Originally published on Facebook on 18 March 2018.
Story idea, one I do not have the patience to write (and which would be pointless to write, anyway, for reasons described down below):
Some magical handwaving splits the world into two alternate versions of itself, one where the left-wing gets what it wants, one where the right-wing gets where it wants.
We check back in a hundred years to see how it works out for both.
The first real problem is that you cannot write this story without turning it into a polemic for your own side, whichever side that is. Your guys will never make a mistake, the other side will make nothing but mistakes. You will almost inevitably produce your dream version of your own desired result and your nightmare version of the other side’s desired result. (Take my pictured results, below, with the accompanying grain of salt; I know.)
The second real problem is that left and right are not opposites on the spectrum, but in large part polar sides on a sphere, that will eventually meet each other the long way around. Left-wing dictatorships and right-wing dictatorships are both dictatorships, and where they actually stand in relationship to one another is largely a matter of nomenclature. There’s a reason why the left calls Nazism a right-wing nightmare and the right calls Nazism a left-wing nightmare. First, nobody wants to identify with the historical villain, and Second, Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot were all the end points of their own particular forms of devolution. They just were.
But the real problem, as I see it from the left:
If I write a story where the world on the left has universal health care and universal gun control and enforced diversity and sensitivity training and equal rights for people at all points of the sexuality spectrum and strict environmental regulations and economic justice and all that neat stuff, a world where no one is rich but no one is poor, readers on the left will only have their preconceptions enforced and readers on the right will see all that as a horrifying dystopia.
If in the same story the world on the right has no government at all and all policy decisions are made by whatever the rich feel like doing at the time, and all local communities are heavily-patrolled enclaves where armed folk take care of themselves because the government does not exist to do it for them, where folks either work or starve, where gender roles are traditional by law, where morality is absolutely Biblical, and where people can be forced to comply at gunpoint, where all countries that ever got in our faces are radioactive wastelands, then (aside from the environmental degradation being total), then again, readers on the left will only have their preconceptions enforced, and readers on the right will pretty much put it on their flags. As they did with Ayn Rand.
So what we have is not just two competing utopias but also two competing dystopias.
I honestly wish I could move into mine and leave you to yours.
But we are shackled together at the ankles, and there is no hand-waving force, and that is the problem.
Comment By: Say What?
October 19th, 2019 at 2:32 pm
But the real problem, as I see it from the left:
If I write a story where the world on the left has universal health care and universal gun control and enforced diversity and sensitivity training and equal rights for people at all points of the sexuality spectrum and strict environmental regulations and economic justice and all that neat stuff, a world where no one is rich but no one is poor, readers on the left will only have their preconceptions enforced and readers on the right will see all that as a horrifying dystopia.
The problem with the above is (lets go back to the beginning) you”See it from the Left”.
Then you go on to describe something almost no Conservative wants as their wants. But lets focus on yours (As a former Bush hating liberal and now Center/Moderate) Most liberals who decide to print their desires do not understand the Truth and that Ugly Truth is that they don’t want what they say they want. They want to pretend to be For the People and Against the Man and they tend to excuse the crimes of the people(who are ultimately to blame for any govt)unless they are of a differing party that is. And they demonize the Govt, unless they are of their party and then it’s the “Blame Bush” type game where their guy can do no wrong, any wrong is just a trickle down from the previous (Other Party) govt, same way if say the economy is doing great, it’s a trickle down from their past govt.
I mentioned the “Blame Bush” game because that is what eventually was the final domino in turning me away from the left in disgust as I felt betrayed by their universal hypocrisy. I wanted to Love Obama as a good liberal and I defended him blindly like one. But then I started noticing how he was doubling down on the Much Hated Bush Policies, Soon I noticed how he basically doubled down on every single one of them. Yes Dear Reader, Obama became little more than Bush in Black Face(and yes it needs to be said exactly that way for many reasons) He not only doubled down on the wars in the Mideast but the NSA, and the most hated bill of the generation ‘The Patriot Act’. Yet one would be hard press to know any of this as the negative press when Bush was president vs the negative press when Obama was is about 99.01 against the conservative(sound as they say “Relevant”)
This was brought to my attention in a jawing manner, especially the Patriot Act as it was a 15 second sound bite from CNN that brought it to my attention. It wasn’t headline news as it had been for months during the Bush era, in fact I found it hard to believe what I heard and found it hard(back then) to verify this. When I did I had the only logical reaction one who was at least partly sane could have, And that is that the Media were far more than just Hypocrites, They were indeed a fully functioning part of a party and that party was mine and my party consisted of Being Against The Man. The Man wasn’t the big thorn and much hated on Faux News, But all the rest of the Media. It was they who have a monopoly on what people hear and often believe and since they easily have labeled any diverse opinion (Not theirs) as Evil Hate Speech, then this allows their sheep to baaah their heads in unison and sleep well knowing the MSM acknowledges by their bowing what makes a good person good and they have confirmed how that person is.
It was in the beginning of the 2nd term of the Obama regime when the “Blame Bush” game was still being played by the mainstream media that I felt I could no longer stand to look myself in the mirror and pretend to be on the side of Angels, when I understood the shear hypocrisy of it all.
I sadly have no time to finish but if you don’t censor my Words, then I will come back and finish. I will say your comments about the left and right being on the same spectrum. This is something I know as Left and Right principles are not principles of the left and right as much as they are of the Human Condition. Everyone is Conservative and Everyone is Liberal, Everyone wants people that need help to be able to have it and everyone wants the right to keep their stuff. It’s just a matter of one being balanced/leaning or Far on either side of the spectrum that creates so much Friction.
This is something the media refuses to acknowledge(Faux and the MSM) and the ego of the people tend to follow and allow this divisive bridge to have a hefty toll one has to pay in this society.
Anyway, sorry for the grammatical errors and all. Have a good rest of your Weekend!
Signed
Not so much Silent, but not listened too average human.