Introduction to alt-politics

 Oh, Hello There

You have just stumbled upon alt-politics. You may be thinking, "ah, just another political blog". But, I really do want this one to be different. Why is it different? Because, that blurb at the top of the page, well I really do mean it! It's not just a long-string of putting the right words into a sentence, and trying to sound a bit different. This is a dismantling and critique on the labels used in political discourse, and a demand for precision in definitions. alt-politics is a platform for thinking outside of orthodoxy: 

        

alt-politics is an independent platform offering a fresh and alternative voice in politics. The name is a play-on of alt-right. alt-politics is not alt-right; it is an alternative voice in politics. alt-politics revolves around a complete rejection of the use of the classic left-right spectrum in politics, arguing that this is an old-fashioned and unhelpfully easy, simplified caricature for political debate. alt-politics takes a look at politics from new and different angles, and articulates political discussions through an alternative and idiosyncratic lens.

 

 alt-politics wants to offer a quirky angle to the issues in the news and in politics. This is Alternative Politics. It is looking at the news, and flipping it through a thoughtful, but quirky and idiosyncratic form of analysis. It is a distinct and original voice in contemporary journalism. The driving ideology of alt-politics is to find alternative perspectives, to think the unthinkable. 

So, Welcome to alt-politics.

The use of "left-right" is meaningless, and actually dangerous, as it is mis-used, disingenuous and weaponised to either discredit or give respectable credence and legitimacy to a particular politician or argument. The "left-right" terminology is possibly at its most dangerous when used to depict intra-party factions, again to discredit or grant legitimacy to faction. 

I am far from the first to question the use and/or relevance of the old "left-right" in politics. The idea of "people of somewhere" and "people of nowhere" emerged into the political lexicon to describe a cultural divide that appears to have emerged between globalists and elites, and the people rooted to their area. Other labels such as "paternalist", "libertarian", "statist", "conservative (small "c")" can all be useful, but all risk being set-up into a binary; and the problem with binaries is they quickly slip into "good" and "evil" dichotomies; "right" and "wrong"; "truth" and "falsity" with a gaping lacuna between the two. 

Labels cannot be escaped, as they are the basis of language. And, it would be impossible to have discourse without shading out the complexities and anomalies and difference that function to make a concept meaningful. The problem of language to function as a means to transmit information is more acute when the information being communicated is an abstraction, an idea without a tangible reality. We must proceed with the language of political labels and ideologies in order to communicate our ideas, but political labels are liable to obscure more than they elucidate.  

alt-politics does not wish to label, itself, and will try to avoid labelling others. This is Alternative Politics. This is alt-politics.