Ken Silber
2009-06-11 11:55:35
It’s ahistorical to sanitize “right wing” as simply “adheres to individualism, the values of the enlightenment, and limited government.” Historically, the “right” began with people who wanted to preserve the old regime following the French Revolution. The advocates of laissez faire and enlightenment values were then found on the left. Over time, the left became associated with socialism, and the right with individualism, but those have hardly been the only meanings. Roughly speaking, people who try to preserve some earlier order (or idealized version of one) are on the right; and a nutcase who wants to restore racial purity would be on the extreme right.
