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PB October/November October/November 3
The theory has
had a good airing
from political
commentators in
Ireland, none of
whom ever evince
any evidence of
having read any
political science
T
he horseshoe theory asserts that the far
left and thefar right, rather than being at
opposing ends of a linear continuum of politics
resemble each other, in the way that the
opposite ends of ahorseshoeconverge. The
theory is attributed to the French philosopher Jean-Pierre
Fayein his 2002 book,‘Le Siècle des idéologies’ but it’s
had a good airing from political commentators in Ireland,
none of whom ever evince any evidence of having read
any political science or political philosophy, since the
right rampaged down Molesworth Street in pursuit of a
lonely Michael Healy-Rae.
Writing in the Irish Times on 27 September, Kathy
Sheridan addresses the issue of Paul Murphy: “Last
September, after what he described as an ‘assault’ on
him by a group while leaving Leinster House, he seemed
surprised that others sought to compare his view of the
attack on himself to how Joan Burton was treated in
Tallaght”.
She wrote, “the comparison was ‘bizarre’, he said,
because one was a ‘community protest’ and the
‘assault’on him was fuelled by dangerous members of
the far-right. ‘We’re not the same as those who are
organising protests fuelled by racist hate’, he said again
onRTÉthis week”.
Sheridan though it was “an odd distinction. If the
outcome is to create a sense of sustained fear and
menace among certain groups going about their lives,
why would the source of the torment matter?”.
Sheridan fails to address Murphy’s central point which
is that his cohort always attacks those with privilege,
power or money. He adjudged Joan Burton to be
someone misusing power. What he did may have been
dubious but it was not something that placed him close
to the right on an idiotic horseshoe diagram. Murphy
feels the right often attacks the vulnerable. For an
egalitarian, attacking the ascendant is the opposite of
attacking those who are poor or discriminated against.
Far left and far right are opposites.
On 22 September, Brenda Power wrote a column in the
Irish Daily Mail headed ‘Personal attacks by the Far Left
are simply validating mob fury’, in which she too stated
“there’s very little separating the extremes of left and
right”. Validating a ‘horseshoe’ theory, she claimed:
“It’s all part of an alarming trend, largely driven by the
far left, to personalise politics, link named politicians to
perceived inequalities and injustices, and hint at the
existence of a secret ‘golden circle’, a freemasonry of
politics, law and business ruthlessly bilking the taxpayer
for their own nefarious ends”.
But nothing justifi es that mob’s inarticulate fury
against the institutions of democracy. Against a
background of assaults on parliament in the US and
Brazil, Power’s justifi cation was dangerous and foolish:
Horseshoe horseshit
The far left and far right are behaving like
opposites not equivalents, as you’d expect
EDITORIAL
Issue 81
October/November 2023
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unpublishable.
Her argument that the left over-eggs the notion of a
golden circle perhaps holds more water. Exaggerating
the corruption of society does tend to undermine
democracy; but on the other hand addressing specifi c
corruption is entirely welcome in a democracy. Further,
drawing attention to inequality is the left’s job. Perhaps
then the far left could be fact-checked a bit more,
especially as to the performance of Ireland in the context
of other democracies.
It is no harm now to look at the horseshoe theory from
an academic perspective, albeit a leftist one.
In‘“Horseshoe theory” is nonsense – the far right and
far left have little in common’ [2017] leftist academic
Simon Choat asked:
“Is there a more fundamental, ideological resonance
between far left and far right? Again, only in the vaguest
sense that both challenge the liberal-democratic status
quo. But they do so for very di erent reasons and with
very different aims. When fascists reject liberal
individualism, it is in the name of a vision of national
unity and ethnic purity rooted in a romanticised past;
when communists and socialists do so, it is in the name
of international solidarity and the redistribution of
wealth”.
While both attack neoliberal globalisation and its
elites he says “there is no agreement between far left
and far right over who counts as the ‘elite’, why they are
a problem, and how to respond to them”. He ridicules
Trump’s anti elitism.
“Given the basic implausibility of the horseshoe
theory”, he wonders “why do so many centrist
commentators insist on perpetuating it?”. He concludes:
“The likely answer is that it allows those in the centre to
discredit the left while disavowing their own complicity
with the far right. Historically, it has been ‘centrist’
liberals – in Spain, Chile, Brazil, and in many other
countries – who have helped the far right to power,
usually because they would rather have had a fascist in
power than a socialist”.
Orthodox political science sees left and the right as
on separate axes with the right fetishising freedom and
the left fetishising equality. This magazine tends to
favour a vision of free equality over one of equal freedom.
An edifying theory is that of historian Yuval Noah
Harari who notes that conservatism has “committed
suicide” leaving a gap in politics. Trump and Johnson
have led the right away from conservatism to insurgency.
They leave liberals and lefties as protectors of
institutions though it isn’t their job, which is insurgency
too. He speculates that the pace of technical change
means that the conservative predilection for not
changing has become untenable.
That is why the right are revolting now.
