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#161862 09/16/06 06:07 PM
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It ought to be possible to define "cultural left" ad "right" without introducing bias. For instance

CULTURAL LEFT: Vaguely defined, usually journalistic conception of the anti-traditional proponents of multiculturalism and/or political correctness as heirs to the radical politics of the 1960s, especially feminism and Marxism, and supposedly related tendencies, like deconstruction and ethnicity

from

http://people.ok.ubc.ca/creative/glossary/c_list.html

...although this def covers only the left and is wordier than I prefer, it llustrates what a typical def might sound like without necessarily injecting the writer's opinion


dalehileman
#161863 09/17/06 02:28 PM
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...Vaguely defined, usually journalistic conception of...

Ergo my comment "...you end up getting cultured by the simplicity of it all."

#161864 09/17/06 04:22 PM
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At least from an European perspective, putting political correctness , feminism, Marxism, deconstruction and ethnicity all in the same bag, is a recipe for trouble. The only thing these tendencies have in common, is their occasional role as bogeymen in the discourse of the opposing faction.

#161865 09/17/06 05:09 PM
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...bogeymen in the discourse of the opposing faction

What a delightful phrase, how it trips off the tongue


dalehileman
#161866 09/17/06 07:25 PM
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Quote:



What a delightful phrase, how it trips off the tongue




...and this from a non-native speaker of English! I love it, as well as your entire post, Herr Sieber.

#161867 09/18/06 05:03 PM
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Quote:

It ought to be possible to define "cultural left" ad "right" without introducing bias. For instance

CULTURAL LEFT: Vaguely defined, usually journalistic conception of the anti-traditional proponents of multiculturalism and/or political correctness as heirs to the radical politics of the 1960s, especially feminism and Marxism, and supposedly related tendencies, like deconstruction and ethnicity





Would anyone care to count the "loaded" and or "biased" terms in that definition? If you apply the label cultural left to yourself, would you necessarily appreciate your beliefs/opinions being described as "vague journalistic anti-traditional multicultural politically-correct hippie-radical feminist Marxist deconstructionist ethnic"?

#161868 09/18/06 08:30 PM
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Myr: So I didn't read it very carefully. Still I'd like to find a pair of usable defs without the need for wading through thousands of Ghits then having to devise my own


dalehileman
#161869 09/19/06 01:23 AM
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Right handers form a significant majority; left handers are a small portion of the population. A position that is far from accepted norms or odd is considered leftfield. Right means correct, left is suspect. The conundrum of the traditionally weighed out equation put forth is that the right is often rejected and yet the left still always remains a minority position. If it does not, an overthrow occurs and new structures form.

The political terms right and left come from the seating in the parliament of pre-revolutionary France. The Estates-General was divided into three sections: the nobles, the clergy and the commoners' representatives (all rich, btw). The commoners reps sat on the left, the first estate on the right and the second in the middle. The left were revolutionary and declared themselves to be the new National Assembly and did a liberal amount of noble butchering and so on it revolves...

Cultural left: Opposition. Minority position that purports to support the interests of the (disenfranchised) majority and generally promotes centrifugal forces; threatens cultural maxims, seeks breakup of high concentrations of private wealth and existing power structures through subversive force; rejects stagnancy, seeks the advancement of novel pluralism. Group often asserts social and ethical superiority through rationalist human-centred philosophy.

Cultural right: Centrist majority supporting the currently ruling parties. Usually a centripedal agency that looks to maintain existing cultural framework and power structures. Characterised by the strong support for the observance of ritualistic, habitual thinking and behaviour. Group often cites interpretations of millennia-old mystical texts to assert moral authority.

#161870 09/19/06 06:59 AM
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Well said, belligerentyouth.

Well? Does anyone else have anything else to add?

If so, it had better be good.

#161871 09/19/06 09:53 AM
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Remember: war doesn't prove who's right, just who's left.

Quote:



If so, it had better be good.




You cain't always get what you want ...
--Mick Jagger and Keith Richards

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