Talk:Far-left politics

History by country?

I took a look at this article. I find it perhaps too short, but actually not bad. The lead is similar to the lead of far-right politics, which I think is probably appropriate. I notice that far-right politics has a history by country section. I think this article should have something similar. This could in turn go into genocides in China, the Soviet Union, North Korea, and Cambodia, for example, just as the far-right article goes into the Rwandan genocide. Adoring nanny (talk) 03:09, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

The basic problem is that if you type "far right" into Google books, you get thousands of results, type in "far left" and you get nothing. The term far right and similar ones were coined to group a number of similar but unrelated groups, such as Italian neo-fascists and American Klansmen. But that problem did not happen for the Left, which is made up of related groups. So this article is about how the term far left is used. TFD (talk) 17:51, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

There is a reason this is not done. Unlike the fascist movement, the far-left is composed of many different groups, often with wildly different ideologies. Even within the Stalinist branch which ruled over China, North Korea and the USSR there is a lot of variation in ideology and action. Cambodia is in many ways the exact opposite of Stalinism, and in some ways even the opposite of communism due to its repressive and ultranationalist nature. These branches, in turn, cannot even be compared to modern far-left politics, which often does away with authoritarianism, pursuing either a libertarian or idealist society. Thus, to add a summary by country is oversimplification to the point of becoming propaganda. Lucydesu (talk) 09:43, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure the far-right is also composed of many different ideologies. They're not like a ideological monolith. For example, in Spain the far-right can be composed of reactionary Carlists, the nationalist Francoists and National-Catholics, and the Falangists. Same with Germany when at the time National Socialists from the NSDAP and ultraconservatives from the DNVP. Metaxists, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army or the Chetniks fought fascism and they are considered far-right too. If you consider adding history of the far-left as "propaganda" then we could consider the whole history of the far-right as propaganda too Alejandro Basombrio (talk) 01:11, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

This article is a farce

You will not find a single political science textbook that accepts "far-left" as a scientific term. This article should be deleted. 120.22.38.19 (talk) 04:52, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

There are plenty of sources in this article which use this term. — Czello 07:39, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

None of which explicitly define WHAT far left politics is, which is a farce. Anyone who had actually studied political science would tell you how much of a farce this article is and why it should be deleted. In fact this entire article is a hypothetical which goes against Wikipedia policy itself particularly Wikipedia:CRYSTAL on point four (4) in particular

"Although currently accepted scientific paradigms may later be rejected, and hypotheses previously held to be controversial or incorrect sometimes become accepted by the scientific community, it is not the place of Wikipedia to venture such projections."

On that basis alone this article due to its speculative nature should be entirely deleted... "Far Left" is not a term any political scientist would use (and it is a science, generally falling under systems science, due to the relationship with the way systems science, and systems theory works in general) however hard it is to observe what the machinations of politics do at a scientific level beyond qualitative analysis. There are literal effects on the world around us or "system" aka "biosphere" due to the results of politics. "Far Leftt" is just not a term any man of science actually uses though... Even this article states that it IS NOT clearly well defined enough yet.

Quoting reason enough itself for the article not to be here from the article itself

"The term does not have a single, coherent definition." --120.22.14.186 (talk) 08:15, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

Clearly there is a term called "far-left" which is notable and used widely, given how well sourced it is. The fact that there isn't a single unifying definition doesn't mean the term doesn't exist or isn't notable - nor that we shouldn't discuss it. Indeed, part of the purpose of the article is to discuss the fact that it might not have a singular definition. — Czello 08:44, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

A lack of coherency often indicates a lack of cogent thought on the matter, lots of people have speculated about the term far left, but the frequency of its use (which often tells us a lot scientifically) in actual studies is usually in places such as Fox News and other non-mainstream news sources where it comes up far more frequently. And yes, frequency is something we can study scientifically in political science pretty much under any studying of cultural anthropology actually where frequency and terms specific to ideologies and politics often come up, along with views about conservatism, liberalism and many other things (and what makes these things). My argument is such, that while it may be a term, it's not a very good one, and using terms spuriously that have very little cogent and coherent meaning is often dangerous at best, and life threatening at worst (as we've already seen with the far right politics of this world) that come up with these bastardisations of terms. Just look at the January 6 riots or the Christchurch mosque shootings to see where misuse of terms actually gets us when some idiot (even the former President of the United States) takes misuse of terms way too far. That is why this topic lacks usefulness (and is dangerous) to the vast majority of the world.

If you missed the message misusing terms leads to ideologues (people who take ideologies too far) and bigots that do dangerous and stupid things. that much is self evident. Trying to create an alternate reality where an equivocal far left exists in the same sphere of influence as the far right (which is an actual thing) is dangerous and foolhardy at best... Even the Bay of Pigs Crisis (mostly spurred on by the United States) never killed nearly as many people, as in general, most, if not all modern conflicts have been spurred on by those from the far right, and even when it does lead to someone like Fidel or Raúl Castro these people are not nearly as dangerous or stupid as their right wing equivalent.

AND FYI, no this isn't a spurious matter off the top of my head, people have written entire books about this issue such as Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies: Communicative Capitalism and Left Politics with far more weight than my own voice about the moral bankruptcy of neoliberalism, neoconservatism, and conservative iealogues in general who use these terms. --120.22.28.205 (talk) 07:35, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

I certainly agree that defining this term is challenging but the same can be said about thousands of other Wikipedia articles. That is why it is entirely appropriate to write in articles, "some reliable sources define the topic as A while other sources define the topic as B, or less commonly as C. An assertion that this topic lacks usefulness (and is dangerous) to the vast majority of the world should be ignored by all serious Wikipedia editors. We care not at all about Righting great wrongs terminology like "usefulness" or "dangerousness". We summarize what reliable sources say, period, end of story. Cullen328 (talk) 07:54, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm not here to right a great wrong though I'm here to point out why this article is stupid. As per the assertions on P. 147 of the book I mentioned about the tribalism of the modern media landscape and the ongoing cultural war like the failed war on drugs which was nothing more than another conservative attack on progressive people. The assertion as per P. 147 is that the radical left (another term for far left) is built into technology as per the preeminent discussion that it may be the "built in" perspective on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, that swirls around every US election cycle (without much evidence in terms of results to show that's the case by the way). These are problematic facts of trying to define any "far left" or whether it exists, in fact, as another analysis the author I suggested talks about "communicative capitalism" and using the media landscape to construct an alternative narrative which we know for a fact does happen through people like Rupert Murdoch and the Murdoch Press and the endless scandals that eventually plagued orginisations such as News of the World... Which by any assertion presents me as a person of the middle of the road that is highlighting how dangerous and nefarious this term "far left" actually is... and before you ask there are a million and one other precedents I could use as example to support my position so don't go there that it's just one man standing on a soap box. It isn't. It does highlight the strong link between capitalism, money and being able to buy a conservative perspective that "ultra-left nationalists" may be hiding under your bed though... which is the problem with the term "far left" and where it stems from (in the modern sense). --120.22.28.205 (talk) 08:08, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

In order to add any content about highlighting how dangerous and nefarious this term "far left" actually is, we need references to high quality reliable sources making that assertion. Claims made by random people on the internet, whether you or me or anyone else, must be ignored on Wikipedia. Our role as Wikipedia editors is to summarize published reliable sources, not to spout our own opinions. This is firmly established, and non-negotiable. Cullen328 (talk) 08:24, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

I just sumarised a position actually (with a page number) you can go and investigate for yourself, that says exactly what I'm saying, in far less words, in one of these amazing things called "credible sources" i.e. a book... Maybe you could try clicking on the link I placed above to said book where you can read the information I sumarised into the ideas presented in said book. I didn't rely on my own (quite extensive) thoughts, but a literal direct paraphrase of the general argument presented on P.147 of said book above. the good news is that p. 147 of said book which clarifies the matter I stated above is available for free. --120.22.28.205 (talk) 08:27, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

So what exactly are you proposing here? If it's still deletion of the article I can say that won't happen - despite disagreement on what the term means, it is a term that is used, rather notably so; indeed, part of the article discusses the fact it might not be precise. If, however, you're now just proposing a quote it's a quote from the aforementioned book - well I should think we could add that with attribution. — Czello 09:48, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

The issue is the one that I've raised as per what is outlined in the book "communicative capitalism" and the use of the term "far left" in the modern sense (particularly in America) as a pejorative, widely used by media sources (e.g. the Murdoch Press) as I outlined above, to literally do nothing but muck raking. I think that at least deserves to be explained in this article, as it's a well known fact. I could sumarise it myself, but I don't have an account here, because I often feel, due to how difficult it is to interact with Wikipedians, that having an account here is often a waste of my intelligence.

I mean at the very least the perspective that it is a pejorative is a widely held belief (beyond myself) that can be atributed by multiple sources (even beyond the one I mentioned). That fact needs to be at least represented in this article.

Quite personally I maintain the fact that far left is a farce, but it doesn't seem you want to come on board with that, even if I provide you the evidence as such. Just because a term is widely used does not mean it is not farcical thought. --120.22.83.117 (talk) 14:53, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

I agree that the vast majority of current usage of the term in Western media is as a meaningless pejorative. That does not mean that the term has no actual meaning. With adequate sourcing, I think the wide usage as a pejorative used against anyone not on the far-right should be added. O3000, Ret. (talk) 15:28, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

What an interesting discussion. I'll start by saying that statements such as "having an account here is often a waste of my intelligence" does little to advance any discussion, given that most of us here do have accounts. I am also one of those who is alternately amused and concerned about the use of the term “far left” in the media. But the same could be said about the term “socialist,” as in “Joe Biden is pushing the socialist agenda.” However this does not mean that wikipedia should remove the Socialist article. So user 120.22.83.117|120.22.83.117, I would be very interested to see you really have a go at the article, you do not need an account to do that, and use your intelligence and sources on the article rather than on the talk page. Carptrash (talk) 16:45, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

See: "Wikipedia is not a dictionary": "Encyclopedia articles are about a person, or a group, a concept, a place, a thing, an event, etc. In some cases, a word or phrase itself may be an encyclopedic subject, such as Macedonia (terminology) or truthiness. However, articles rarely, if ever, contain more than one distinct definition or usage of the article's title."

Speakers use the term far left to refer to positions that more left-wing than what they consider acceptable. Hence Soviet Communists refered to Maoists are far left, while Fox News presenters refer to Joe Biden as far left.

The solution would seem to be to say that it is a term that means different things depending on the speakers and leave out the details of everything that could be conceivably referred to as far left.

TFD (talk) 21:17, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

"Soviet Communists refered to Maoists are far left." Never heard that in my life, have you got a source for that? The Sino-Russian relationship is complex but in general the two sides are and always have been quite favorable to eachother and would be reported as such in most media sources, and journal articles, dating way back to when the Maoists took over mainland China. Now if you're talking about what Taiwan (which is the actual China that evacuated to the island of Taiwan) thinks about China or Russia that's a very different story, but you said China not Taiwan. --120.22.83.117 (talk) 22:17, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

It seems to me that "far left" is a concept, it appears frequently in the media and I also think that the Soviet-China example is not such a good one. In fact, (opinion) a bad one. Carptrash (talk) 22:41, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

I was thinking more in terms of Maoists outside China, such as in the New Communist movement. While I cannot find a source at the moment, here are some examples of Communists referring to people to their left: "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder, Left Opposition, Left communism in China (aka "ultra-left").

Anyway, since far left is not an encyclopedic topic, we can only rely on our own experience and research to determine how the term is used. Maybe someday someone will write an academic article about the topic so we can put it into the article. But there is no reason for having an article for every possible juxtaposition of an adjective and a noun. Some people for example might describe Elizabeth Warren as very liberal. But that doesn't mean we need an article about very liberalism. TFD (talk) 23:27, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

Just like we do not really need an article on the term far left, but it is here anyway, right? I mean by that logic... Look, the term IS problematic, ill defined, troublesome as I have pointed out through better experience than my own, and not really definitive of anything except political diatribe. I have never once heard anyone self-reference themselves as “far-left” or their ideology as far left, in any serious nature, and I do not think anyone ever will because it is just not really a term that is used by anyone other than far right extremists. Anyway, Marxism at its core is completely unproblematic as it has never really been tested in the way Marx or Engels intended it to be tested, and for all the pseudo-babel in the world going on here for god sake... I will highlight a point that is notable to this concept of far left as below:

Marx himself like other later revolutionary thinkers such as Keynes were only really testing their theories on economics as Marx did in his most prolific book Das Kapital (which was nothing more than a critique otherwise known as an analysis) which is really just a prediction of what is going on now which is Late capitalism and on the basis of that point, where people were assumed would get sick of capitalism considering we are all getting shafted by it as Marx predicted. It does turn out instead that the world is full of Sadomasochism and some people gather sexual arousal and gratification from being shafted as per the fifth addition of the DSM (DSM-5) by forces outside of their control (to meet the current definition of sadomasochism).

And I refer to the current interpretation anyways, of late stage capitalism, not the one Marx created when he was talking about it (I am not a Marxist). I am, however, a person with a degree in political science who understands what Marx was actually getting at and not the diatribe about communists hiding underneath your bed and yes as a person with a degree in political science I understand political sociology and how to read, interpret, and apply the DSM to this mess which is really just a critique on fascism and the Fasces (sometimes referred to as an axe) which is wielded over people's heads as a form of control (particularly in the United States where you will work, or you will die). This comparison was not achieved by me, but the world famous and highly reputable Atlantic journal in the article on this link.

It was McCarthyism that made Marx a swear word and nothing else and, to be frank, McCarthyism is nothing more than propaganda. There is nothing credible that makes Karl Marx a swear word today, the core of the concept has just been eroded by a bunch of hapless idiots who no longer have any reference point for what Marx was actually about. They read Marx as if its some kind of Manchurian prophecy of the assassination of society as we know it, when in reality it is a social analysis of why the people on the bottom level of any capitalism system are always going to be screwed by the 1% who own the wealth and all the tools to make wealth... Read without the bullshit, there is nothing wrong with Das Kapital and it is a fine analysis of where we are today. --120.22.83.117 (talk) 01:26, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

"where you will work, or you will die" Considering the country's overly expensive and inadequate healthcare system, that should probably be "you will work and you will die" or "you will work until your last breath". Dimadick (talk) 07:29, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Probably the second one in actuality, if you don't have a good pension fund in the United States you will work until you die and then there is no guarantee even if that's the case due to chapter 11 you will ever receive your entitlements (unlike Australia). Living in the United States is much more like living with the burden of planning for a highly burdened, self managed Superannuation in Australia and then there is not even a guarantee in the United States that you will ever have a good enough job to achieve that either... and here we are decrying the left in this article as if its evil --120.22.86.177 (talk) 10:44, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

• I mean, the article basically says that? The second sentence is The term does not have a single, coherent definition; some scholars consider it to represent the left of social democracy, while others limit it to the left of communist parties. And the bulk of the article is saying "scholars don't agree on a single definition for the far-left" and then listing the various conflicting definitions they've proposed. Most sourcing covers this problem - the term is used to mirror "far-right" but lacks the same concrete meaning for a variety of reasons, mostly relating to the far-left encompassing far more things. But there's still enough coverage of the term to write an article saying these things. --Aquillion (talk) 16:32, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

The term "far left" as I mostly see it does not mean left of the Communist Party, not when it is employed, as was the case with Kamala Harris who " critics were quick to label her as far left." Also, I don't think it was Sen McCarthy who made Marx a swear word he just tapped into a pool that was already there. The same pool the "far left" users are drawing from. Carptrash (talk) 16:47, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

When I raised issue with this article the vast majority of my complaint was that the article fell under the rules based on crystal balls by stating that the vast majrity of this article is a hypothesis, in the worst sense. We're not here to create articles on what something "may" be to quote Wikipedia on what wikipedia is not:

"Wikipedia is not a collection of unverifiable speculation, rumors, or presumptions."

This comes from the literal policy Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not by the way, so I'm not going out swinging on some "branch too far."

I feel points three (3) and points four (4) are most relevant:

3. Articles that present original research in the form of extrapolation, speculation, and "future history" are inappropriate. Although scientific and cultural norms continually evolve, we must wait for this evolution to happen, rather than try to predict it. Of course, we do and should have articles about notable artistic works, essays, or credible research that embody predictions. An article on weapons in Star Trek is appropriate; an article on "Weapons to be used in World War III" is not.

4.Although currently accepted scientific paradigms may later be rejected, and hypotheses previously held to be controversial or incorrect sometimes become accepted by the scientific community, it is not the place of Wikipedia to venture such projections.

I feel like the vast majority of this article is a projection in the worst possible sense, taken from the Oxford dictionary "the unconscious transfer of one's desires or emotions to another person" and while this may not be intentional, I still feel that's the type of projection going on here. --120.22.13.74 (talk) 00:10, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

• A radical proposal. Let us just use RS and ignore the PAs. Not only does this follow PAG, it's easy as the article already does this. Although, with adequate sourcing, I think the wide usage as a pejorative used against anyone not on the far-right should be added. O3000, Ret. (talk) 00:23, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

A bare minimum would be to include the fact that the way the term is often used largely as a pejorative, I think we can find a consensus point on that. Sometimes such radical proposals are not so bad. --120.22.13.74 (talk) 00:32, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Can you find any reliable sources that define the far left? I could not find any books or academic articles about it because it is not a concept but just a juxtaposition of an adjective and noun which has meaning according to the context implied by the writer. TFD (talk) 03:06, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

• Reviewing the history of the lead, I think the issue is that an edit a few months back added a lot of stuff with the intention of making the lead here a "mirror" of the one at Far-right politics. Reviewing it, it seems WP:SYNTHy to me, in that it strung together a lot of passing mentions of the term "far-left" with the intent of producing a definition that resembled the other article - which is especially a problem given that the sources we do have that discuss far-left politics directly generally say it lacks a coherent definition; the two articles therefore shouldn't be mirrors of each other. I think a lot of the concerns above stem from the reasonable concern that that synth-y rewrite, which sort of contradicted the first part of the lead and implied that the term has a concrete definition, could lead to the perception that we're endorsing the more handwavy pejorative usage. --Aquillion (talk) 04:42, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

To be honest reviewing the article it seems like the whole thing is a little bit too speculative to begin with. You are correct in one sense, it does seem like a mirror, and some of that is deliberate. At the very least it needs to be pointed out categorically that there is no clearly coherent definition of what far left actually is --120.22.119.56 (talk) 08:33, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

So can someone here point me to a use of the term "far left" that is not just a pejorative label handed out from someone on the right? Carptrash (talk) 05:33, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
For the term “far left” to have any literal meaning it would need to be referring to people who are left of the Communist Party USA, the Social Democrats, USA, the Socialist Party USA, the Working Families Party, the Socialist Workers Party (United States), and at the very least the Green Party (United States) because these are the left in America. When the term “far left” is applied to any member of Congress, with perhaps a few exceptions, it is just being used as a negative, value loaded label. Carptrash (talk) 05:52, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

No, for a term to be relevant it has to be coined and relevant to something or other. Take for example the school of Constructivism in international relations which is now an accepted (if inherently new) school of political science and international relations. Constructivism is a school of thought among many things psychology, education (which is a form of psychology anyway coming from the behaviorists such as Skinner, Thorndike and Pavlov originally). It works on the input, synthesis, output and system philosophy to tell us what the variables of a system are where they begin with the input, the synthesis of thought that goes into making something related to the international relations cycle, e.g. an actor, and an output where we can observe what that actor is and how it acts inherently in relation to the entire system as a construct. We can study it and know that it exists as something scientific, and not just as a brain fart. It is scientific, analytical and at its core is truly part of systems science and by way of that quantum mechanics.

In fact to step back a little education is also probably a good example Lev Vygotsky wanted to know inherently what you had to do at the input level, to construct knowledge, inside of a school, to get a learner from point (a) to the output at point (b) and so he commited long term studios effort to tell us how to achieve that... Also roughly give or take about 125 years ago we didn't have the concept of education, the child or even psychology as we know it today. People like the people who created the school of constructivism in laymans terms coin theories to express what it is they're doing, in this case behaviorist psychologists, when enough people have an idea of what it does, other people speculate on it and therefore it becomes something that is observable, if it's observable we can research it, if it's researchable then we can hypothesize that there may be this thing called the behaviorist model of psychological education, if that is the case we can (and we have) tested it with experiments, analysed it, and reported back on what it is. We know for example through operant and cclassical conditioning we can train a dog to salivate to the sound of a bell, therefore the experiment works as a model of what it is. The same can be said for the school of constructivism, which is really the sociological observations of how states and actors are created, and held collectively so we can identify for example what a "Vladimir Putin" or "current day Russia is" which is what then lets us analyse what they are or may be as an individual or state actor. We can look at how a Vladimir Putin is created at the input level (what are the variables to create a Vladimir Putin, study the synthesis of how he came to be, and look at the outcome as a construct we can analyze sociologically to know what a Vladimir Putin does to the world as a state actor.

See the problem with this far left thing is that it doesn't fit neatly into any box where we can analyse what it is, at the moment my best understanding of far left is to associate it with diatribe, poliemics and screed (see particularly definition 5 of screed from the sister project Wiktionary), see, there doesn't seem to be any clearly identifiable way to make any sense of what the term "far left" actually is, but then again, that's what the right wants, the act of saying far left, is to actually create the conversation of "what's a far leftist?" which leads to obfuscation through confusion and that's the problem with this article in a nut shell.

In my humble opinion for however little it's worth (as an original point of view) "far left" is nothing more than a tool to obfuscate in arguments (in this case make the left seem obscure, unclear, and unintelligible, particularly the "far left" for the point of cheap point scoring in Polemicals and this isn't a university nor am I here to vent my spleen in a polemic debate or a moot. We are here to give people a reference to what "far left" actually means. That is, if Wikipedia still considers itself an encyclopedia?

Because all I am getting from reading this article is:

”Far-left” has no specific definition.

And for an encylopedia that is supposed to give a reference point about what something IS that is very problematic. Also I fail to see how when we all know capitalism is fundamentally flawed and broken how "Far-left politics is radical for calling for fundamental change to the capitalist socio-economic structure of society..." or even how that statement meets the basis point of a neutral point of view. Being against capitalism itself is unproblematic. It's what you do with that viewpoint in the mean time that counts. Stating such nonsense explicitly as if it's a bad thing is nothing more than a McCarthyist diatribe at best. Also there are plenty of other mixed market systems that work fundamentally fine such as most of Europe which by now is social democratic across the board, with welfare states accross the entirety of continental Europe, not to mention Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. All of which are mixed market, social welfare states.... The only examples of broken capitalist states by this point are China and the United States, and its not working out well right now for either of them. Mind you Chinese capitalism is very different than American capitalism as the market is quasi and still largely state controlled, but it is a market none the less, and the entirety of the modern Chinese system runs off of it because of the failures of Maoist Communism. 120.22.119.56 (talk) 07:38, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

@Carptrash and of course there are a number of those. Ok, not a forum but becoming one, but my experience and understanding is that far left people/groups are revolutionaries trying to gain power by force, unlike for instance the Communist parties that control some Indian states. Ditto far right. Doug Weller talk 11:19, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Again it is essential to have a source that defines the topic so that the article can have a scope.

I disagree that because the far right is a topic that means far left is too. Far right has a rich body of literature, far left has none. Far right incidentally has two major definitions: right of mainstream parties (e.g., right-wing populism) and the farthest to the right possible (e.g., fascism). But there is extensive literature about how to define the term. Usually writers will accept one definition and call the other topic extreme right. Again, there is nothing like that for left-wing politics. TFD (talk) 15:12, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

This, for something to be a reference we need to be able to define WHAT it is --120.22.170.225 (talk) 07:11, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Well in parts of the world "far left" might have meaning but in the USA it is just an attempt at a nasty thing to call someone. My guess is that after serious researchers delve into it they will discover that it was a right wing reaction to being called "fascists." Of course I have not yet published my theory so . . . ........... Carptrash (talk) 16:44, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

The terms far right, extreme right, etc. came to be adopted by social scientists in comparative politics after WW2 to describe various right wing groups. The problem they faced was that there were numerous groups that had no obvious connections with each other. For example, the American Nazi Party, the John Birch Society and the KKK were not historically related but had overlapping ideas that were to the right of the mainstream. The origins of this usage can be sourced. But this was never a problem with left-wing groups so no similar terminology for categorization was required.

Previously the term neo-fascist had been widely used, but was hard to justify since many far right groups had no connection with historical fascism. OTOH, almost all left wing groups have connections with historical socialism or anarchism. TFD (talk) 17:04, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

If I may suggest the radical step of looking at sources, there looks to be quite a lot of them.[1] I get the general impression that the term is mostly used in relation to European politics, with themes of communism, terrorism, anti-semitism, and Euro-skepticism. Sennalen (talk) 17:07, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Yes, but the issue here is not so much the treatment of the term in relation with European usage, but with the American usage. The sources that you have pointed out seem to suggest that the term "far left" in the USA refers to groups or ideas left of the Communist Party USA, but in fact the way that it is being used today is about, for example, members of Congress, none of whom are left of the CPUSA. That is the usage that we are struggling with. Carptrash (talk) 23:41, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Indeed. Anyone that doesn't believe in background checks for gun purchases, Medicaid, the ACA, climate change, vaccines, not banning books about Rosa Parks or the KKK or even To Kill a Mockingbird , anything non-Christian, sexual orientation, etc. is labeled far-left. O3000, Ret. (talk) 00:10, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Anyone who doesn't believe in these things is "far left?" More like (opinion) anyone who does. Carptrash (talk) 18:20, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Well pick out one of them and tell us what the definition is, because it seems that there is no consistency. Also, one major category seems to be about "far left parties," but these are generally referred to today as "left parties." Examples include PODEMOS and SYRIZA. Do you want to make that the topic and change the article title to its common name? TFD (talk) 00:56, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

SYRIZA is a good one, no one in Greece referred to them as radical at all at the time (I am Greek and Australian at the same time) no one refereed to them anything at the time really other than the obvious. Due to their close relations with the communist party in Greece, some people refereed to them as communists or communist sympathizers. I wouldn't go as far as to say that they were communists either, there hasn't been true communism in Greece since before the military junta and there has never been popular communism in Greece what so ever really except for a brief period after World War II. The real point is, that even in the European terms SYRIZA was not seen as radical at the time. The radical party at the time when SYRIZA was Golden Dawn which was a radical right Neo-Nazi party modeled on other far right activists such as those in France such as Marine Le Pen that focused at the time on racism, the destruction of multiculturalism and ethic pluralism in Europe. It really was a period of us and them which came with the European Financial crisis, where migrants became the scapegoat as in America withDreamers which is also just another poorly thought out version of McCarthyism. In fact to circle back to Greece, most people voted for SYRIZA because they were not PASOK or New Democracy. But at the same time they also voted for them because there was wind a party like Golden Dawn would win, and a lot of people instead voted for SYRIZA because they WERE NOT the radical option. The other thing with anything to do with radical is mistranslated also.

Radical in this sense means nothing more than "grass roots" which would align it basically with any of the Green parties in Europe including the one that is currently the elected government in Germany. There is nothing radical about them either. ΣΥΡΙΖΑ can be translated from Greek in a literal sense to the English term "grassroots" which in its most simple sense means appealing to the everyday person in your local community.

See the problem here is that there still doesn't seem to be a clear definition of anything provided that is anything more than a childlike pejorative. --120.22.3.176 (talk) 17:40, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

As I said, they are called left parties which is what they call themselves. Mostly they are coalitions of people with diverse views. Originally Luke March, writing for an SDP thinktank, called them "far left" parties, but he now accepts left parties as a better description. I agree though that they are not on the extreme left. SYRIZA, which is the only left party to gain power, did not govern particularly differently from PASOK. TFD (talk) 18:19, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

So should we retitle the article "Far left in Europe" and leave the USA out of it, to be dealt with, or not, somewhere else? Carptrash (talk) 18:22, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

I would change it to "Left parties" and outline groups such as SYRIZA. There is at least one left party outside Europe, Québec solidaire, so I would not say it is European only. TFD (talk) 22:11, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Carptrash, SYRIZA didn't govern any different to PASOK because they knew they would get slaughtered in the polls, and anyway SYRIZA was just basically PASOK for "young people" after one too many Papendreous Just like one too many Clinton's in America. Apart from a short time during Nazi occupied Greece and after with the Junta, Greece is not a radical country... In fact to use Greece as an example of radicalism is the world's biggest political farce. Even the right in Greece is left by world's standards. Greece is one of the most sensible countries in Europe in general because it has to navigate the treachery of both East and West while getting screwed by both, therefore using Greece as an example of radicalism when it has to manage its ties with North Africa, the Middle East, Turkey and America through NATO. If anything Greece is well known to represent one of the most sensible moderate voices in global politics in the whole of Europe... Greece just has its own problem of being screwed by Germany, for aligning itself with the European Union. To tie Greece to radicalism, actually no, the vast majority of people in Greece and even SYRIZA as a party were full of moderates, even the current New Democracy is moderate by global standards. Greece in general is a moderate, middle of the road country. That's because while the job sector continues to collapse something in the order of 45% of young people in Greece have a tertiary degree which is well above the OECD averages and quite comparable to other OECD countries that pride themselves on their education like the United States where that number is roughly 50%. Greek people are generally highly educated and moderate, the problem is really the lack of jobs, leading to the bleed off or "brain drain" to other OECD countries. --120.22.105.51 (talk) 12:32, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

How is the photo of a peaceful protest (or any photo of Germany's ANTIFA) a good one for the lead?

Surely there is something better. This could even confuse people into thinking it's something to do with the Antifa movement in the US. Doug Weller talk 06:50, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

I think we should probably avoid any images for now, since (as discussed above) most coverage doesn't really support a single definition for far-left politics, whereas any image would inevitably carry the false implication that "far left politics is this" and end up putting undue weight on a position that lacks widespread support. I also want to point out that the edit summary that restored the image again presented the argument that this page needs to mirror Far-right politics, which isn't appropriate - the sources are clear that the terms are not mirrors of each other. "Far-right politics" is extensively studied and has a singular well-defined definition, whereas "far-left politics" does not, so it is expected that the articles would be very different. --Aquillion (talk) 08:41, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Agree. The term is "far" too nebulous to assign to any group. Perhaps an image of a nebula. O3000, Ret. (talk) 11:52, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Agreed, with 'probably' and 'for now' removed. In fact, I think neither of the two should have a lead image and the same implication applies on the Far-right politics article too ("far-right politics is this" *peaceful demonstration*). On top of that, antifa's primary activity is antifascism, not far-left politics, and it does not necessarily contain only far-left individuals. Therefore, not representative of the topic. –Vipz (talk) 14:06, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

For god sake, anti-fa just means the loose association of groups of people who are against fascists. If being against fascism is far left then 99% of the world is far left. If you are against fascism then you are anti-fa by definition --120.22.105.51 (talk) 13:20, 8 April 2023 (UTC)