I’m an independent. I don’t subscribe to a particular ideology. Not even libertarianism. But I like libertarian ideas, and, I like ideas from all so called political ideologies. However, I’ve even gone further than the silly left-right spectrum. Political ideology keeps you from thinking from yourself and allows you to label all of your thoughts and ideas. If you think for yourself you’ll gain probably a better understanding of ideologies but I don’t understand why people need to think in the framework of a certain ideology. It seems silly to me. I’m a non ideological conspiracy theorist. I’m not a moderate. We don’t have to think in left or right terms. I don’t get it. It’s like there’s a religion based on leftist views or rightist views. It doesn’t make sense to me.
because you get a membership card, a sweet magazine, and you get to use the secret handshake.
on a more serious note, your feeling is correct. the left and right are best thought of as extensions of the two major christian sects that came to this country. calvinists/quakers/unitarians on one side and protestants/episcopalians on the other.
OTOH ideological frameworks are just a shorthand way of communicating your fundamental assumptions about the world. So as long as you’ve actually examined your own there’s nothing wrong with them.
This you may like, because you’ve already stipulated it.
How the Elite Control Politics
The left / right paradigm is false.
Left wing = Marxists / Communists (International Socialists)
Right wing = Nazi’s / Fascists (National Socialists)
Libertarianism is outside the realm of the false paradigm.
But really the Austrian School of Economics - is a value free science, built on axioms (self evident truths).
Defining yourself as left or right is silly, and to a point so are any political ideologies. They are useful in easily describing what political ideas you most identify with when talking to certain types of people. In many ways progressive and conservative have replaced religions and have become religions themselves. They even have their own heretics (Lieberman or Snowe).
Personally I would rather people, if they feel the need to identify themselves, identify themselves as Kantian, Nihilist, Utilitarian or some other school of philosophical thought. It would mean people would have to read some really convoluted, boring authors to know where they truly lie. Most people just find it easy to go with a side they generally agree with, and then over time completely conform to their sides norm.