The Right, The Left, and The Beyond

25-01-2021

(An introvert’s psychological view of the Right and the Left greatly simplified)

Stripped of cultural conditioning and ideological indoctrination (and psychopathology), the introverts tend towards the Rightist individualist sentiments and values, while the extroverts tend towards the Leftist collectivist sentiments and values.

The natural temperamental proclivity of the introvert is towards solitude, individuality, and sovereignty, and this forms the Rightist sentiments and values; while the extrovert is temperamentally more inclined to sociality, collectivity, and submission.

The introverts, the Rightists, are inward and vertical, while the extroverts, the Leftists, are outward and horizontal, in their thought-vector. The Rightists value wisdom more than popularity; the Leftists value popularity more than wisdom.

The Rightists prefer a society that supports the pursuit of their kind of happiness—increase of knowledge and wisdom. The Leftists prefer a society that supports the pursuit of their kind of happiness—increase of socialization and popularity.

Since politics is an extrovertive collective social activity, it attracts extroverts, the Leftists, more by way of popularity contests. Hence, politics attracts extroverts who value popularity and sociability much more than wisdom and ethics.

This is the reason that the Leftist or the collectivist ideologies, values, sentiments, and preferences tend to dominate the world of politics. There is nothing wrong with Leftist values and sentiments in themselves (sans psychopathology). What is missing is a balance between the Left and the Right, between extroversion and introversion, and between collectivism (sociality/socialization) and individualism (sovereignty/solitude).

The Rightists want more solitude than socialization; the Leftists want more socialization than solitude; and the Centrists want both solitude and socialization about equally. We need to create a society in which each human being can get the right combination of solitude and socialization for himself or herself.

Therefore, there should not be the choice between the Right, the Left, and the Center, but the balance and harmony between them which we need to create and maintain in the world.

Humanity, individually and as a whole, needs both sociality and solitude, socialization and meditation, and the extrovertive horizontal and introvertive vertical movements of thought and consciousness. The society that collectively allows this balance to every individual is the society that works for everyone.

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