Left and Right: The Psychological Significance of a Political Distinction

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"On this issue, the ambidextrous conclusion reached by the authors of The Authoritarian Personality remains apt: “on one hand, liberalism and conservatism are relatively organized and measurable patterns of current politico-economic thought; and on the other hand, within each of these broad patterns there is considerable subpatterning, inconsistency, and simple ignorance.” Their bottom line strikes me as right: “To ignore either the relative generality, or the relative inconsistency would . . . lead to serious misunderstanding of the problem” (Adorno et al., 1950: 175–176)."