Talk:Horseshoe theory: Difference between revisions

This article was nominated for deletion on 8 February 2009 (UTC). The result of the discussion was keep.

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"He dissents from the theory, objecting that it fails to take into account the unbroken continuum of political thought."

How does it differ from classical theory? It also breaks continuum in its far ends, unless we assume its stretches into infinity, thus for every right/left political thought we can always find more rightish/leftish one. Can we? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.31.67.45 (talk) 10:22, 8 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed that sentence. The reference link if broken, it doesn't make any sense to say first that he supports it and then that he dissents. And the last commenter is correct. A horseshoe is an unbroken continuum just the same as a straight line is an unbroken continuum. It makes no sense to say that, and without a reference I don't believe he did say that. Primium mobile (talk) 15:06, 19 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

While you're at it, remove this one too. "Critics of the theory have suggested that many sociologists consider the Horseshoe theory to have been discredited". In fact, remove the whole section. 72.208.211.248 (talk) 19:41, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

How come the article lists 'religious rhetoric' as "far-right", maybe it's just me but I don't remember Jesus ever hanging any Jews from trees... So next time I read the bible I guess I'm just going to have to face it that we're all just a bunch of angry, hedonistic fascist national socialist thugs cause Wikipedia says so. - Eli

Surely we can come up with a few more decent refs for this? Perhaps somebody who speaks French can find out about its coinage by Jean-Pierre Faye and maybe, if we knew the French term he used we could use that to dig up some other references. --DanielRigal (talk) 22:35, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Going by fer à cheval for "horseshoe", it looks like Faye coined the term in Langages totalitaires (1972) although I suspect the idea predates that (i.e., it seems obvious that the far left and far right share being viewed as extremist). I wonder if there isn't a more popular name for this in English. —Mrwojo (talk) 00:57, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have more or less replaced the "See also" links as most of them seemed to be irrelevant (or only very tangentially relevant). I put the competing systems of political classification in instead as that is what people are most likely to want to compare and contrast. It is possible that I missed the relevance of some of the old links. If so, please add them back but use a comment saying what makes them relevant. --DanielRigal (talk) 17:22, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Critics of the theory have suggested that many sociologists consider the Horseshoe theory to have been discredited." is justified solely by a reference to a site whose slogan is "Researching the Right for Progressive Changemakers".

Seriously.

Of course a far left group whose agenda is openly anti-conservative is going to disagree with this, the assertion that they are similar to the far right. This is hardly notable. 64.24.209.204 (talk) 02:32, 13 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that source has a clear left bias. --72.208.211.248 (talk) 21:39, 26 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

i removed the two phrases regarding the far left and far right violating people's property rights. that is a biased description of their policies that depends on readers sharing a particular view of what constitutes property rights and what would violate them. --dan (talk) 23:15, 14 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"Other scholars such as Ludwig Von Mises and more recently, Jonah Goldberg [author of "Liberal Fascism"] reject the Horseshoe theory and place Communism, Socialism and Fascism all on the left end of the political spectrum. Prior to WW2, there was a distinction between International Socialism, with its center being in Moscow and Russia and National Socialism also known as Nazism with its center being in Berlin and Germany. Both had similar social policies but one focused on a world wide movement and the other was focused as a national movement. Similarly Italian Fascism had its roots in Socialism and Mussolini considered himself a Socialist. National Socialism and International Socialism cooperated closely with each other culminating in the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact in which Hitler and Stalin agreed to cooperate and carve up Eastern Europe. When Hitler broke this treaty and attacked Russia, this created a schism between National Socialism and International Socialism. From that point on Russia and its leftist sympathizers distanced from National Socialism placing it on the other end of the spectrum. At the same time, Russia became an ally of the US and UK in WW2 which led Western academics to also place International and National Socialism on opposite ends of the political spectrum."

• 1)Jonah Goldberg is not an actual scholar. An ameuteur or hobbyist perhaps, but not a qualified scholar, and his book is not a very good source based on the opinion of actual scholars.
• 2)This presents a shaky, temporary alliance as being a result of similar ideology rather than real politik. Stalin wanted land, Hitler wanted land, neither was in a position to go to war wih each other, so they made an agreement that quickly broke down when there was no more land and one (thought) they could handle a war. There could be a point here that totalitarian states whether far-right or far-left are imperialist in their actions but not that they were part of the same movement.
• 3)There was already a schism between the two. Communists and Fascists were already killing each other, just not on the eastern front. Again this paragraph makes is seem like they were BFF's when Stalin was using "Social Fascism" as an excuse to kill anyone to the right of the Communist party (such as the social democrats) and both Hitler and Mussolini were paranoid anti-communists. Hence why they were placed on opposite sides of the spectrum even before the war (even in the US nazism was considered far-right such as when Henry Ford's magazine was accused of pushing "extreme right" views.)
• 4)Mussolini murdered the socialists and even said his official policy was to bash their heads in. I'm doubtful he considered himself a socialist after becoming a fascist but if he did it was not in the left-wing egalitarian sense.

The horseshoe theory is a respectable one, so can we revise this page to be more, er, respectable? This seems like we're putting too much weight in the words of a few, how do I say this politely... crackpots. (PS sorry I'm a BON right now I couldn't sign in I'm "clothcoat" if you're curious) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 23.242.192.212 (talk) 05:25, 10 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]