Left or right, that's the question

Ask anyone if they're right or left-wing, and they'll probably know the answer. Not sure, however, whether they can fully justify their answer. But is the question itself relevant?

We can argue endlessly about what is, or would be, the essence of the true left and the true right. We can try to turn them into two monolithic categories, with a univocal meaning, born once and for all at the dawn of modernity. But this would only scratch the surface of the problem in one respect - certainly not the most interesting.

Car droite et gauche en politique sont avant tout des notions relatives: relatives à une histoire, à un contexte politique, et par voie de conséquence malléables et mouvantes. Même le récit tenu pour fondateur du clivage gauche/droite – une pure invention selon l’historien français Marcel Gauchet – l’indique: si le 11 septembre 1789, les Â