We need to move beyond the mind-numbing right-left dichotomy. Zeev Sternhell's iconic book about fascism is called "Neither Right Nor Left" but try to explain to college students that right-wing does not necessarily equal fascist, and left-wing does not necessarily equal liberal. The American political scene today has little to do with the Cold War binary (and even during the Cold War, this binary was mostly an oversimplification). We desperately need a new vocabulary. The classification of ideologies into Tragic Vision and Utopian Vision may be the beginning of such a vocabulary.
We need to move beyond the mind-numbing right-left dichotomy. Zeev Sternhell's iconic book about fascism is called "Neither Right Nor Left" but try to explain to college students that right-wing does not necessarily equal fascist, and left-wing does not necessarily equal liberal. The American political scene today has little to do with the Cold War binary (and even during the Cold War, this binary was mostly an oversimplification). We desperately need a new vocabulary. The classification of ideologies into Tragic Vision and Utopian Vision may be the beginning of such a vocabulary.