Episode 297: Hyrum Lewis on The Myth of Left and Right (February 19, 2025)

In this episode of The Open Door, panelists Thomas Storck, Andrew Sorokowski, and Christopher Zehnder interview Hyrum Lewis on the Left/Right Binary.

1.  Can you explain the thesis of your book? Why do you speak of the Left and Right as being a myth?
2. How did you come to see through the Left/Right binary?
3.  Given some of the obvious counter-examples to the prevailing narrative, why is it so established and powerful? Intellectual laziness? Vested interests?  cf. p. 64ff.
4. Is part of the problem the fact that political scientists, by and large, do not see themselves as concerned with ideas as such, but with political behavior and data as raw material for scientific analysis, much like chemists studying the reactions of chemical elements?
5. Are you familiar with the Nolan chart? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_Chart   Do you see that as much of an improvement?
6. If we are to make use of any kind of political typologies, how do we deal with the fact that people can hold similar or identical views on the same issue but for very different reasons? Cf. pp. 63, 88ff.
7. Does it make sense, in your opinion, to speak more in terms of broad philosophic-political movements and perhaps with those movements we could speak of left or right? E.g., socialism, fascism, classical liberalism, etc.

As American politics descends into a battle of anger and hostility between two groups called "left" and "right," people increasingly ask: What is the essential difference between these two ideological groups? In The Myth of Left and Right, Hyrum Lewis and Verlan Lewis provide the surprising answer: nothing. As the authors argue, there is no enduring philosophy, disposition, or essence uniting the various positions associated with the liberal and conservative ideologies of today. Far from being an eternal dividing line of American politics, the political spectrum came to the United States in the 1920s and, since then, left and right have evolved in so many unpredictable and even contradictory ways that there is currently nothing other than tribal loyalty holding together the many disparate positions that fly under the banners of "liberal" and "conservative." Powerfully argued and cutting against the grain of most scholarship on polarization in America, this book shows why the idea that the political spectrum measures deeply held worldviews is the central political myth of our time and a major cause of the confusion and vitriol that characterize public discourse.

https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Left-Right-Verlan-Lewis/dp/0197680623