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It is interesting that these two different powers took the words “Right” and “Left” from the Estates-General in France. On the right sat the nobility and the clergy (what were the clergy doing over there?) and on the left sat the peasants and 90 percent of the population. Those are now commonly used terms in the global political world. The Right is normally concerned with maintaining some status quo, stability, continuity, and authority; that is a legitimate need and without it you have chaos. Those on the Right, however, are normally considered innocent until proven guilty.
Those on the Left are presumed, for some reason, to be guilty until proven innocent, at least in the minds of many. (Note how the Vatican goes to great length to reconcile “heretics” on the Right, but never the opposite.) The powers that have tended to write history have usually been from the side of authority and power, and those who protect power and authority. Once we see this, we wonder why we never saw it before. Without some form of Right, we have chaos in society; and without some form of Left there is no truth and reform in a culture. Thomas Jefferson said we would need another American Revolution approximately every 25 years, or it would become its own new tyranny. And thus the pendulum swings, and I guess we all hope we are living at the appropriate time when it is swinging toward our preferred side, or that there are at least a few elders around.
Adapted from A Lever and a Place to Stand:
The Contemplative Stance, the Active Prayer, p. 97
(See also
A Lever and a Place to Stand:
The Contemplative Stance, the Active Prayer (CD))
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