Why do we divide politics into left vs. right? Blame France.
Our left-vs.-right conception of politics was born in revolutionary France. The maps that followed were more sophisticated, but each carries a bias of its own.
France’s National Assembly, meeting in the night of the August 4th 1789, a month before its cleavage into “left” and “right”, relative to its chairman (center). (Credit: Charles Monnet/Isidore Helman – Bibliothèque nationale de France – public domain). by Frank Jacobs Why do we grade politicians on a spectrum from left to right? Blame the French. On September 11th, 1789, France’s newly formed National Assembly voted on whether to grant the king a veto over its laws. This was no arcane point of procedure. As a direct challenge to Louis XVI’s absolute power, it was a hinge moment in the…
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