Why Do We Do It?

[Granny]

I was just wondering ...


We keep referring to the Right and the Left
Righties and Lefties
Rightists and Leftists















Why aren't we saying "Right" and "Wrong," "Righties and Wrongies," "Rightists and Wrongests"

Just wondering.

 

[American Horse]

I was just wondering ...


We keep referring to the Right and the Left
Righties and Lefties
Rightists and Leftists

Good question Granny. I can still remember the first time I heard the distinction as a teenager. A filling station attendant who was off the deep end about politics and was always going on about it referred to the left wingers and the right wingers and to him Roosevelt was a Left Winger. I wondered the same thing. The best my friend, a middle aged man who loved to talk on the differences between the left and the right could do for me was to explain the philosophical differences.

My own personal theory is that right like right handed is the standard or the conventional, even the "correct” viewpoint, the status quo which seen as good or right. (With the reactionary right being the furthest right, and most resistant to change).

The Left is the side that calls for change from the status quo, and therefore is contra-establishment. The left is the unconventional side, the irregular side, the odd side, the viewpoint less accepted, and to be that it has to be more for change. (With radical change being the furthest left)

Like America, the ancient Romans used an eagle for a state symbol. In the American and Roman symbols both eagles look to the right. For the Romans, with the eagle being a symbol of the state the eagle was looking to its right wing (thus the wing) and to the strength of the state and its institutions; an inherently conservative philosophy.

And like the Roman, the American eagle also looks to the right, with an olive branch in the right talon with the sheaf of arrows in the left, as if being held in reserve, so the olive branch and the arrows are in contradiction to the right left propensity for peace and war as we view them today.

The wings are dominant in both cases, and become symbolic and imbedded in the nomenclature.

Why aren't we saying "Right" and "Wrong," "Righties and Wrongies," "Rightists and Wrongests"

Just wondering.

In a way, perceived as I've outlined, and particurly in ancient times as seen by the establishment, there was some of that right and wrong stigma that you refer to.

All of this is my own opinion and is probably a whole lot more serious an answer than you were looking for....

 

[PixieStix]

I was just wondering ...


We keep referring to the Right and the Left
Righties and Lefties
Rightists and Leftists















Why aren't we saying "Right" and "Wrong," "Righties and Wrongies," "Rightists and Wrongests"

Just wondering.

 

[uscitizen]

Left is often wrong and right is almost always wrong.

 

[☭proletarian☭]

I was just wondering ...


We keep referring to the Right and the Left
Righties and Lefties
Rightists and Leftists















Why aren't we saying "Right" and "Wrong," "Righties and Wrongies," "Rightists and Wrongests"

Just wondering.

Because you're an idiot.

Those on the Right side of the room should have been beheaded alongside the king. As to tyrants, also to their willful vassals.