
political discussion, whether on social media, in the halls of Congress, on cable
news, or around the dinner table. It is, without question, the most influential po-
litical paradigm of twenty-first-century America.
It is also completely wrong.
The political spectrum does not tell us where someone stands in relation to
a fundamental worldview or philosophy (or disposition, temperament, belief,
value, or any other “essence”); it only indicates a commitment to a tribe. As long
as binary coalitions characterize our politics, the political spectrum can be useful
for modeling commitment to those coalitions and what they stand for at a spe-
cific place and time, but it becomes misleading as soon as we assume that it is
modeling a commitment to an underlying essence.
In the following chapters we will show how a mistaken understanding of ide-
ological categories causes confusion and threatens to dissolve the “bonds of af-
fection” that should unite us as citizens.6 We challenge the static, “essentialist”
conception of ideology that currently dominates public and academic discourse
alike, and instead propose a “social” conception in which the political spectrum
and the ideological terms associated with it (“left,” “right,” “liberal,” “progres-
sive,” “conservative,” and “reactionary”) are socially constructed, historically
contingent, context-dependent, and constantly in flux. Although America has
two dominant ideological tribes, there is no essence uniting all of the positions
of each side. Our two political teams have coalesced around the concepts of left
and right, but the concepts themselves are fictions.7
While most people acknowledge that politics has become increasingly tribal,
they generally assume that there must be some bedrock philosophy or value that
each tribe rallies around. There is not. Terms are useful inasmuch as they are pre-
dictive, and it turns out that ideological terms are only predictive across contexts
in describing who people support (tribe) but not what they support (a philos-
ophy). The single biggest fallacy in politics today is that the political spectrum
refers to divergent worldviews when, in reality, it refers only to divergent tribes.
Clearly, there are many issues in politics and yet we model politics using a
unidimensional spectrum as if there were just one. Why? The answer, for most
people, is that there is something that unites them. That something is the “essence”
(e.g., the anti-abortion, low tax, and pro–Iraq War positions are all connected by
a philosophy or disposition we call “conservative” and so we place conservatives
on the “center right” of a political spectrum). Our task in this book is to demon-
strate that such an essential unity does not exist, and that the various dimensions
of politics don’t have an intrinsic connection. Why do we refer to both Milton
Friedman (a Jewish, pro-capitalist pacifist) and Adolf Hitler (an anti-Semitic,
anti-capitalist militarist) as “right wing” when they had opposite policy views on
every point? We shouldn’t. Placing both Hitler and Friedman on the same side
Int roduc tion 3
of a spectrum as if they shared some fundamental essence is both misleading and

destructive. It shuts down productive discourse and stokes irrational prejudices.
Our thesis is simply this: left–right ideologies are bundles of unrelated polit-
ical positions connected by nothing other than a group. A conservative or liberal
is not someone who has a conservative or liberal philosophy, but someone who
belongs to the conservative or liberal tribe. This means that ideologies do not
define tribes, tribes define ideologies; ideology is not about what (worldviews),
it is about who (groups); there is no liberalism or conservatism, only liberals
and conservatives; and the political spectrum does not model an essential value,
but only tribes and what they stand for at a specific time and place.8 Ultimately,
we are saying that nearly all of the incessant talk about “liberal,” “conservative,”
“progressive,” “left wing,” and “right wing” is a lot of sound and fury signifying
nothing.
We understand that this is a bold claim. It challenges a century of conven-
tional wisdom and goes against the prevailing consensus of elite opinion in the
United States.9 Virtually all Republican politicians say that they agree with their
party’s platform because they are conservatives who share their party’s con-
servative philosophy, while virtually all Democratic politicians say they agree
with their party’s platform because they are liberals (or “progressives”) who
share their party’s liberal (or progressive) philosophy. Almost all of our aca-
demic colleagues say that they agree with “the left” on a wide array of issues
(abortion, wealth redistribution, affirmative action, military intervention, envi-
ronmentalism, etc.) because left-wing positions promote their single value of
“social justice.” Avid Fox News watchers say they agree with what Sean Hannity
says because both they and Hannity are “on the right.” Nearly every politician,
partisan voter, pundit, journalist, or public intellectual believes that they agree
with the many issues associated with their side of the political spectrum because
they agree with the underlying philosophy of that side. They all believe politics is
about one big thing—an essence—that defines and divides left and right. In the
following chapters we will show that this is a society-wide delusion.
The popularity of the “essentialist” view of ideology makes it no less mistaken.
A false idea is false regardless of how many people believe in it. Most educated
eighteenth-century Americans accepted the four humors theory of disease and
most educated twenty-first-century Americans accept an essentialist view of the
political spectrum, but both are equally erroneous. Societies can be misled into
holding collective delusions, so it is necessary for people of common sense to
point out the obvious and declare that the emperor has no clothes. As George
Orwell put it, “We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the ob-
vious is the first duty of intelligent men.”10 By stating the obvious fact that there
is more than one issue in politics, we are simply doing our intellectual duty and,
as radical as our thesis might seem, it is nonetheless where the evidence leads.
With the myth of left and right so widespread in American culture, is the so-
lution simply a matter of educating the mass public in a reality that intellectual
elites have long understood? Unfortunately, no. As we will show in the chapters
that follow, the left–right framework was actually imported into America by
academics and journalists, and it is intellectuals that are largely responsible for
spreading the myth of left and right in our popular culture over the past century.
As a result, most scholars in the academy today are more blinded by the myth
than those outside the ivory tower.
For example, while most historical scholarship today is premised on the as-
sumption that race, class, and gender are social constructs, historians who have
written about ideology nonetheless assume that “left” and “right” are trans-
historical essences that remain fixed across time and place.11 Thus, they invoke
“left” and “right” in ways that speak of individuals, political groups, and the
country “moving to the left” or “moving to the right” on a spectrum.12
This approach is also widespread in political science, where an entire litera-
ture has emerged around the analytical concept of “polarization”—the idea that
in recent decades Democrats have moved “to the left” and Republicans have
moved, even farther, “to the right.” Thousands of academic books and articles
have advanced this claim. It is, as political scientists Michael Barber and Nolan
McCarty note, “a broad scholarly consensus.”13 What very few scholars stop to
ask is what sense it can make to speak of individuals and groups moving “to the
left” or “to the right” over time when the very meanings of left and right change
during that same time period? Some scholars of American political develop-
ment working at the intersection of political science and history have recently
recognized the evolutionary character of ideologies14 and resisted the myth of
left–right polarization,15 but these scholars are in the minority.16 This book is an
attempt to give a more accurate conception of ideology in America and thereby
correct common misunderstandings of ideology among the general public and
among the intellectuals who promote these confusions.17
This rethinking of ideology is needed today for the same reason that a
rethinking of medicine was needed in the nineteenth century. Operating under
a false “four humors” understanding of health, many doctors bled their patients
to death in earlier centuries, and operating under a false “essentialist” under-
standing of ideology, political actors are bleeding our republic to death today. It
is time to move beyond this flawed model of politics and let our public discourse
begin to heal.
1
The myth of left and right is the false belief that there is an essence behind the
political spectrum. While it is undeniable that many Americans hold their po-
litical views in packages that we call ideologies—those who support abortion
rights, for instance, are also more likely to support income tax increases and af-
firmative action—the question is “why?” Why is there a noticeable correlation
between these seemingly unrelated issues and why do we find them clustering
in patterns that are predictable and binary instead of random and pluralistic? In
this chapter, we present and evaluate two competing explanatory theories that
we will use as the analytical framework for the rest of the book.
The Two Theories of Ideology

The first theory is what we call the essentialist theory of ideology. This theory
says that distinct issues cluster together in ideological bundles because all po-
litical issues grow out of a single master issue (an essence).1 For example, “John”
believes in abortion restriction, tax cuts, and the war in Iraq because John is on
the “conservative” side of the master issue, while “Jane” believes in abortion
rights, tax hikes, and opposing the Iraq War because Jane is on the “liberal” side
of the master issue. Being on one side of this issue leads to one set of positions
while being on the opposite side leads to the opposite set of positions. Some
essentialists2 believe that this master issue exists in nature and is found in all po-
litical communities across time and space,3 while other essentialists believe that
this master issue is a product of history and dominates only among modern plu-
ralistic democracies,4 but in either case, essentialists believe there are two sides
to the left–right political spectrum because there are just two sides to this one
master issue.5
This master issue is commonly understood to be change.6 The essentialist
theory says that all left-wing positions promote change while all right-wing
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197680216.003.0002
positions try to arrest or reverse change. Issues as diverse as abortion, taxes, and
affirmative action may seem unrelated, but that’s only on the surface—deep
down, a person’s stance on change (for or against) determines their stance on all
of these other issues. Change is the one essential issue that binds together all the
others and defines left and right across time and space.7
If the essentialist theory is correct, then the political spectrum is a useful and
accurate way to model where people stand on that one essential issue. Extreme
pro-change “radicals” will be at the far left, extreme anti-change “reactionaries”
will be at the far right, pro-change “liberals” and “progressives” will be at the
center left, anti-change “conservatives” will be at the center right, and moderates
who want some change (but not too much) will be in the middle.8
As an alternative to this essentialist theory of ideology, we propose the so-
cial theory of ideology. While the essentialist theory says that distinct political
positions correlate because they are bound by a unifying essence, the social
theory says that issues correlate because they are bound by a unifying tribe.
According to the essentialist theory, people start with an essential principle, use
that principle to think themselves to hundreds of distinct political positions, and
then join the tribe that just happens to agree with them on all of those positions.
The social theory says this is backward: people first anchor into an ideological
tribe (because of family, peers, or a single issue), adopt the positions of the tribe
as a matter of socialization, and only then invent a story that ties all of those
positions together. Ideologies, in other words, are reverse engineered to fit tribal
actions and attachments. They are “post hoc constructions designed to justify
what we’ve just done, or to support the groups we belong to.”9
According to the social theory, we do not need an essence to explain why
conservatives support both lower taxes and abortion restrictions for the same
reason we do not need an essence to explain why San Francisco 49ers fans
supported both Joe Montana and Jerry Rice.10 In each case, the support is
explained by social group attachments. The essentialist theory says the political
spectrum describes a reality of binary principles, but the social theory says the
political spectrum creates a reality of binary tribes.11 Tribalism without an under-
lying philosophy has been strong enough to sustain nationalism for centuries,
and tribalism without an underlying philosophy is strong enough to sustain ide-
ological identities today.12
Testing the Essentialist Theory

Since theories are validated or falsified through testing, let’s look at the
predictions that each theory makes. The essentialist theory predicts that since
core principles define the political spectrum, we should find people holding
The My th o f L eft and R ight 7
a consistent set of “left” or “right” positions independent of socialization. For

example, if both wealth redistribution and abortion rights share a left-wing es-
sence, we should find that these issues naturally correlate across time, space, and
social conditioning. In fact, we find the opposite. Political psychologists have
shown that people do not hold political views that fit current ideological molds
until after they are socialized into the left–right way of thinking.13 The less tribal and
the more ignorant of the political spectrum someone is, the less their views will
align with the regnant ideological configurations.14
Let’s take a moment to consider the implications of these findings: since there
is no correlation between belief in abortion rights and redistribution of wealth
except among the segment of the population that has been most socialized into
the left–right way of thinking, then this means the correlation is explained en-
tirely by social conformism. Research by Donald Kinder and Nathan Kalmoe has
shown that, contra the predictions of the essentialist theory, people first anchor
into an ideological tribe—because of family, peers, or a single issue they feel
strongly about—and only then adopt the full range of beliefs associated with
that tribe. Ideological identification, in other words, is the cause, not the effect,
of a person’s political views. In general, tribal identity comes first and beliefs
come second.15
The “Religious Right” provides a great example of belief following tribe.
According to political scientists Eric Gould and Esteban Klor, “Voting for a given
political party in 1996, due to the individual’s initial views on abortion in 1982,
has a substantial effect on a person’s political, social, and economic attitudes
in 1997. . . . As individuals realigned their party affiliation in accordance with
their initial abortion views, their other political views followed suit.”16 Millions
of religious Americans had no ideological identity until abortion became a po-
litical issue in the 1970s. At that point, they anchored into the right-wing tribe
and adopted its other positions (e.g., supply-side economics) as a matter of so-
cial conformity. These members of the Religious Right have been among the
most reliable supporters of the conservative tribe ever since. Anchoring and
conformism, not essence, explain why most people hold views that fit left–right
molds and the predictions of the essentialist theory are not borne out in the data.
Testing the Social Theory

The social theory, by contrast, predicts that since the positions associated with
left and right are not natural, but social, we should expect to see those on the left
and right changing their political views depending on what their team is doing.
Political beliefs, it predicts, will be contingent on social cues. This is exactly
what we find. Political scientists Michael Barber and Jeremy Pope showed that
conservatives would strongly agree with a policy (such as raising the minimum
wage) when told that Donald Trump supported it but would strongly disagree
with that same policy when told that Trump opposed it.17 There was no com-
mitment to an essential principle (such as limited government or free markets)
underlying their policy preferences, but only tribal solidarity.
Psychologist G. L. Cohen conducted a similar study in which he had students
read of a generous welfare proposal but told some that it was endorsed by the
Democratic Party and others that it was endorsed by the Republican Party.18 As
we would expect under the social theory, he found that “for both liberal and con-
servative participants, the effect of reference group information overrode that of
policy content. If their party endorsed it, liberals supported even a harsh welfare
program, and conservatives supported even a lavish one.”19
Political scientist Lilliana Mason found that “right-wing ideology” strongly
predicts support for Donald Trump, but not support for particular political is-
sues. In other words, ideological measures tell us who people support (tribe),
but not what they support (principles).20 Similarly, Gabriel Lenz showed that
committed ideologues are far more likely to change their positions to fit the
politicians for whom they vote than they are to change their vote to politicians
who fit their positions.21 In general, the game is “follow the tribe” as the social
theory says, not “follow the principles” as the essentialist theory says.
Not only do ideologues change their views to conform to tribal leadership,
but they also change to conform to tribal peers. A team of psychologists divided
volunteers into different experimental “worlds” and had early movers in the dif-
ferent worlds take different positions on a variety of political issues. Against all
essentialist predictions, those of the same ideological identity took opposite
positions in the different worlds depending upon what the early movers in their
group were doing. These “opinion cascades” generated “unpredictable political
alignments in which the advocates on an issue might have instead been the op-
position but for the luck of the draw in the positions taken by early movers.”22
Liberals and conservatives were unpredictable in how they would change their
opinions (what principles they would follow), but highly predictable in who
they would change their opinions to follow (peers of the same ideological label).
“Social influence causes substantively unrelated issues to align,” the authors of
the study concluded, and this, not an invisible essence, explains the correlation
we find between left-wing and right-wing views on fiscal, social, and foreign
policies.23
Just as the social theory predicts, most people first choose whom to identify
with (tribe) and only then choose what to identify with (policy). In the words of
psychologist Dan Kahan, they “endorse whichever position reinforces their con-
nection to others with whom they share important ties.”24 Far from having a co-
herent, well-thought-out ideology based on essential principles, most ideologues
of left and right cannot even provide a definition of their ideology. They strongly
embrace a left-or right-wing identity, but what that means in terms of principle is
a mystery to them. Ideological self-categorization “taps not what the respondent
thinks about various issues but rather the ideological label he or she finds most
suitable.”25 Ideology is a social, not a philosophical, phenomenon.
According to psychologists Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner:
Our judgments about risks—Does gun control make us safer or put us

in danger?—are driven less by a careful weighing of evidence than by
our identities, which is why people’s views on gun control often cor-
relate with their views on climate change, even though the two issues
have no logical connection to each other. Psycho-logic trumps logic.26
Some might assume that this position-switching based on social cues only
happens among the uncommitted—the “weak ideologues” on the margins—
but the experiments show that the more committed someone is to their ideology
the more likely they are to change their positions. The stronger one’s ideolog-
ical commitment, the more one’s views are contingent upon social factors.27 If
ideologues were principled, rather than tribal, we would see the most committed
ideologues holding most strongly to their principles in spite of social pressure. In
fact, we see the opposite. As the social theory predicts, being more ideological
for most people means being more tribal, not more principled, and “extreme”
left or right wing does not mean a strong commitment to some essential left-
or right-wing ideal but means a strong commitment to following the left-or
right-wing tribe.28 Although there are “sticky ideologues” who are less likely to
change their views with priming (see c hapter 4), this is because they are loyal
to a previous iteration of an ideology rather than an ideological essence. Those
willing to change parties or ideological groups as “left” and “right” evolve are the
exceptions to the rule. Humans do not naturally fit molds of left and right, as the
essentialist theory says, but they do conform to them, as the social theory says.
The Essentialist Theory and Storytelling

While this evidence is devastating to the essentialist theory of ideology, many of
its advocates nevertheless try to save it from falsification through ex-post story-
telling. Here is one example of a typical essentialist story:
Since opposition to change is the essence of the right, those on the

right naturally favor free markets and tax cuts because they want to pre-
serve the laissez-faire traditions of American capitalism. They oppose
abortion because they want to preserve Christian pro-life values. They

favored the Iraq War because they wanted to preserve the tradition of
American exceptionalism and military strength. They oppose free trade
because they want to preserve American manufacturing. They oppose
immigration because they want to preserve America’s current ethnic
composition.29
This story sounds plausible enough until we realize that we can, through the
same method of creative storytelling, also make opposition to change the essence of
the left. Consider this story:
Since opposition to change is the essence of the left, those on the left
naturally want to conserve the environment and the American wel-
fare state. They favor government anti-poverty programs because they
want to conserve the traditional Christian value of helping the poor.
They favor abortion rights because they want to conserve a woman’s
right to choose. Those on the left oppose radical attempts to change the
world using military force and want more immigration because they
believe in conserving the American tradition of welcoming the “tired,
poor, huddled masses” to the country. Leftists believe in conserving
longstanding American institutions such as Social Security, teachers’
unions, and the FDA, while those on the right want to change or
abolish them.
The second story is less familiar but no less plausible than the first and together
they make it clear that storytelling can make opposition to change the essence of
either the right or the left.
Indeed, creative storytelling can make any essence fit any set of political
positions. For example, here is a set of randomly selected political positions:
• pro-life
• high tax
• tough on crime
• pro–gay marriage
• anti–redistribution of wealth
Now here’s a story that shows how the randomly selected essence of “assertive-
ness” unites all these positions:
Assertive people are not afraid to stand up for the rights of others, in-
cluding homosexuals and the unborn, and that’s why they are pro-life
and in favor of gay marriage. Assertive people have no problem asserting

themselves into other people’s lives and therefore favor the high tax-
ation that others might consider intrusive. Assertive people are not
afraid to stand up against criminals and are therefore in favor of tough
laws and harsh sentencing. Assertive people are more likely to be self-
reliant and therefore less willing to favor redistribution programs that
cause people to rely on government.
You’ve never heard this story before (we just made it up), but it is as valid as any
of the other stories you’ve heard that uphold the essentialist theory of ideology.
Just as storytellers come up with creative ways to unify everything conservatives
believe using the “opposition to change” essence, so we can come up with a crea-
tive way to unify these random positions using the “assertiveness” essence.
We challenge the reader to do the same: take a random set of political
positions and a random characteristic and then make up a story showing how
the characteristic unifies all those random positions. It is an entertaining exercise
and shows the worthlessness of storytelling as a method for validating ideolog-
ical essentialism (or any other theory). When we mistake such stories for evi-
dence, we are falling victim to “the narrative fallacy,” and it is largely the narrative
fallacy that keeps people believing in the essentialist theory.
Essentialist stories also get stuck in self-contradiction. For example, if “right
wing” essentially means opposition to change, then we would expect “right
wing” extremist Adolf Hitler to have been extremely against change. In reality,
Hitler was committed to radically transforming the world through military con-
quest. Similarly, it is hard to think of a system more productive of change than
capitalism—it is, in the words of historian Joyce Applebee, a force of “relent-
less revolution”—and yet we often call advocates of capitalism “right wing.”30
To complicate matters further, Hitler, like his counterparts in militarist Japan,
was opposed to capitalism (he was, after all, the leader of the National Socialist
Party), so it is either the case that Hitler was “left wing,” advocates of capitalism
are “left wing,” or there is no “change essence” behind ideology.31
Recent studies further refute these essentialist stories by showing that liberals
and conservatives are equally opposed to or accepting of change, depending
upon the issue. If the status quo is pro-choice, those on the left want to conserve
it; if the status quo is low tax, those on the right want to conserve it.32 And if con-
servation is the essence of the right, then why is conserving the environment a
cause of the left? The reality is that “Both conservatives and liberals resist and ac-
cept societal changes, depending on the extent to which they approve or disap-
prove of the status quo on a given sociopolitical issue” and there is “no evidence
for a one‐directional association between political orientation and the tendency
to accept or resist change.”33 Psychologists Jeff Greenberg and Eva Jonas correctly
note that “political conservatives are constantly clamoring for change.”34 The
terms “conservative” and “progressive,” it turns out, are misnomers.
At this point, essentialists might counter that while those on the right often
do pursue policies of change, it is always in the name of going back to a previous
state of affairs or some old fashioned set of values. The right, in other words, is
“backward looking” while the left is “forward looking.”35
This claim also fails to stand up to scrutiny. When out of power, both progres-
sives and conservatives promise to reverse the actions of their adversaries and
thereby “go backward” to a previous state of affairs.36 No value is more “old fash-
ioned” than giving aid to the poor (it shows up in the most ancient religious and
ethical texts), and yet those on the left pride themselves on favoring anti-poverty
initiatives more than those on the right. Moreover, Yuval Levin, Brink Lindsey,
and others have shown that both liberals and conservatives are backward-
looking and nostalgic depending on the issue.37 For every “conservative” Milton
Friedman looking backward to the less regulated economy of the 1920s, there
is a “liberal” Paul Krugman looking backward to the more regulated economy
of the 1950s. “Right-wing” libertarians, such as Jimmy Wales, Peter Thiel, and
George Gilder, look forward to a technological future unshackled from stifling
government control,38 while “left-wing” communitarians, such as Karl Marx and
Jean Jacques Rousseau, looked backward to a happy time before private property
corrupted humanity.39
In the past generation alone, both the left and the right have been pro-change
at different times and on different issues. Ronald Reagan often quoted the rad-
ical revolutionary Thomas Paine, saying, “We have it in our power to begin the
world over again”—pro-change sentiments indeed from the leading hero of the
modern American right.40 Two of the top futurologists of the late twentieth cen-
tury, Herman Kahn and Alvin Toffler, were also leading lights in conservative
circles. Right-wing congressman Newt Gingrich employed the rhetoric of “win-
ning the future” more than any other national leader of his time and, as Speaker
of the House, he assigned Toffler’s books to members of Congress.41 Few things
could be more “future oriented” than the integration of the world economy, and
yet self-described leftists have held anti-globalization protests at international
economic summits, noting (correctly) that globalization radically changes
societies and upsets local traditions.42
Declaring someone or something “forward looking” also assumes we know
the future. We don’t.43 If we did, our track record of prediction as a species
wouldn’t be so poor. The “forward-backward” essence fails as completely as does
the “change-preserve” essence.44
Despite the storytelling to the contrary, it should be clear that those in both
the left-and right-wing tribes want to preserve what they like and change what
they don’t like. Nearly everyone, regardless of political persuasion, believes in
changing things that are bad and preserving things that are good—they just disa-
gree about what is bad and what is good. Stories about left-wingers being in favor
of change are not evidence for the truth of the essentialist theory any more than
stories about Leos being courageous are evidence for the truth of astrology.45 We
humans love to spin narratives—we are the storytelling species after all—but es-
sentialist narratives are not evidence of much other than our desire to see signals
where there is only noise.
An analogy can further illustrate the problems of the essentialist theory.
Imagine someone claimed the following:
There are two types of teenagers in America: Jocks and Nerds. Jocks are
athletic, dumb, and attractive while Nerds are clumsy, smart, and ugly.
Those of moderate looks, athleticism, and intelligence fall in the middle
between the Jock–Nerd extremes. All high school students and groups
can be placed somewhere on this “teenage spectrum.”
Most people would immediately realize that this does not accurately describe
high schoolers, most obviously because there is no necessary connection be-
tween these three characteristics. This teenage spectrum says that athleticism,
good looks, and stupidity necessarily go together, but, in fact, they are com-
pletely independent of one another. Regardless of what the stereotypes say,
someone can be both smart and athletic or smart and attractive. The idea that
our intelligence will decline if we play sports or that we will get uglier if we study
is manifestly absurd.
Likewise, there is no necessary connection between the fiscal, social, and for-
eign policy realms of politics.46 Someone can be against both government inter-
vention in the economy and military intervention in foreign countries.47 There is
no more a natural correlation between what someone thinks about abortion and
what they think about wealth redistribution than there is between someone’s
ability to do math and run fast.48 An essentialist view of the political spectrum,
like an essentialist view of the teenage spectrum, erroneously bundles together
matters that are distinct.49
If high school Jocks and Nerds sorted themselves into competing tribes,
would the teenage spectrum be useful in describing those tribal affinities? Yes,
but that’s all it would indicate. It would say nothing about an “essence” tying
together the unrelated characteristics of looks, athleticism, and intelligence.
The same is true of the political spectrum: it effectively models commitments
to tribes, but not commitments to an essence. People have sorted themselves
into two tribes and a spectrum can measure their tribal commitment, but it tells
us nothing about an essential connection between the social, foreign, and fiscal
realms of politics—such a connection does not exist.
And it’s not just that those three realms do not cohere with each other; they
don’t even cohere with themselves. Just as there are many ways to be smart, ath-
letic, and attractive, so there are many ways to approach social, foreign, and ec-
onomic policy. A teenager might be good at math but bad at writing, good at
swimming but bad at basketball, attractive in appearance but unattractive in de-
meanor. Likewise, a voter might be against abortion but also against a border
wall. in favor of a minimum wage but against higher taxes, against the Iraq War
but also in favor of a strong military.
In the realm of social policy alone there are hundreds of distinct and unre-
lated issues, such as free speech, immigration, gay marriage, drug restriction,
racial justice, abortion, law enforcement, and religious liberty, and yet we still
use the term “socially conservative” or “socially liberal” as if all these disparate
issues were one. Is someone who favors both gay marriage and stronger border
enforcement socially “right wing” or “left wing”? The question itself, like the
model that frames it, is meaningless. When we are dealing with an abundance of
distinct political concepts, it is overly simplistic to speak about politics as if it is
about just one essential issue.
As this analogy shows, the rise of a left–right spectrum has also meant the
concomitant rise of an essentialist illusion. Americans have sorted themselves
into left–right categories and convinced themselves that a philosophy underlies
all of the unrelated issues they embrace. Although the tribes have coalesced
around “left–right,” “liberal–conservative” concepts, these concepts are as fic-
tional as are Jock and Nerd. There is no essence uniting the Jocks or the Nerds;
there is no essence uniting liberals or conservatives.
But isn’t the essentialist view of ideology necessary to bring order to the com-
plexity of politics? No more than an essentialist view of teenagers is necessary
to bring order to the complexity of high school.50 Real-life adolescents manage
just fine with more than two categories of high-school students; doctors manage
just fine with more than two categories of illness; workers manage just fine with
more than two job types; and those getting dressed manage just fine with more
than two outfits. Why, then, should we assume that citizens will freeze up with
confusion if presented with more than two political categories? Few of us would
entertain the idea that all medical issues can be reduced to just two sides—with
all doctors, patients, and treatments sharing one of two essences—and yet most
of us accept the equally strange idea that all political issues can be reduced to
just two sides. In this, essentialism violates basic common sense and yet we
rarely stop to consider the absurdity we perpetuate by using it as our guiding
framework.
Not only is essentialism simplistic, it also leads to conformism and hos-
tility. Since tribal stereotypes tend to become self-fulfilling, the rise of a teenage
spectrum would lead athletic kids who identified as Jocks to band together, stop
studying, and turn hostile toward the Nerds, and would lead smart kids who
identified as Nerds to band together, stop playing sports, and turn hostile to-
ward the Jocks. The traits attributed to each side—even though they do not
have a natural connection—would begin to correlate for social reasons. Simply
believing in Jock–Nerd essentialism would not only create hostility, it would also
cause young people to conform to group expectations and waste their talents
and efforts.
This is exactly what has happened in politics. Thanks to the essentialist way
of thinking, Americans have coalesced into two opposing tribes with all of the
conformism and rancor this entails. Unrelated issue positions have begun to cor-
relate among the politically engaged, not because they naturally go together but
because those identifying with left and right tend to fall in line with whatever
their tribe favors at a given moment.51 These tribal identities trigger the most at-
avistic of human impulses and lead ideologues to hate those on the “other side.”
Simply believing in left–right essentialism has fanned the flames of discord and
wasted the talents and efforts of millions of Americans.52 Policy disagreements
can be real and divisive, but that animosity is amplified when the policy is bound
up with a binary identity taken from an essentialist illusion. Sadly, millions of
Americans organize their lives, their loves, their hates, and their very identities
around this destructive fiction.53
This is of more than just incidental importance, since our paradigms exert a
powerful influence on our thoughts and actions. Although everyone must rely
on simplified models of reality in order to function, some models are misleading
and do more harm than good.
The essentialist theory of ideology is simple and elegant, but also tragically
wrong. It is not just an imperfect model but a positively harmful one that is re-
sponsible for much of the ignorance, confusion, and hostility that characterizes
contemporary political discourse. Just as the four humors theory led doctors
to bleed their patients to death in previous centuries, essentialism is bleeding
our republic to death today. We are incapable of finding solutions to our most
pressing social problems because an incorrect paradigm is preventing us from
even asking the right questions.
This chapter has shown that, of the two theories that explain the uniting of
distinct political positions into bundles (“ideologies”), the social theory is far
more plausible than the essentialist theory.54 There is plenty of evidence that
tribalism is natural, but there is no evidence that left–right political categories are
natural.55 To be useful, terms must be predictive, but the terms “left,” “liberal,”
“right,” and “conservative” are only predictive in a social sense, not an essentialist
sense. They indicate who we support across contexts (a tribe), but not what we
support (principles). Ideological essentialism—no matter how attractive for its

simplicity and pervasiveness—cannot stand up to scrutiny. We can either cling
to a false essentialist paradigm by telling convoluted and contradictory ex post
stories, or we can confront the reality that ideological terms are tribal rather than
essential and that “left-wing,” “right-wing,” “liberal,” and “conservative” are en-
tirely social designations.56
2
The Origins of Left and Right
While the first chapter made clear that left–right ideology is a social construct,
this chapter will show how it was constructed. We explain the origins and early
evolution of the political spectrum in America and ultimately show that the rad-
ical changes in the meanings of left and right further validate the social theory
of ideology.
The Rise of the Spectrum in Europe

Using the words “left” and “right” in a political context first emerged during
the French Revolution when supporters of the revolution sat on the left-hand
side of the National Assembly and opponents of the revolution sat on the
right-hand side. This terminology became entrenched in French politics when
the Chamber of Deputies continued to seat themselves in this way during the
Bourbon Restoration. Eventually, the terms “left” and “right” became political
identities among French citizens rather than simply labels applied to their repre-
sentatives in the legislature.1
During the nineteenth century, this usage spread around continental Europe,
but its most consequential adoption was by the Bolsheviks in early twentieth-
century Russia. The Russian Revolutionaries saw themselves as pursuing the
same cause as the French Revolutionaries 130 years earlier. They identified
themselves with the cause of egalitarian revolution—what they believed to be
an inevitable product of historical forces—and their opponents with hopeless
reaction against the direction of history.2
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197680216.003.0003
The Absence of the Spectrum in America

But even though the spectrum was present in Europe after the French Revolution,
it did not migrate across the Atlantic to the United States until much later. Before
the 1920s, Americans did not think in terms of a political spectrum. There were
simply two parties which stood for different political principles at different his-
torical moments. Any talk of earlier figures being on the left or right is the work
of later historians anachronistically imposing the political spectrum on people
who did not think in those categories.3
For example, at the time of the American Revolution, the revolutionary
Whigs (“liberal” and “left wing” according to later historians) believed that
God had endowed human beings with equal natural rights to life, liberty, and
property. This natural rights philosophy led them to advocate for limited gov-
ernment, lower taxes, and free markets. They formed revolutionary militias to
combat a powerful central government that they believed had acted tyrannically
in regulating the colonial economies and levying burdensome taxes that did not
respect their property rights. The loyalist Tories, on the other hand (“conserv
ative” and “right wing” according to later historians), defended the virtues of
centralized government and economic regulation.4 Given the contemporary
meanings of “left” and “right,” these labels are misleading with respect to the
political beliefs of the American revolutionary generation if we assume an es-
sential left and right that makes them somehow analogous to contemporary
Americans.5
After the ratification of the Constitution, political parties emerged and
began an evolutionary process that went through four distinct phases or “party
eras.” During the First Party System—in the years of the early republic—the
Jeffersonian Republicans believed in laissez-faire economics (as Jefferson put it in
his first inaugural address, the government should leave individuals “free to regu-
late their own pursuits of industry and improvement”),6 while the Hamiltonian
Federalists believed in a more powerful national government that would in-
crease taxes, increase federal spending, and control the American economy.7
Historians who routinely refer to Jeffersonians as “on the left” and Hamiltonians
as “on the right” are using current-day ideological categories to describe people
of the past who did not use those terms and who embraced different principles.
Too often, historians assume that those on the left throughout American history
share an essence with Jeffersonian Republicans and those on the right share an
essence with Hamiltonian Federalists, but this essence does not exist.8
In the Second Party System—during the antebellum period—the Jacksonian
Democratic Party called for the forcible removal of Native Americans from
their ancestral homelands, defended slavery, called for the military conquest
The O r ig ins o f L eft and R ight 19
of Mexico, and advocated laissez-faire economic policy. The Whig Party, on

the other hand, called for a more conciliatory policy toward Native Americans
and Mexico, more government control of the economy, limitations on human
slavery, and increased federal spending. And yet, strangely, historians tell us that
Jacksonian Democrats share a “left-wing” essence with today’s Democrats and
that the Whig Party shares a “right wing” essence with today’s Republicans.9
During the Third Party System—at the time of the Civil War and its
aftermath—both parties saw themselves as allies of democracy. Lincoln’s party
chose the name “Republican” to remind people of Jefferson’s Republican Party
and the Jeffersonian principle of the equality of all men. The opposing party con-
tinued to use the name “Democratic” to indicate their preference for majority
rule on the state level (even if that meant tyrannizing the minority). Nonetheless,
today’s political scientists confusingly identify the Republican Party of the late
nineteenth century as extremely “conservative” and the Democratic Party of the
time as extremely “liberal.”10
The crucial point here is that even though twentieth-century historians
imposed the left–right framework on these figures of the past, the histor-
ical actors did not think of themselves in those terms. Pre-1900 Americans
conceived of themselves as “Whigs,” “Federalists,” “Republicans,” “Nationalists,”
“Democrats,” and “Unionists”—indicating their opposition to monarchy, their
support for a federal union, or their opposition to aristocracy—but not as “left-
wing” or “right-wing.” Americans back then simply did not think in terms of a
political spectrum.
The Rise of the Spectrum in America

This would change in the twentieth century. The first hint of the emerging ideo-
logical approach to politics came in the Civil War years when the words “liberal”
and “conservative” first entered the American political lexicon. Initially, they had
no left–right connotations and “liberal” simply referred to those who, like the
Liberals in England, advocated for free trade, limited government, and civil serv
ice reform, while “conservative” was synonymous with “moderate.”11
But around the turn of the century, “liberal” evolved to take on more and
more pro- government connotations, eventually becoming a synonym for
“progressive.”12 Both major parties had insurgent progressive factions within
them and both had nominated reformers to the presidency (William Jennings
Bryan and Teddy Roosevelt). These progressive reformers tended to be more
in favor of national government power, higher taxes, more spending on social
welfare programs, and greater government regulation of the economy.13 The
leading self-proclaimed liberal of late nineteenth-century America, Nation ed-

itor E. L. Godkin, lamented this shift. He believed that the essence of liberalism
was freeing the individual from the “vexatious meddling of government,” but
saw that many self-proclaimed liberals were making “common cause with the
socialists.”14 He, like many essentialists since, had a hard time realizing that ide-
ological labels will often evolve to mean the opposite of what they once did.
But crucially, although “liberalism” was evolving to stand for opposite policies,
the narrative of “progress” and “reform” remained constant. Then, as now, the
“change” trope was capacious enough to encompass any policies that anyone
wanted to christen “liberal” through ex post storytelling.
Even though the words “progressive,” “liberal,” and “conservative” were prev-
alent in American politics around the turn of the century, there was no concept
of a political spectrum. People in the United States used the terms “left wing”
and “right wing” in reference to sports, architecture, military formations, or avia-
tion, but not politics.15 The followers of Teddy Roosevelt, for instance, were rou-
tinely referred to as “progressives,” but not “left wing.” Henry George, William
Jennings Bryan, and their followers were called “radicals” or “socialists” in their
time, but only referred to as “left wing” by later writers.16 The political spectrum
was absent from the American collective consciousness for the first 140 years of
the nation’s history.
This changed in the decade 1916–1926 when the political spectrum crossed
the Atlantic and became central to American political discourse. This happened
in three phases that we call “reporting” (1916–1918), “importing” (1919), and
“domesticating” (1920–1926). In the “reporting” phase, American journalists
began using the terms “left” and “right” to describe the competing factions of
socialists in the Russian Revolution.17 Since Bolsheviks placed the different so-
cialist schisms on a left–right spectrum, Americans reporting on the Russian rev-
olution naturally used those same categories when writing about the revolution
for their American audiences. Even so, from 1916 to 1918, the use of the political
spectrum was confined to reporting on foreign affairs and had no application to
American politicians, parties, policies, activists, or institutions.
During the “importing” phase in 1919, journalists began applying the left–
right terms not only to the competing factions of Russian socialists but also to
the competing factions of American socialists. This was particularly common
among Marxists in the United States. As champions of the Soviet cause, writers
such as Lincoln Steffens, Max Eastman, and John Reed began employing a
left–right spectrum when describing the American socialist movement, hoping
that importing the Russian political framework would also help import the
Russian political system.18 In June 1919, Eastman exulted that “at last, even in
the United States, we have a Left Wing, with its own organization, and its own
spokesmen, and its own press.”19 Although Marxists celebrated the importation
of the spectrum to America, mainstream journalists remained uncomfortable

referring to American politics using this European paradigm and, as a way to
underscore its foreignness, generally used quotation marks or the phrase “so-
called” when talking about “left” and “right.”20 But regardless of political persua-
sion, Americans in 1919 used the political spectrum exclusively as a way to refer
to competing factions of socialists—it hadn’t yet begun to have associations
with mainstream ideologies or parties.21
That changed during the “domesticating” phase. In the early 1920s, the po-
litical spectrum went mainstream and began to be associated with the common
American ideological terms (“progressive,” “liberal,” and “conservative”). This
domestication began with various third-party movements that were said to have
“left” and “right” wings, but by the early 1920s, the spectrum was being used
to describe divisions within the two main parties themselves.22 Senator Robert
LaFollette was a major figure in this transition. Ever since Teddy Roosevelt
stepped down from the presidency, LaFollette had been the leader of the “pro-
gressive” movement within the Republican Party. After a brief flirtation with a
third party in 1920, LaFollette returned and created what he called a “left–right”
split among Republicans that pitted “progressives” against “conservatives.”23
When a similar split developed in the Democratic Party, the process was com-
plete: the political spectrum had migrated out of socialist discourse and into the
two major parties and, more importantly, had been grafted onto the longstanding
ideological terms to indicate more government intervention in the economy
(“left wing” and “progressive”) or less (“right wing” and “conservative”).24
Even as progressive politicians were imposing the political spectrum on the
American present, progressive historians began imposing the political spec-
trum on the American past. Historians Vernon Parrington, Charles Beard,
and Carl Becker were instrumental in spreading the political spectrum to in-
tellectual circles by applying the left–right and liberal–conservative labels to
American historical figures. They began writing history that placed the rev-
olutionary Whigs, Anti- Federalists, Jeffersonian Republicans, Democratic
Republicans, and Democrats on the left and the loyalist Tories, Federalists,
National Republicans, Whigs, and Lincoln Republicans on the right.25 History
is a major force for shaping identity, and by rewriting history using the political
spectrum the progressive historians helped create a greater sense of left–right
identification among Americans.
So, although the spectrum in America had originally been used exclusively
to report on the divisions between European socialists, it was then imported to
refer to competing American socialist factions, and finally, by the early 1920s,
had been domesticated to apply to the question of more versus less government
intervention—the issue that would dominate American political discourse and
define “liberal” and “conservative” for a generation.
Ideological Parties
By the late 1920s, only one piece of today’s ideological system was missing: ide-
ological parties. There were ideological terms (progressive–conservative),
there was a political spectrum (left–right), but the parties were not yet
identified with one side of this spectrum or the other. There were politicians
in both parties who accepted the “progressive” moniker and sought to in-
crease income taxes, government spending on social programs, and the fed-
eral government’s role in facilitating “cooperation” among industries.26 Both
candidates in the 1932 presidential election considered themselves “liberals,”
but the term “liberal” had not fully completed its transformation from the
nineteenth-century meaning. The liberal Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt
criticized the incumbent progressive Herbert Hoover for believing “that we
ought to center control of everything in Washington as rapidly as possible”
and proposed instead a “reduction in Federal spending as . . . the most direct
and effective contribution that Government can make to business.”27 In 1932,
it was not just the presidency but liberalism itself that was up for grabs—which
of the two parties would seize it?28
Franklin Roosevelt settled the matter during his first term. When Roosevelt
rolled out the New Deal, despite his campaign rhetoric, the Democratic Party
became the party of activist government and therefore the institutional home of
“progressives,” “the left,” and the “new liberalism.”29 Roosevelt’s New Deal was
revolutionary not only in transforming the role of the federal government, but
also in transforming American political discourse and introducing the Fourth
Party System.30 During the New Deal, the language of “liberal” and “conserv
ative,” “left” and “right,” increasingly descended from the ivory tower into or-
dinary political discourse. The public had come to identify “liberal” with “the
left” and the Democratic Party, and “conservative” with “the right” and the
Republican Party.31
Even so, there were dissenters within each party. Many old-line “progres-
sive” Republicans supported the New Deal while a number of Democrats op-
posed it.32 An outraged Al Smith, the Democratic Party’s 1928 presidential
candidate and now its leading “conservative,” spoke of what he saw as the New
Deal’s perfidy, saying, “It is all right with me if they want to disguise themselves
as Norman Thomas or Karl Marx, or Lenin, or any of the rest of that bunch,
but what I won’t stand for is to let them march under the banner of Jefferson,
Jackson, or Cleveland.”33 These dissenters notwithstanding, the party lines had
been drawn: in the public mind, the Democratic Party was now “liberal,” and
relatively “left,” while the Republican Party was “conservative” and relatively
“right.”34
While intellectual supporters of the New Deal had no problem calling

themselves “liberal,” many of its intellectual opponents were initially reluc-
tant to embrace the label “conservative,” preferring to call themselves ei-
ther “individualists”—to set themselves apart from the “collectivists” in the
Democratic Party—or “true liberals,” indicating their belief that the New
Dealers had apostatized from the “true liberal” Jeffersonian faith.35 Throughout
the thirties and forties, intellectual opponents of the New Deal held out against
the labels “conservative” and “right-wing.”36 While they opposed statist policies,
they did so using the narrative tropes of liberalism, arguing that, in fact, free
markets were the drivers of progressive change in society.37
This began to change in the postwar years when a handful of political theorists
began to wear the conservative label as a badge of honor and invented a nar-
rative of preservation to match the liberal narrative of change. The first prom-
inent figure to do so was Peter Viereck, a professor of history at Mt. Holyoke
College who would later win a Pulitzer Prize for poetry. In his 1949 book,
Conservatism Revisited, he argued that there was a long, venerable history of
conservative thought in the European tradition that he was proud to identify
with.38 For Viereck, a conservative was someone who opposed revolutions, and
if revolutions could be destructive, then conservatism was a respectable intellec-
tual position and conservative was a respectable political identity.39 For Viereck,
conservation of what was good in Western civilization against the modern
revolutions of both fascism and communism was the task of conservatives.40
Like Viereck, historian Russell Kirk also embraced the conservative identity
and tried to give it a respectable pedigree by attaching the label “conservative”
to intellectual heavyweights like Edmund Burke, Alexander Hamilton, John
Adams, John Randolph, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Sir Walter Scott, Nathaniel
Hawthorne, and Walter Bagehot. But Kirk went further than Viereck by
accepting the connection between conservatism and the anti–New Deal agenda
of the Republican Party.41 If the New Deal was left-wing and liberal, said Kirk,
then those who opposed it could proudly identify as right-wing and conserva-
tive. Kirk had adopted the progressive historians’ characterization of American
party history as divided between a “liberal left” and a “conservative right,” but,
unlike them, he identified proudly with the right. In 1955, Kirk helped found
the National Review magazine with another young author, William F. Buckley
Jr., and started a “conservative” intellectual movement that accepted a position
at the right side of a political spectrum from where its proponents would “stand
athwart history yelling ‘stop.’ ”42
Viereck, Kirk, and Buckley had birthed a conservative narrative of tradition
and caution to match the liberal narrative of reform and progress. This narra-
tive could have just as easily been attached to the policies of the opposite party
(indeed, Viereck remained a Democrat and claimed that the New Deal was
“conservative”), but it became the dominant framework for the ex post story-
telling that has tied together all Republican policies up to the present. Politics at
the time was unidimensional (more versus less government), but the narrative
tropes of each side were sufficiently vague and capacious (“change” versus “con-
serve”) to encompass any new dimensions of politics that would emerge over
the subsequent decades. The policies associated with each side would evolve
and even reverse over the decades, but the “languages of politics” would remain,
thus giving the illusion of philosophical consistency to inconsistent political
positions.43
Thus, by the early 1950s, the ideological system that persists to this day was
in place: there were ideological labels (“liberal” and “conservative”) bound up
with an ideological political spectrum (“left” and “right”) that was attached to
ideological political parties (Democratic and Republican).44 Although there
were more dissenters from the party lines in those days (e.g., “conservative
Democrats” and “liberal Republicans”), the party lines themselves had come to
define what it meant to be “conservative” and “liberal.”45 A “liberal Republican,”
such as Dwight D. Eisenhower, was simply someone lukewarm to the party’s
smaller government stance, while a “conservative Democrat,” such as Martin
Dies, was simply someone lukewarm to the party’s larger government stance.46
Liberal-left had become synonymous with what the Democratic Party stood for,
while conservative-right had become synonymous with what the Republican
Party stood for.47
This has been the case ever since. Today, a liberal is someone committed
fully (rather than moderately or selectively) to the Democratic agenda and a
conservative is someone committed fully (rather than moderately or selec-
tively) to the Republican agenda. While there are differences of degree—many
conservatives wish the Republicans would go farther with their platform and
many liberals wish the Democrats would go farther with theirs—there are no
differences in kind. The Democratic Party largely stands for liberalism and the
Republican Party largely stands for conservatism, and it has been that way since
the New Deal.
But even though the parties had undergone ideological sorting during the
New Deal era, there is an important difference between their time and ours: back
then, the political spectrum modeled only a single dimension of politics. A uni-
dimensional model can represent a unidimensional reality and, during the 1930s
and 1940s, national politics was primarily about just one issue—the size of
government. The New Deal so dominated national political discourse that all
other issues were peripheral and debated non-ideologically at the local level.48
In 1940, if someone was asked, “Do you think we should move to the left?” or
“Do you think we should be more liberal?” they understood it to mean, “Do you
believe we should expand the size of government?”49 Issues such as abortion, gay
marriage, affirmative action, environmentalism, McCarthyism, or the Vietnam
War didn’t cross their minds—those hadn’t yet appeared on the national polit-
ical landscape.50 Not even civil rights were on the table, and describing southern
segregationist Democrats of the 1930s as being “conservative” is anachro-
nistic.51 “Conservative” only referred to opponents of the New Deal, and inas-
much as southern Democrats supported Roosevelt’s economic policies they
were considered part of the “liberal” coalition.52 Then, as now, liberals wrapped
their political views in a heroic narrative—the forces of enlightened “progress”
overcoming the forces of backwardness and “reaction”—but this story was put to
work in the service of a single cause: advancing the economic reforms associated
with the New Deal.53
Since the political spectrum simply modeled more versus less government,
and since it provided a useful shorthand to indicate where someone stood on
this one question, Americans used the terms “left” and “right” with ever-greater
frequency throughout the 1930s and 1940s.54 At that point, there was just one
issue that bound together the people, ideas, and institutions of each side. For a
brief moment in American history, the political spectrum effectively modeled a
single dimension of politics. As we will see in the next chapter, it wouldn’t stay
that way.
3
The Development of Left and Right
In the years after World War II, new issues beyond “more versus less govern-
ment” arose to complicate American political discourse and render the political
spectrum obsolete. The addition of these new dimensions to American politics
led directly to the myth of left and right that has been the source of so much con-
fusion and hostility in contemporary public life.
Becoming Multidimensional
It began with the rise of conservative militarism. During the first half of the
twentieth century, liberal/left/Democrats were typically more hawkish while
conservative/right/Republicans were typically more dovish. Liberal Democrat
Woodrow Wilson took America into World War I, liberal Democrat Franklin
Roosevelt took America into World War II, and liberal Democrat Harry
Truman took America into the Korean War.1 In both rhetoric and practice,
liberal Democrats were more interventionist in foreign policy while conserv
ative Republicans were more isolationist. Conservatives even created paci-
fist organizations such as America First, and routinely criticized Democrats as
“warmongers.”2
At that point, the political spectrum still measured principle (size of govern-
ment) and not just tribe, since foreign wars meant an expansion of government
power. The military dimension mapped onto the left versus right framework,
since both the New Deal and military buildup expanded the size of govern-
ment.3 Liberal foreign policy (more government) matched liberal domestic
policy (more government), and conservative foreign policy (less government)
matched conservative domestic policy (less government).4 As late as 1952, the
political spectrum was still accurately modeling the “one big issue” that divided
Americans.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197680216.003.0004
The Devel op ment o f L ef t and R ight 27
During the 1950s it all began to unravel. Because the right/conservatives/

Republicans had defined themselves by a commitment to economic freedom,
they had a special dislike for communism as the antithesis of their free-market
ideology. Conservatives like Whittaker Chambers and William F. Buckley Jr.
believed that the fight against communism was simply the fight against New Deal
liberalism raised to another level.5 Since, in their view, both the New Deal and
communism threatened economic freedom, both had to be vigorously opposed.
Accordingly, Buckley and other champions of the right began to break with their
small government principles in the name of rooting out communist subversion.
They supported government infringements on privacy, civil liberties, and free
speech, believing that this sacrifice of freedom was necessary to preserve a free
government from communist overthrow.6 As they saw it, they had to violate indi-
vidual rights in order to save them. In the words of Marxist-turned-conservative
Max Eastman, “We are fighting this cold war for our life, and we must fight on all
fronts and in every field of action.”7 At that moment, conservatives had crossed
the Rubicon: they were now advocating, in one realm at least, an expansion of
government power.
At first, this conservative anti-communism only played out domestically in
the infamous “red hunts” conducted by Senator McCarthy and the House Un-
American Activities Committee in the early 1950s, but over the next decade,
it would evolve into an interventionist foreign policy stance. Conservative
Republicans went from criticizing liberal Democrats for being too hawkish
in the 1930s to criticizing them for not being hawkish enough in the 1960s.8
Liberals steadily backed away from the militarism that had been central to their
ideology during World War II, and, by the late 1960s (after the Vietnam War
had gone sour), they had become more pacifist than conservatives. The same
way economic interventionism was contested between the parties until FDR
settled the issue with his New Deal, so hawkishness was contested between the
two ideologies until the Vietnam War settled the issue.9 In 1972, Democratic
presidential nominee George McGovern ran on an explicitly anti-war platform,
thus completing liberalism’s transition from foreign policy interventionism to
isolationism. “Neoconservatives” who began to identify with the right in the
1970s were “neo” for a reason: their foreign policy views had aligned them with
the left until Democrats became more dovish than Republicans during the
Vietnam War.10
Just at the moment Democrats were abandoning hawkishness, new social is-
sues were emerging to further complicate the political landscape. In the early
twentieth century, many social issues that would later be identified with the right
had been more associated with the left. Progressives were more likely to favor
Prohibition, censorship, and racist eugenic policies than those on the right, and,
by the standard measures of congressional ideology, segregationist Southerners
were the most reliably left-wing members of the Democratic Party.11 Heroes
of the “conservative” tradition, such as Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay, and
William Howard Taft, had far more enlightened racial views than their “liberal”
rivals Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, and Woodrow Wilson—showing that
not even racial equality is an “essential” liberal principle.12 Issues considered “so-
cially conservative” today were not associated with conservatism at all in the
early twentieth century.13
This changed in the 1960s and 1970s when Republicans decided to capi-
talize on public anger at Supreme Court decisions (e.g., Abington v. Schempp,
Engel v. Vitale, and Roe v. Wade) by adding a number of social positions to their
platform as a way to draw southern and religious voters to their side.14 Since
the inception of the ideological-party system in the New Deal, highly religious
voters had generally been allied with the left, and according to historian Doug
Koopman, “The Social Gospel provided the philosophical basis for the New
Deal and Democratic supremacy from the 1930s through the 1960s.”15
Beginning in the sixties and seventies, Republicans increasingly tied the so-
cial issues associated with Christianity to their ideology. This alienated promi-
nent secular libertarians such as Ayn Rand, Friedrich Hayek, and Max Eastman,
but attracted evangelicals such as Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Ralph Reed, and
their millions of supporters. Thus, the Religious Right was borns.16
The conservative capture of militarism and Christian social issues meant
that by the late 1970s, the “more versus less” government spectrum had be-
come obsolete. Expansion of government was now context-dependent: the lib-
eral/Democratic/left wanted more government when it came to fiscal policy,
but the conservative/Republican/right wanted more government when it
came to foreign policy and most aspects of social policy. There were now mul-
tiple dimensions to politics, and which party favored more or less government
depended entirely upon the issue. Republicans continued to trot out the same
attacks on “big government” they had used since the New Deal, but, by the early
twenty-first century, this was all rhetorical posturing—they had become just as
favorable to expanding government power as Democrats when it came to fiscal
policy and more so when it came to foreign and social policy. There was no
longer a single issue that defined politics but many distinct issues that could not
be modeled on a single-issue spectrum.
But even as more dimensions were added to politics, Americans retained their
old unidimensional model. The ideological landscape had changed, but the map of
the landscape had not. The political reality outgrew the political framework in
the late twentieth century when a proliferation of new political issues rendered a
unidimensional approach to politics obsolete, and yet ideologues wouldn’t face
up to this reality: they wanted to believe that their side was right about every-
thing and the other wrong about everything. Partisans of left and right began
to invoke ad hoc narratives to save their essentialist understanding of the spec-

trum from falsification. Public intellectuals got ever more creative in making up
stories about how this new pluralism was an illusion, insisting that there simply
had to be a single philosophy uniting everything that each party stood for—a
“liberal” philosophy to unite everything in the Democratic Party platform and
a “conservative” philosophy to unite everything in the Republican Party plat-
form.17 Thus was born ideological essentialism and the self-contradictory, ex post
storytelling that it entails. The self-deception to justify tribalism had begun.
The Essentialist Theory and Political Parties

The preceding account of the development of left and right not only substantiates
the social theory of ideology, but it forces us to reconceptualize the relationship
of our two political parties to left–right ideologies. In the essentialist theory,
parties can move “leftward” or “rightward” on the spectrum as they change their
relationship to the single essential issue, but under the social theory the parties
largely define the ideologies. The social theory predicts that since left and right
are tribal designations and the two parties are the central social organizations
that unite the tribes, then left and right will often be defined by whatever their
associated parties stand for at a given moment.
The essentialist theory, it turns out, is as mistaken about parties as it is about
ideologies. Essentialists making the argument that the parties have moved “left-
ward” or “rightward” can only do so by redefining the essence of left and right to
fit whatever the parties happen to be doing at a given moment. In the McCarthy
era, for instance, essentialists insisted that free speech was an essential principle
of the liberal left, and yet when Democrats later reversed course and turned
against free speech, essentialists still called it a move “to the left.”18
When the Republican Party moved in a small-government direction under
Barry Goldwater, the essentialists called it a move “to the right,”19 but when
the Republican Party moved in a big-government direction under George
W. Bush and Donald Trump, they also called it a move “to the right.”20 When
the Republican Party moved to foreign interventionism under Bush, they said
it was a move “to the right,”21 but when the Republican Party moved to foreign
isolationism under Trump, they also said it was a move “to the right.”22 When the
Republican Party moved in a globalist direction under Reagan, they said it was a
move “to the right,” but when the Republican Party moved in a protectionist di-
rection under Trump, they also said it was a move “to the right.”23 No matter what
Republicans do—even when they pursue opposite policies—essentialists invar-
iably tell us that it’s a move “to the right.”24 Strangely, these scholars argue that
the Republican Party has moved to the “extreme right” in the last decade even
as Republicans have become much more favorable to gay marriage, minimum

wages, free speech, government regulation of the economy, and social welfare
spending, while also becoming more opposed to the Iraq War, big corporations,
capital punishment, free trade, and laissez-faire capitalism.25 So either there is
an essential set of conservative principles—in which case the Republican party
has moved unambiguously to the left on many (if not most) issues—or there is
no consistent set of principles that defines the left and right—in which case it’s
meaningless to talk about the Republican Party moving leftward or rightward.
Yes, the Republican Party is always changing, but, no, there is no set of fixed, es-
sential, “right-wing principles” that it is changing toward.
The essentialist method amounts to this: “Tell me what the Republican Party
is doing, and I will define this as ‘the right’ and then conclude that the Republican
Party has moved to the right.” This is not informative; it is tautological. It only
tells us “The Democrat and Republican parties are doing what the Democrat and
Republican parties are doing.” Starting with a conclusion and then redefining
terms until the conclusion becomes true is classic circular reasoning.
It’s conventional wisdom that George W. Bush pulled the Republican Party
“to the right” during his two terms as president,26 but such a position requires a
redefinition of “the right” to fit Bush’s actions (“Bush is on the far right because
Bush is acting like Bush”).27 From 2001 to 2009, the Republican president and
Congress set records for expanding federal government power and spending but
at the same time, according to the conventional wisdom, the Republican Party
moved to the “extreme right.” If, instead of engaging in circular reasoning, we use
a fixed, measurable definition of the right, such as limited government, we find
that Bush moved the Republican Party decisively and unambiguously to the ex-
treme left. 28 Rather than face up to the implications of essentialism, too many of
us escape into tautology.29
We find historians making the same error when covering earlier periods.
Essentialists say that since “conservative” Goldwater lost in a landslide in 1964
while “conservative” Reagan won in a landslide in 1984, the country must have
moved “to the right” during the intervening two decades.30 The problem is that
they are mistaking tribal labels for substance. Goldwater and Reagan belonged
to the same tribe and carried the same ideological label (“conservative”) but
did not run on the same policies. Goldwater wanted to roll back the New Deal,
opposed civil rights legislation, favored abortion rights, and opposed tax cuts
while Reagan took the opposite approach to all of these issues.31 The same ide-
ological term was attached to different policies. It wasn’t that the country or
the Republican Party had moved “to the right” to elect Reagan, but that the
Republican Party and its associated ideology—conservatism—had evolved to
take on more mainstream positions.32 In arguing that the country has undergone
a “rightward shift,” historians are mistaking tribal labels for essences.
The conservative divergence from Goldwater has only become more pro-
nounced since Reagan’s presidency. Goldwater opposed tax cuts, favored abor-
tion rights and gay rights, and believed in cutting government spending, while
George W. Bush favored tax cuts, opposed abortion rights and gay rights, and
set records for increasing government spending (with the help of a Republican
Congress). Where is the essential conservatism uniting these two politicians
who pursued opposite policies? It does not exist.
How could Goldwater have been considered “far right” by holding the “left
wing” position on abortion? Because being pro-choice was not considered a
left-wing position in 1964. Once again, ideologies evolve. Reagan himself fa-
vored abortion rights until the Republican Party turned against it in the 1970s.
Goldwater hadn’t moved “leftward” and Reagan “rightward” on abortion; it’s
that abortion was not a left–right issue until Roe v. Wade.
In fact, George W. Bush had much more in common with Goldwater’s liberal
opponent in the 1964 election, Lyndon Johnson, who also pushed through large
income tax cuts, vastly increased government spending, and started an unpop-
ular overseas war. Those who argue that Bush moved the Republican Party to the
“extreme right” can only do so by redefining “the right” to make it coterminous
with what was considered “liberal” in 1964.33
This disconnect of the right from limited government became even more
pronounced under Donald Trump. Cutting government spending was once
seen as essentially “far right,” but when Trump promised not to cut government
spending he was also considered “far right.” Donald Trump said during the 2016
campaign, “I’m not going to cut Social Security like every other Republican and
I’m not going to cut Medicare or Medicaid. Every other Republican is going to
cut.”34 And it wasn’t just rhetorical: under Trump, the size of government and
the national debt grew far more than under any Democrat in history up to that
point.35
Furthermore, Republicans under Trump became significantly more favor-
able to gay rights, economic regulation, minimum wages, pacifism, and restric-
tion of private transactions, so why do essentialists say that Trump moved the
Republican Party “to the right”?36 Because Trump is “right-wing.”37 Again, it’s
circular reasoning. If a study declared “bachelors are increasingly unmarried,”
we would all recognize the tautology, and yet we take seriously the studies which
make the equally tautologous claim, “Republicans are increasingly right-wing.”
We find the same circular reasoning among those who use congressional roll
call votes to quantify ideology. In the mid-twentieth century, political scientists
began following historians and journalists in analyzing politics in spatial terms
like “left” and “right.” Notably, in 1957, Anthony Downs adapted Harold
Hotelling’s spatial modeling of market preferences to the spatial modeling of
political preferences running from the “extreme left” to the “extreme right.”38
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“Take it, Sir Knight, and mayst thou bear it back to Burgundy in
memory of me!”
That Rüdiger so courteously,

Did give away his shield,
Filled many an eye with gentle tears,
And to their hearts appealed.
It was his last and dearest gift;
No more could bold knight crave
In token of the courtesy
Of Rüdiger the brave.
However grim Sir Hagen was,

Or ill-disposed in mind,
The generous gift which Rüdiger
So noble and so kind,
When near his end had given him,
His stubborn heart subdued;
While many a lofty knight did sigh,
As that brave act he viewed.
Said Hagen: “May the Lord of Heaven

Sir Rüdiger protect!
When he shall die, his like on earth
We may no more expect:
For he to homeless, shieldless knight
His own defence did give;
May God vouchsafe that when no more,
His virtues still shall live!”
Then he added: “As for thyself, brave Rüdiger, though thou shouldst
slay us every one, yet never shall this sword be raised against thy
life.” And this stout Volker also swore.
Seizing his arms, Rüdiger rushed upon the Burgundians and the
strife began once more. Hagen and Volker stood aside, nor did
Giselher seek to meet his sword; but deep were the wounds it dealt,
and many the knights that fell before it. Rüdiger’s liegemen followed
him, and soon the hall was filled with the din of battle.
When Gernot saw the terrible havoc Rüdiger’s sword wrought
among the Burgundians, he shouted: “I pray thee, cease, Sir
Rüdiger! Now must I seek vengeance for my true liegemen thou hast
slain and thereby turn thy gift against thyself!”
Therewith they cut their way through the press of battle till they stood
face to face. Fast fell the strokes of sword on shield and helm, till
Rüdiger, whirling his sword aloft, smote Gernot; and as Gernot
received his death wound he grasped his sword with both hands and
dealt Rüdiger the mightiest blow that ever he had struck. Both
heroes fell, slain at the same moment by each other’s hands.
When Hagen saw this, his wrath was terrible to behold, and he
swore Rüdiger’s men should pay dearly therefor, while loud were the
lamentations of the princes for the death of their brother. Mad with
fury now, they rushed upon the foe, nor was it long ere the last man
lay dead.
Now once more there was silence, and those who were left of the
Burgundians laid aside their arms to rest them after the fierce
struggle. Meanwhile Etzel and Kriemhild waited without, expecting
each moment to see Rüdiger come forth with word that the
Burgundians were slain. But when all grew still again she began to
doubt that hero, and cried aloud that he had deceived her and made
peace with her foes. Whereat Volker shouted wrathfully: “If I dared to
give the lie to lady such as thou, O Queen, I would right willingly! So
loyally hath Rüdiger kept faith with thee that here he lieth dead with
all his knights. An thou art loath to trust my word, then may thine own
eyes banish doubt.”
Therewith the body was borne out by four knights and laid upon the
stairs. When Etzel beheld this, he cried aloud with grief, while from
all the Huns arose such wails and plaints of woe that they spread far
beyond the court, and tower and hall reëchoed with the cries.
Chapter XXXII
Hildebrand and Dietrich
NE of Dietrich’s knights heard the doleful sound and

hastened to his master, crying: “I pray thee, lord, give ear!
Etzelburg gives forth such cries of woe and lamentation as
never yet have I heard. I fear the Burgundians have slain
the King or Kriemhild!”
The knights all sprang to their feet, with swords aloft, but Dietrich
said: “Draw not your swords, my faithful liegemen, nor judge too
rashly those of Burgundy, for I have peace with them. Stern
necessity has compelled them to do much that they have done.”
Then stepped forth Wolfhart, the boldest and fiercest of the knights.
In former days he had met Hagen in battle and sorely wounded him,
and now he sought leave to go and learn what had befallen. This
would not Dietrich grant, however, for he feared lest the fiery
Wolfhart should affront the Burgundians with too hasty words. He
despatched Helferich instead, who soon returned with the grievous
news of Rüdiger’s death. Horror-stricken, Dietrich cried: “God forbid
that such report should be true! Sir Rüdiger always held yon heroes
dear in his regard, as well I know. How then could he have earned
such reward of them?”
Wolfhart shouted furiously: “Now, by my faith, an they have slain that
chief who hath done us many a service, they shall die,—aye, every
man!”
Thereupon Dietrich bade the ancient Hildebrand go to the
Burgundians and learn more nearly of the matter, while overcome
with grief he sat by the window to wait his return. As Hildebrand was
about to depart, Wolfhart cried: “Nay, go not thus unarmed, good
master, or perchance yon haughty chiefs will send thee back with
insult. But an they see thou canst defend thyself, then they will spare
thee such attack.”
So the old hero donned mail and helm, and taking his sword and
shield, rode forth. But the knights all followed, likewise fully armed;
and when he asked the cause thereof, they said they would not that
he came to harm. Meanwhile the Burgundians had borne the body of
Rüdiger back within the hall; and as Volker spied Hildebrand and the
knights, he warned his comrades of their approach. Whereupon
Günther and Giselher strode to the window, Hagen following.
The warriors drew rein in the courtyard, while Hildebrand lowered his
shield and asked in Dietrich’s name if it was indeed true that they
had slain Sir Rüdiger. For such foul wrong, he added, might not go
unavenged.
Hagen replied: “Heartily do I wish, Sir Hildebrand, that thou hadst
been deceived. Yet it is true, alas! Noble Rüdiger lies dead in this
hall, nor can his loss be bewailed too deeply!”
Then arose a great cry of woe from Dietrich’s band, and many a
bearded warrior’s cheeks were wet with tears.
For sobbing, noble Hildebrand
No question more could ask:
Said he: “Now, knights, perform the will
Of him who set the task!
Give us, from out the hall forthwith
Sir Rüdiger again,
Whose death is cause of so much grief
To all these warlike men.
That we repay by obsequies
His martial feats of yore
And noble friendship shown to us,
Now lost forevermore.”
And Günther consented to this; but Wolfhart, who could no longer
contain his wrath, demanded with threatening gestures how long
they were to beg and wait for what they sought. Volker replied that
none should bring it to them now; if they would have Rüdiger’s body
they must come with their swords and fetch it themselves from out
the hall. He added: “Such service, methinks, were but Sir Rüdiger’s
due.”
Furious at this, Wolfhart would have rushed at Volker, but Hildebrand
withheld him by force. “Nay—curb thy headlong wrath! or thou wilt
surely bring disgrace upon us all!”
“Let loose, good master Hildebrand,
That lion of rash mood,
That he may come within my reach!”
So said the minstrel good,
“And though he may have slain a host
Of valiant knights before,
I’ll smite him such a stinging blow
That he’ll reply no more.”
These words filled Dietrich’s men with rage, while Wolfhart with a
fierce shout tore himself free and like a raging lion leapt upon his foe,
followed by all the knights. But old Hildebrand was there before him,
“for since to fighting it must come—himself would be the first.”
Straight on Hagen he rushed, and therewith arose a mighty clashing
of sword on shield, while the sparks flew in showers. Yet soon were
they parted by the tide of battle that surged about them. So terrible
was the din, it was as that of a thousand forges. Bravely did they
fight on either side, but Günther and Giselher, Hagen and his brother
Dankwart, and Volker, outdid all the rest. Now Hildebrand saw Volker
slay Sir Dietrich’s kinsman Siegestab, and thirsting for vengeance,
the old warrior sprang upon him. Not long could he withstand such
furious onslaught, and soon thereby did the brave minstrel meet his
end. At the same moment also was Dankwart slain by Helferich.
When Hagen saw both Volker and his brother dead, he swore most
fearfully to avenge their fall, and therewith he rushed into the thickest
of the fray, slaying right and left, and smiting so fiercely that all his
former efforts seemed but as play.
But stout heroes were not lacking among Dietrich’s warriors, and
surely was there never seen so mighty and so dire a combat. Thrice
had the fiery Wolfhart encircled the hall, hewing down all before him,
when he encountered Giselher. Fiercely the young prince sprang at
him, and so truly and so mightily he smote that his sword clove
Wolfhart’s shield and hauberk. Yet summoning all his strength, the
dying hero dealt Giselher too his death stroke so that he fell lifeless
at his feet. When Hildebrand saw his nephew Wolfhart fatally smitten
he sprang quickly to his side and sought to bear him from the hall.
Then said the wounded-unto-death:

“Kind uncle, all is o’er!
No help canst thou or any one
Render to Wolfhart more.
One parting word I leave with thee—
Beware of Hagen’s brand;
He has in heart and arm a power
That nothing may withstand.
“If that my friends, when I am dead,

Do weep and mourn for me,
Then to my best and nearest kin
Say, with much clemency,
That they desist from heart-lament,
Nor of my fall complain,
For that I found a glorious death
And was by king’s hand slain.”
And therewith he died.

At last, in all the great hall there were but three heroes left alive,—
Günther, Hagen, and Hildebrand.
Then Hagen smote Sir Hildebrand,
For that he Volker slew;
The ancient chief did ward his blows
With skill and courage too.
Yet could he not prevail against the might of the Burgundian hero,
but soon received a grievous wound from Balmung’s flashing blade;
whereupon, using his shield for cover, he turned and fled to the
courtyard without.
Now lived of all those stalwart knights
No more than these bold two:
Günther, the King of Burgundy,
And Hagen keen and true.
Sorrowfully sat Dietrich in his chamber meanwhile, hoping for better
news from Hildebrand. Little was he aware that his knights had
followed the old warrior, and still less that all by the Burgundians’
swords were slain. Wherefore, when Hildebrand appeared before
him, his armor stained with blood, the hero shrank aghast and
sternly asked if he had been at strife with the Burgundians against
his strict commands. Hildebrand replied that Hagen had wounded
him, and barely had he escaped with his life from that arch-fiend.
Then said Sir Dietrich, haughtily:
“Thou hast been rightly served;
For thou didst know that from these guests
My friendship never swerved;
Also thou hast infringed the peace
I proffered with my breath:
Were’t not that ’twould be lasting shame,
Thou shouldst atone by death.”
Then Hildebrand sought to excuse himself, saying they had but
asked for the body of Rüdiger, and this the Burgundians had refused
them. When Dietrich thus learned that Rüdiger indeed was dead he
abandoned himself to grief, but after a space asked by whose hand
he fell. Hildebrand replied that Gernot had slain him, and by his
hand, in turn, had been slain. Thereupon Dietrich resolved to go
himself and have speech with the Burgundians; and calling for his
armor, he bade Hildebrand summon his knights forthwith.
“Alas! my lord,” cried Hildebrand, “thou seest before thee all thy
warriors!” And while Dietrich gazed at him horror-stricken, he told
him all that had passed.
Now was Dietrich indeed plunged in sorrow. Loudly did he lament
the loss of Wolfhart and all his brave knights, and cried: “This is the
last day of my joy on earth!”
Chapter XXXIII
Kriemhild’s Revenge and Death
HEN Dietrich of Bern had regained his wonted

composure he asked how many of the Burgundians yet
were left alive, and Hildebrand told him none save
Günther and Hagen,—all the rest were slain.
Whereupon, filled with grief and wrath, he seized his arms and went
forth with Hildebrand to seek them.
Leaning against the arched doorway stood the two Burgundian
heroes, their shields before them on the ground; and when they saw
the knights approaching, Hagen, still undaunted, declared himself
ready to do battle with Sir Dietrich; nor did he fear to meet him,
mighty as he deemed himself, for then would it be proved who was
the better knight.
Dietrich heard this bold speech, but vouchsafed no reply. Laying
down his shield and looking sorrowfully at them, he asked: “Wherein,
O knights of Burgundy, have I injured you, that you should slay the
noble Rüdiger, and with him all my friends and warriors?”
“Not all the blame lies with us, Sir Knight,” said Hagen, “for to this
hall thy men came in arms. Thou hast been misinformed.”
“Alas!” replied Dietrich, “I know only too well what passed; for
Hildebrand but now brought me word that he desired of you the
corpse of Rüdiger, and you treated his suit with scorn.”
“Now, by my faith,” cried Günther, “’twas in despite of Etzel that we
refused; but forthwith Wolfhart grew insolent, and thus it came to
strife.”
Then said Dietrich: “Günther of Burgundy, for the evil thou hast
wrought, methinks thou owest me some amends, and thou likewise,
Sir Hagen. If you will yield yourselves captives to my sword, then I
will guard you from the wrathful Huns,—at peril of my life, if need
be.”
“God in heaven forbid,” cried Hagen, “that two such knights should
give up their trusty swords while alive and well armed withal!”
But again Dietrich urged them to accept his terms, and Hildebrand
added: “God knows, Sir Hagen, there is little need for shame in such
atonement. And soon, it may be, the hour will come when you would
gladly obtain such peace.”
DEATH OF KRIEMHILD
“In faith,” replied Hagen, scornfully, “I would indeed accept such
terms ere I, like thee, would fly full-armed, from a single knight.”
Hildebrand would have returned this taunt, but Dietrich forbade them
thus to bandy words like two old market-wives, and turning to Hagen
he said, sternly: “Tell me, valiant hero, did I hear aright that you
wished to measure swords with me?”
Well as he knew Sir Dietrich’s giant strength, he could not gainsay
this; wherefore he replied that he would willingly abide the issue of a
combat with him, so his good Nibelung sword did not fail him.
Thereupon Dietrich raised his shield as signal for attack, and Hagen
sprang fiercely down to meet him, the sword of the Nibelungs ringing
loudly on the stout shield of his foe. Sir Dietrich, too, was well aware
of Hagen’s might, and sought at first with caution merely to ward his
powerful blows, yet did he lose no chance for skilful sword-strokes
here and there. At last he dealt stout Hagen such a deadly wound
that powerless he sank upon the ground. Then casting his sword and
shield aside, Dietrich quickly bound him fast and led him thus unto
the Queen.
Now, indeed, did Kriemhild’s joy and triumph know no bounds.
Vowing her lasting gratitude to Dietrich, she promised to reward him
well that he had thus delivered up her deadly foe into her hands. But
Dietrich urged her to spare Sir Hagen, saying: “Be merciful, O
Queen! and it may chance that one day he shall make amends to
thee for all thy wrongs.”
To this Kriemhild made no reply, but ordered Hagen to be put in
chains and cast into a dungeon where none might see him.
Meanwhile Günther loudly called for Dietrich, that he might avenge
Hagen’s downfall. Soon he returned and then followed another fierce
encounter; but though Günther fought with the courage of despair,
he was overpowered at last, as Hagen had been, and taken before
the Queen.
Kriemhild bade him welcome; but Günther replied: “Small thanks will
I bestow on thee for thy greetings, for well I know they bode us little
good.”
Then said the gallant prince of Bern:
“Most high and potent Queen!
There ne’er appeared as captive bound
So brave a knight, I ween,
As he whom unto thee I gave
With loyal courtesy,
At thy fair hands let him partake
Of favor due to me!”
Kriemhild declared she would perform his wish; whereupon Dietrich
departed, his eyes wet with tears. But no thought had she for aught
save vengeance. Causing Günther to be also chained and cast into
a separate dungeon, she betook herself to Hagen. Again she
demanded of him her treasure, promising him his life if he would
confess where he had hidden it.
Hagen, although a captive, wounded and in chains, was still
undaunted. With a scornful glance at Kriemhild he replied: “I gave a
solemn oath to my lord Günther, that never while he drew breath
would I divulge the spot where it lies.”
“Now will I quickly make an end of that, forsooth!” cried Kriemhild;
and thereupon she ordered Günther’s head to be struck off. Then
she took it to Hagen, saying: “Now doth thy lord no longer live and
thereby art thou freed from thy sworn oath!”
But Hagen cried:
“Thou hast indeed thy will fulfilled,

As I did fear thou wouldst!
Now where the hoard lies hid is known
To none but God and me,
And shall from thee, accursed Queen!
Forever hidden be!”
She said: “Thou’st foul atonement made

In purpose, deed, and word;
Therefore will I possess myself
Of virtuous Siegfried’s sword,
Which he did bear upon his thigh
When last I saw that chief,
Whose death has ever been to me
A keen heart-rending grief.”
She drew it from the well-known sheath

Nor could he this prevent;
To take the warrior’s life forthwith
Was her unmasked intent.
She swung it with both hands, and smote
His head from off its trunk.
King Etzel saw the vengeful deed,
And from its horror shrunk.
Just at this moment the King had appeared in the dungeon with
Hildebrand.
“Alas!” the King of Huns did cry,
“How doth the matter stand—
That he, the boldest of all knights,
Should fall by woman’s hand?
He who in onslaught was the first,
The bravest that bore shield!
Although he was mine enemy,
I fain to sorrow yield.”
But Hildebrand shouted in wrath: “She shall rue this shameful deed!
Though he hath well-nigh slain me, yet will I forthwith take
vengeance for valiant Hagen’s death!”
And drawing his sword he rushed on Kriemhild, and despite her
shrieks he smote the terrified Queen so that she fell dead upon the
ground.
Thus were the mighty of the earth
By hand of death laid low.
The people all lamented loud
And bitter grief did show.
In suffering did the King’s feast end—
That joyous time was past,
For love to sorrow aye must turn,
So long as life shall last.
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The Myth of Left and Right : How

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(eBook PDF) Ethics, Left and Right: The Moral Issues

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

© Oxford University Press 2023

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

You must not circulate this work in any other form

CIP data is on file at the Library of Congress

ISBN 978–​0–​19–​768062–​9 (pbk.)

1. The Myth of Left and Right 5

2. The Origins of Left and Right 17

3. The Development of Left and Right 26

4. The “Authentic” Left and Right 39

5. The Persistence of Left and Right 64

6. The Consequences of Left and Right 75

7. The Future of Left and Right 87

We thank Mark A. Smith of the University of Washington for carefully reading

American politics is at a breaking point. This became obvious when a mob

of a spectrum as if they shared some fundamental essence is both misleading and

The Myth of Left and Right

The Two Theories of Ideology

Testing the Essentialist Theory

a consistent set of “left” or “right” positions independent of socialization. For

Testing the Social Theory

Our judgments about risks—​Does gun control make us safer or put us

The Essentialist Theory and Storytelling

Since opposition to change is the essence of the right, those on the

abortion because they want to preserve Christian pro-​life values. They

and in favor of gay marriage. Assertive people have no problem asserting

support (principles). Ideological essentialism—​no matter how attractive for its

The Origins of Left and Right

The Rise of the Spectrum in Europe

The Absence of the Spectrum in America

of Mexico, and advocated laissez-​faire economic policy. The Whig Party, on

The Rise of the Spectrum in America

leading self-​proclaimed liberal of late nineteenth-​century America, Nation ed-

of the spectrum to America, mainstream journalists remained uncomfortable

While intellectual supporters of the New Deal had no problem calling

The Development of Left and Right

During the 1950s it all began to unravel. Because the right/​conservatives/​

to invoke ad hoc narratives to save their essentialist understanding of the spec-

The Essentialist Theory and Political Parties

as Republicans have become much more favorable to gay marriage, minimum

That Rüdiger so courteously,

However grim Sir Hagen was,

Said Hagen: “May the Lord of Heaven

NE of Dietrich’s knights heard the doleful sound and

Then said the wounded-unto-death:

“If that my friends, when I am dead,

And therewith he died.

HEN Dietrich of Bern had regained his wonted

“Thou hast indeed thy will fulfilled,

ISBN 978–0–19–768062–9 (pbk.)

Our judgments about risks—Does gun control make us safer or put us

abortion because they want to preserve Christian pro-life values. They

support (principles). Ideological essentialism—no matter how attractive for its

of Mexico, and advocated laissez-faire economic policy. The Whig Party, on

leading self-proclaimed liberal of late nineteenth-century America, Nation ed-

During the 1950s it all began to unravel. Because the right/conservatives/