i used to think i could tell my Left from my Right, but now i'm no longer sure. maybe someone out there can straighten me out.
when the govt determines ALL legal human behavior, a la Hitler, King of France, Stalin, Animal Farm, etc., that's totalitarianism, autocracy, etc. isn't that the Right?
when the govt determines NO legal human behavior, a la Bukharin, Libertarian Party, etc., that's anarchism, etc. isn't that the Left?
and where are marxism, leninism, socialism, trotskyism, etc. on this imaginary governmental (not economic) line?
or maybe i should be drawing circles instead of lines?
norm -----------------
-----Original Message----- From: Gordon Fitch [mailto:gcf at panix.com] Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2000 10:46 AM To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com Subject: Re: Thomas Szasz (was Re: Anti-Depressants)
furuhashi.1 at osu.edu writes:
> << and, btw, arguments like that of szaz's were considered *very*
> >radical and *very* left a few decades ago. szaz's work, for ex, was
> >one of the factors behind changing the classification of
> >homosexuality as a psychiatric illness.
Michael Pugliese:
> Huh? I was always under the impression that Szasz was on the Right,
given
> his preferred publication outlets in Libertarian rags. ...
It's curious that personal autonomy is found, even assigned, to the Right, given that the Right is the party of authority, power, status, private wealth, order, and conformity, the friends of the King of France, while the Left is the party of freedom and equality. How'd that happen, anyway?
Because autonomy is what Szasz is on about, mostly -- the autonomy of persons in the face of institutions, for example to ingest what drugs they please. Conceded a lot of what he says is silly -- that's not the issue I'm raising.