I think I have reached a point in my political evolution where I can honestly call myself an enlightened leftist.
And ironically, part of that enlightenment has been realizing that I don’t really want to call myself a leftist anymore.
Yeah. I know. That sounds contradictory as fuck.
But hear me out.
I have reached a point where I increasingly reject political spectrums altogether.
Left versus right.
Capitalism versus anti-capitalism.
Authoritarian versus libertarian.
Progressive versus conservative.
Even those little political compass graphs that try to put every human being into a neat little square.
I reject the idea that human beings can be reduced to a fucking graph.
Because spectrums can be weaponized.
Labels can be weaponized.
And sometimes the more we obsess over where somebody supposedly falls on a spectrum, the easier it becomes to divide people into opposing camps.
You are on this side.
I am on that side.
Therefore, you are my enemy.
And once you start thinking that way, you stop looking at people as complicated human beings and start looking at them as categories.
That’s dangerous.
Because people are complicated.
Really fucking complicated.
I don’t believe you can take an entire human being and accurately place them somewhere on a straight line between “left” and “right.”
You can’t even necessarily place them accurately on a two-dimensional political compass.
Because what happens when somebody agrees with one thing traditionally associated with the left, disagrees with another thing traditionally associated with the left, agrees with something traditionally associated with the right, and completely rejects another thing traditionally associated with the right?
Where the fuck do you put them?
And that’s where I think these political spectrums start falling apart.
Because there are so many different flavors of left-wing thought.
There are so many different flavors of right-wing thought.
There are people who call themselves socialists who disagree with other socialists.
There are conservatives who disagree with other conservatives.
There are libertarians who disagree with other libertarians.
There are anarchists who disagree with other anarchists.
There are liberals who disagree with other liberals.
And sometimes two people who use the exact same political label can have radically different ideas about what that label actually means.
So can we really say with absolute certainty what “left” means?
Can we really say with absolute certainty what “right” means?
Sure, there are political scientists, historians, philosophers, activists, politicians, academics, commentators, and other people who have spent years studying these concepts.
And their perspectives can absolutely be useful.
But they are still perspectives.
They have frameworks.
They have assumptions.
They have biases.
They have particular definitions.
Sometimes they have political agendas.
And so do I.
I’m not immune to that.
I don’t pretend that I am some completely objective person floating above everyone else.
I have my own experiences.
I have my own beliefs.
I have my own biases.
I have my own values.
I have my own perspective.
So when I say that I increasingly reject political labels and spectrums, I’m not claiming that I have discovered some objective universal truth that everyone else needs to accept.
I’m saying that this is where my own thinking has taken me.
Colloquially, I can still say that I identify with a lot of things that people would traditionally describe as left-wing.
That’s fine.
Language is useful.
Labels can sometimes be useful.
Categories can sometimes be useful.
But I don’t want those labels to become cages.
Because that’s what I think happens when we become too obsessed with them.
We start asking:
“Are you left or right?”
“Are you capitalist or anti-capitalist?”
“Are you progressive or conservative?”
“What side are you on?”
And suddenly the entire conversation becomes about determining which box somebody belongs in.
Instead of asking what they actually believe.
That’s backwards.
And honestly, this is one of the reasons I think political spectrums can be so easily weaponized.
If I can convince you that someone belongs to the opposing side, I don’t necessarily have to convince you that their actual ideas are wrong.
I just have to convince you that they are one of those people.
And then the label does the work for me.
“They’re a capitalist.”
“They’re a communist.”
“They’re a conservative.”
“They’re a liberal.”
“They’re a socialist.”
“They’re a fascist.”
“They’re a leftist.”
“They’re a right-winger.”
And now you’ve got an enemy.
Except maybe you don’t.
Maybe you’ve just got another human being whose beliefs are more complicated than the label you’ve assigned to them.
And this isn’t just about politics.
Look at language itself.
English is fucking messy.
Words have multiple meanings.
Phrases have multiple meanings.
Context changes meanings.
Words evolve.
Different communities use the same words differently.
Two people can hear the same sentence and interpret it completely differently.
So why would I expect political terminology to somehow be perfectly objective, universally understood, and permanently fixed?
I wouldn’t.
Because it isn’t.
“Left.”
“Right.”
“Freedom.”
“Equality.”
“Capitalism.”
“Socialism.”
“Progress.”
“Tradition.”
“Liberty.”
“Justice.”
All of these words carry histories, definitions, interpretations, contexts, and competing understandings.
And people can use the exact same word while meaning completely different things.
That’s why I don’t want somebody else handing me a political blueprint and telling me:
“This is what you believe because you are a leftist.”
No.
Tell me what the idea is.
Tell me what the consequences are.
Tell me what assumptions it depends on.
Tell me what evidence supports it.
Tell me what criticisms exist.
Then let me fucking think about it.
Because I believe we have to be our own architects.
We have to construct our own understanding of the world.
We have to question the definitions we’ve inherited.
We have to be willing to say:
“Maybe I was wrong.”
“Maybe this label doesn’t fit anymore.”
“Maybe I agree with part of this idea but not the rest.”
“Maybe two supposedly opposing political philosophies both contain ideas worth considering.”
“Maybe this isn’t actually a binary.”
And maybe that’s the point.
Maybe the world isn’t supposed to fit neatly into spectrums.
Maybe human beings aren’t supposed to fit neatly into political boxes.
Maybe we don’t need to choose between two predetermined ends of a line.
Maybe we can build something that doesn’t exist on that line at all.
That’s where I think I’ve ended up.
Not necessarily beyond politics.
Not necessarily above everyone else.
Not necessarily objectively correct.
Just increasingly unwilling to allow political labels, spectrums, graphs, ideologies, or other people’s definitions to determine the boundaries of my thinking.
Because the moment I believe I have to fit inside somebody else’s framework, I’ve already accepted their framework as the starting point.
And I don’t think I have to do that.
I can listen to the left.
I can listen to the right.
I can listen to people who reject both.
I can listen to people who completely disagree with me.
I can take ideas apart.
I can keep what makes sense to me.
I can reject what doesn’t.
I can change my mind.
I can create my own framework.
And I can acknowledge that even my own framework is imperfect.
That’s what intellectual freedom means to me.
Not believing that I have all the answers.
Being willing to question the questions themselves.
So yeah.
Call me a leftist if you want.
I probably still fit a lot of people’s definition of one.
But I’ve reached a point where I’m increasingly comfortable saying:
Fuck the spectrum.
Fuck the boxes.
Fuck the assumption that every belief has to have a predetermined political home.
I don’t want someone else’s map telling me where I’m allowed to go.
I want to understand the terrain for myself.
And maybe that’s the most important part of all of this:
We don’t have to let other people decide what our political identities are supposed to mean.
We can think for ourselves.
We can question everything.
We can build our own frameworks.
We can be our own architects.
And no, before anyone gets the wrong idea, this is not me becoming some centrist-type figure.
No.
Not at all.
In fact, I think that’s another trap of the spectrum.
Because the moment someone says, “I reject the left-right binary,” people immediately assume:
“Oh, so you’re in the middle.”
No.
That’s not what I’m saying.
I’m not moving toward the center of the spectrum.
I’m questioning why the fucking spectrum gets to define the conversation in the first place.
And I think that’s an important distinction.
Because here’s what I’ve increasingly come to believe:
Labels and spectrums can actually help keep structures in place.
They can reinforce the status quo.
Think about it.
If everyone accepts that there are only two sides, then the argument becomes about which side should control the existing system.
Left versus right.
Capitalism versus anti-capitalism.
Establishment versus opposition.
Whatever the particular binary happens to be.
But both sides are still operating within the same framework.
They’re still playing the same game.
They’re still accepting the existence of the board.
And that’s precisely why I think spectrums can be so useful to people who benefit from existing structures.
Because if you can convince people that the only possibilities are Point A and Point B, you don’t have to worry as much about someone asking:
“Why the fuck are we limiting ourselves to Point A and Point B?”
That’s the question I want to ask.
And this is also why I think authoritarian systems have historically been so interested in labeling their opponents.
Call them radicals.
Call them extremists.
Call them dangerous.
Call them subversives.
Call them whatever you want.
The label itself can become a way of placing someone outside what society considers “acceptable.”
And notice what has already happened.
The moment we accept the spectrum, we accept the premise that there is a spectrum.
We accept that there is a defined political space.
We accept that there is a center.
We accept that there are acceptable positions to one side and acceptable positions to the other.
And then someone gets to decide where the boundaries are.
That’s fucking powerful.
Because if you control the boundaries of the spectrum, you can make certain ideas seem normal and other ideas seem inherently unreasonable simply because of where you’ve placed them.
And people can reinforce that system without even realizing they’re doing it.
That’s the part that fascinates me.
You don’t necessarily need someone standing over you with a gun telling you what you’re allowed to think.
Sometimes people will police the boundaries themselves.
They’ll say:
“That’s too far left.”
“That’s too far right.”
“That’s radical.”
“That’s extreme.”
“That’s not realistic.”
“That’s not politically possible.”
And suddenly the conversation isn’t about whether the idea itself has merit.
It’s about where the idea supposedly sits on the spectrum.
And that’s exactly what I want to reject.
I’m not saying every radical idea is good.
I’m not saying every idea outside the mainstream is correct.
I’m not saying the political center is inherently bad.
I’m saying that where an idea sits on a spectrum does not, by itself, tell me whether the idea is right, wrong, useful, harmful, liberating, oppressive, practical, or completely fucking ridiculous.
The idea has to be examined on its own.
That’s what I mean when I say I want to reject the spectrum.
I’m not trying to find a more comfortable position somewhere between the two sides.
I’m questioning the assumption that I have to stand somewhere on that line at all.
Because maybe the line itself is part of the problem.
Maybe the box is part of the problem.
Maybe constantly asking people which side they’re on is part of the mechanism that keeps everyone divided into sides.
And division is fucking useful.
If everyone is busy fighting each other over which side of the spectrum is better, they’re not necessarily questioning the structures that created the spectrum in the first place.
They’re fighting over the furniture while ignoring the architecture.
And that’s why I don’t want my rejection of political spectrums interpreted as some “both sides are equally bad” centrist bullshit.
That’s not what I’m saying.
I’m saying something much more fundamental:
I don’t want to inherit the framework before I even begin thinking.
I want to question the framework.
I want to question the categories.
I want to question the assumptions.
I want to question who created the definitions.
I want to question who benefits from those definitions.
And I want to be willing to imagine something outside of them.
Because if we never reject the boundaries, how the hell are we ever supposed to build something genuinely different?
Maybe the goal isn’t to move from one end of the spectrum to the other.
Maybe the goal is to stop letting the spectrum determine where we’re allowed to go.