Left versus right: which is better?

Fight! That's what appears to be happening in Ukraine right now. (not The Ukraine please note; apparently that's not politically correct, even though we are The UK and they're The US. Whatever: I digress)


Anyhoo, in Ukraine we have the right, who seek closer ties with The West and the EU, and the left. who wish to cuddle up with Putin's Russia. Is it really that simple? I doubt it.


The origins of the terms "right" and "left" go back to the eighteenth century House of Commons, when the Whigs and Tories chose one or other side, pretty much randomly as I understand it, which side of the chamber to sit on. Then the terms became preserved, as it were, in aspic. In those days the Whigs were the party of the aristos and landowners while the Tories were, well, pretty much the same thing. Both parties were exceedingly right wing by today's standards, but the labels stuck, the Tories gradually becoming morphed into what we think of as the right today, with first the Liberals and then the Labour party assuming the mantle of the left. .


What of today? Now we find the terms less helpful. People on the far left and far right come together on some issues, such as membership of the EU and the preservation of individual freedoms. Anarchists, traditionally thought of belonging to the extreme left (though falsely, as you will rarely find them in agreement with socialists and communists) find strange bedfellows with members of the Tea Party, both of which groups believe, for very different reasons, of course, that there is too much government.


So I believe that rather than a straight line from left to right, a better understanding could be obtained by thinking of a square, with, say, the Tea Party at the top left and totalitarian groups like the Nazis at the top right, while at the bottom left of the square we would find the anarchists, while the bottom right would be occupied by totalitarian governments like the Chinese or North Koreans.


Where do you fit? I lean towards the lower left quadrant; Tony Benn and Dennis Skinner would be somewhere near the middle of the lower line of the square. Peter Hitchens and perhaps IDS would be nearer the upper left corner, while Putin and the Chinese leadership would be nearer the upper right corner.


Conclusion: left and right? it ain't that simple.