Talk:Right-wing politics/Archive 10

Wikipedia depends on references.
Please, when editing Wikipedia, especially when making controversial edits, supply references, and do not replace referenced material with unreferenced material. Rick Norwood (talk) 13:39, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Jprw (talk) 08:07, 27 January 2011 (UTC)== Modern Usage ==

There have been a number of rewrites of the description of how "right-wing" is used today. It is not clear to me if the changes reflect the book referenced: A Dictionary of Political Thought Roger Scruton Macmillan Pp.481-2." Also, should a 1982 book be used to reference modern usage? Rick Norwood (talk) 12:46, 22 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Here is a link to The concise Oxford dictionary of politics (2009) definition. TFD (talk) 14:23, 22 January 2011 (UTC)


 * User:Jprw has placed the following comment on my talk page:
 * Fascism, an old chestnut, but still...I have reverted your including a reference to the term "fascism" in the lead to the article on right-wing politcs, as I believe it to be inaccurate and misleading and pandering to the old canard that there is an inextricable or latent link between conservatism and fascism. It's as unfortunate and damaging as making a natural connection between those on the left, and say, Stalin. Best wishes Jprw (talk) 13:59, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
 * He has removed the reference to fascism..
 * In reply, I would state that not all conservatism and rightg-wing are not synonyms, otherwise this article would be a re-direct to conservatism, not all conservatism is right-wing, Churchill certainly did not consider himself to be right-wing, and not all people described as conservative are real conservatives, some are classical liberals, etc.  Also, we do not exclude information because we do not like it.
 * TFD (talk) 17:08, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

It's not a case of not liking it, it's a case of removing something that is inaccurate and misleading. Jprw (talk) 15:21, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

The Oxford Dictionary of Politics is not a "reliable secondary source." Considering Schlesinger's writings on fascism, and Lipset's (among others), I consider the linkage in the lede to be extraordinarily weak. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Collect (talk • contribs) 14:28, 26 January 2011


 * I notice that the dynamic IP has resurfaced and edited the article. Since the IP is blocked for sock-puppetry and edit-warring (see above Talk:Right-wing politics), I will roll back any edits made by him, and request other editors to do the same.  TFD (talk) 15:49, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Given your most recent extraordinary and utterly bogus claims that I am a Sockpuppet I suggest to other editors that we take your latest accusation above with a pinch of salt. Jprw (talk) 08:03, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

[Remove comments by banned editor.] TFD (talk) 04:59, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I have restored the above; it was removed by THE FOUR DEUCES, whose style seems to be "If another editor knows more about a subject than I do, or is able to outargue me, shut him up". A perfect example of the Bolshevik mindset in action.Jprw (talk) 08:07, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * You would do well to discuss the subject at hand, instead of name-calling. While your right to free speech allows you to call people names, that will not win you respect here on Wikipedia.  Your edits are deleted for the simple reason that they are not supported by standard reference works. Rick Norwood (talk) 13:21, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Last sentence of lead
A weird kind of atrophy seems to be taking place to the last sentence of the lead. I've tried to rectify matters with the following wording:

"Today, the term right-wing is primarily used to refer to conservatives, liberals (in the European sense of the word), advocates of the free market and nationalists".

There are three imortant points:


 * the free market should be mentioned
 * libertarianism should NOT be mentioned – this is the domain of both the left and right
 * fascism/the far right also should not be mentioned, as it is completely out of place here.

Two and three above are the most important points: if they are allowed to stand the lead will be deeply misleading to readers. Jprw (talk) 08:31, 28 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I understand that this is what you believe, but Wikipedia is not based on what the editors believe but on what references say. Clearly, you think that the Oxford encyclopedia is wrong, but they are an authority and you do not cite any authority.  Every book I have ever read on the history of modern times calls fascism and racism right-wing.  You seem to wish that were not so, but it is a fact, and trying to hide it will not make it go away. Rick Norwood (talk) 13:01, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Is it not the case that liberarianism is the domain of both the left and right? What are these sources that you mention? (by the way, "Every book I have ever read on the history of modern times" sounds like hyperbole, to say the least. This might be a good place to understand the complexities of the term fascism, but in any case we are getting away from the main basic point of the problems with the lead: it is deeply misleading to any reader trying to find out about the subject. Anyway, my dealings on these talk pages have given me a first-hand insight into how the WP politics pages are hopelessly biased and compromised (and, of course, inaccurate). Jprw (talk) 16:00, 28 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Agree with Rick Norwood. BTW "liberals (in the European sense of the word)" are considered to be centrist in Europe and in fact sit in the center of the legislatures, including the European parliament, together with the other liberals.  The dictionary is a good source because "right-wing" is a political term, rather than an ideology.  In any case, a study showed that extreme right parties (including neofascists) were more opposed to public ownership than other parties, as well as scoring highest on the social policy scale.  (Ware, Alan. Political Parties and Party Systems. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996, p. 22, pp. 27-29))  The results of the study may be seen on this page, taken from the University of Dayton.  TFD (talk) 13:33, 28 January 2011 (UTC)


 * The article does not mention where fascism fits on the political spectrum and in fact elsewhere Orwell refers to fascists as "right-wing", e.g., here. Furthermore, Orwell was a writer not a political scientist and his observations, while interesting, are not relevant to this article.  TFD (talk) 17:54, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the very interesting link to the Orwell article. What he says about the word "fascist" is today true of the word "socialist". But, no, I'm not exagerating when I say that just about every book I've read on modern history uses "Right-wing" to describe fascists. When serious historians use the word "Fascist" they usually mean explicitly and avowedly Fasicst governments, notably the governments of Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco, and commonly describe these governments as rigth-wing -- as commonly as they describe avowedly communist governments as left-wing. In any case, the reference cited uses the word "fascist". Rick Norwood (talk) 18:20, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Rick Norwood, it may be the case that every book that you have ever read calls fascism and racism right-wing, but all this tells me is that you ought to go and have a look at the politics/history section of the library at your university, where you will discover (assuming that it is a reasonably good library) that your assertion that fascism is right-wing is far from uncontroversial (indeed it is generally disputed) amongst scholars who have researched the subject in recent decades. To give you a single example, the book "The Faces of Janus" by A.James Gregor published in 2000 by Yale University Press draws attention to the numerous similarities between the theory and practice of marxism and fascism. Simply asserting that fascism is right-wing, as if this is undisputed, is (putting it generously) being economical with the truth.

With regard to the racism claim. THE FOUR DEUCES drew your attention to a book by George Watson called "The Lost Literature of Socialism" which notes that racism (by which I do not simply mean anti-Jewish sentiments but the active promotion of the genocide of "inferior races") was strongly associated with the political left (for example Marx) in the C19th and early C20th. Nor has this association disappeared. You seem unaware for example of the link in contemporary European politics between the left and racist nationalism - think for example of Slobodan Milošević.

I appreciate that a great deal of air brushing has taken place (the racist policies of the early South African Communist Party or for that matter the Democratic Party in the USA come to mind) but this cannot erase the historical evidence of an association between "racism" and "nationalism" and the political Left, nor can it erase the fact that many (most) scholars now dispute your simple identification of fascism with the political right. This may make you uncomfortable, and you would prefer that it was not the case, but if the aim is truth rather than deception, ignorance is no defence.

(85.211.70.152 (talk) 01:23, 29 January 2011 (UTC)).


 * The point, which I have made many times before, is that word usage is decided by reference books, not by arguments. There are racists in every group and in every movement.  You mention South African Communists.  Stalin also introudced many racist policies.  You mention the Southern Democrats.  At the time, the Southern Democrats were described as right-wing.  As for fascist, serious scholars avoid using "fascist" to mean "bad", and confine their use of "fascist" to mean governments that call themself fascist.  There are three major examples, Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco.  All three were avowedly racist, strongly anti-communist, and all are commonly called right-wing.  That is how, in fact, the word is used.  You argue that people shouldn't use the word that way, and cite authors who think the word shouldn't be used that way, but this article is not the place to try to change the way a word is used, only to report the way it is in fact used. Rick Norwood (talk) 13:20, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree with Rick Norwood on this. This is standard usage, right or wrong. Historically, fascists and communists were always considered (by themselves and others) to be at the opposite ends of the political spectrum, their many similarities notwithstanding. In my view, arguments as to where they really belong are not very productive, because the very idea of mapping all the multidimensional manifold of political ideologies and movements onto a one-dimensional left/right spectrum is bound to be schematic, simplistic and not very meaningful. - BorisG (talk) 15:14, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Another definiton
Since the current definition seems to have caused no end of discussion, here is another, from the OED, with two illustrative quotations:

“right-wing – that section of a political party, assembly, or other body most tending to hold conservative or reactionary views.” Quotes: 1941 J. S. Huxley, The Uniqueness of Man “So it is not eugenics but merely right-wing politics if we merely talk of the breeding of the upper classes of our present social system at the expense of the lower.”; 1955 Times 7 July 8/4, “The right-wing monarchists and neo-fascists [in Italy] are expected to ‘wait and see’.”  The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, Volume III, Oxford University Press, 1987, ISBN: 0198612117. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rick Norwood (talk • contribs) 16:17, 8 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I prefer Fisher. Unedited. - BorisG 16:38, 8 February 2011 (UTC)


 * The OED gives historical exemplars as you indicate which are not properly part of the definition. It is interesting in that it specifically refers to "right wing" as being in relation to other parts of a group, and not something which is defined as any sort of international standard. Collect 16:46, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Here's the Random House Dictionary 2009 definition:
 * 33. the Right,
 * a. the complex of individuals or organized groups opposing change in a liberal direction and usually advocating maintenance of the established social, political, or economic order, sometimes by authoritarian means.
 * b. the position held by these people: The Depression led to a movement away from the Right. Compare left 1 (defs. 6a, b).
 * c. right wing.
 * 34. (usually initial capital letter) the part of a legislative assembly, esp. in continental Europe, that is situated on the right side of the presiding officer and that is customarily assigned to members of the legislature who hold more conservative or reactionary views than the rest of the members.
 * 35. the members of such an assembly who sit on the Right.

TFD (talk) 18:14, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Which is of little use as ordinary dictionaries are weak tertiary sources. Collect (talk) 18:19, 8 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Eatwell and O'Sullivan wrote a book called The Nature of the right: American and European politics and political thought since 1789, which might be helpful, but I do not have access to it. TFD (talk) 03:07, 9 February 2011 (UTC)


 * It does sound like it'd be very helpful. I don't have online access to it either, but I tried to find out what Eatwell, in particular, might have said re definitions of "the right" and related terms by looking into some of his other books that are accessible through Google Books or Amazon. From doing that, I get the impression that he rejects the usual "left-right" continuum as being simplistic, and proposes instead a a four-dimensional classification scheme for political ideologies he developed and that he calls "the spectral-syncretic model". I found that in a book entitled The Fascism Reader ( Aristotle Kallis, ed. ). It's not available on Google Books, but I was able to access it via logging in to Amazon. On page 73 of that book, Eatwell introduces his model in the course of an analysis of fascism. It was interesting, but not especially inspired, in my opinion; YMMV. Anyway, if you'd like to have a look, search in the book for the phrase narrow time-periodization, which evidently occurs only on page 73. –  OhioStandard  (talk) 05:37, 9 February 2011 (UTC)


 * It's a little off-topic, but in looking around for what Roger Eatwell might have to say (see my previous post) I also came across what I thought an extraordinarily good essay on liberalism in a book that Eatwell co–edited. The essay is by Richard Bellamy, a professor of Politics at the University of Reading, and it occurs in Contemporary Political Ideologies. It takes more of a European perspective than an U.S.–centric one, which I found helpful. Just some recommended grist for the mill that my fellow editors may enjoy. –  OhioStandard  (talk) 05:58, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * According to The Cambridge history of twentieth-century thought (p. 617), he says that the Right "is most helpfully conceived as a variety of responses to the left". TFD (talk) 14:52, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Non-admin super-vote closure of RfC
On February 1st (UTC), SlimVirgin initiated an RfC on this talk page (see above) to try to settle a long-running dispute over whether a definition of "right wing" from The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics should be included in this article's lead section. Comment proceeded in an orderly way until very recently, when non-admin User:Lionelt decided to close it. The !voting results at the time I'm writing this are: Support Inclusion in lead (8); Oppose Inclusion in lead (6); Oppose full inclusion in lead (3); Undecided (1). ( Please Note: One "support" !vote was added as I was composing this, and is included in the preceding tally. )

Here's the sequence of events so far, via diffs:


 * 17:14 1 February, 2011 (UTC) Admin SlimVirgin creates RfC here, on this talk page. Gives edit summary "+RfC".


 * 02:48, 18 February, 2011 (UTC) Non-admin Lionelt encloses this talk page's RfC in archive tags, offering "result" that lead section should not include disputed definition. No edit summary.


 * 02:50, 18 February, 2011 (UTC) Lionelt entirely deletes passage and corresponding ref from the article. Gives edit summary, "removal per RfC".


 * 03:13, 18 February, 2011 (UTC) Non-admin The Four Deuces (TFD) reverts Lionelt's deletion of the passage from the article. Gives edit summary, "No consensus for removal of sourced text."


 * 14:29, 18 February, 2011 (UTC) Non-admin Tentontunic reverts TFD, which removes the passage and cite from the article a second time, following after Lionelt's initial removal. Gives edit summary, "Undo, the closer on the RFC is quite clear."


 * 14:31, 18 February, 2011 (UTC) Non-admin OhioStandard (that's me) reverts Lionelt's closure of RfC. Gives edit summary, "Rv non-admin closure by Lionelt; RfC started by SlimVirgin, she should close it, too when she deems that appropriate."


 * 17:18, 18 February, 2011 (UTC) OhioStandard reverts Tentontunic's edit to article. The article and talk page are now in their initial state, i.e. both are (as I write this) in the state they were in prior to Lionelt's non-admin closure. Gives edit summary, "Rv previous by Tentontunic. Please see 'Non-admin super-vote closure of RfC' on talk", this section, in other words.

It's my opinion that (1) since the battle over the propriety of including this dictionary definition in the article's lead has been so harsh: the RfC should stay open longer, (2) there was no consensus at this point, (3) Lionelt's "closure" was improper, especially in a highly controversial article and coming from an experienced user, (4) the "result" Lionelt offered was unwarranted based on the !votes to-date, (5) that (based on the !votes so far) the likely result of the RfC will be a paraphrase of the definition from the Oxford dictionary rather than any complete deletion, and (6) it should be up to SlimVirgin to close the RfC she started when she deems it appropriate.

Any comments on this series of events are welcome, but please don't let's edit war to either close the RfC or to again delete the passage whose inclusion or exclusion the RfC was created to try to resolve. – OhioStandard  (talk) 17:21, 18 February 2011 (UTC)


 * IOW, a clear consensus supported inclusion of almost all the definition. The parts which were objected to clearly did not attract support for inclusion.   Thus only the uncontested parts belong.  Hard to interpret any other way, no matter who counts the opinions. Collect (talk) 18:39, 18 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Since there was no clear consensus, your opinion that there was a clear consensus seems very strange. Since a plurality supported inclusion of the entire definition, your statement that the parts which were objected to "clearly" did not attract support for inclusion is also hard to understand.  Since not just this one source, but every non-partisan source, uses "right-wing" to describe fascists, the article should state the facts, not spin them to try to favor the Right. Rick Norwood (talk) 19:10, 18 February 2011 (UTC)


 * There was no consensus to exclude the standard definition and in fact additional sources were presented since he RfC was opened. TFD (talk) 19:28, 18 February 2011 (UTC)


 * The close, result, and edit pursuant to the result are all within policy. The reversal of the close is disruptive. I must ask that TFD and Ohio stop their disruptive behavior.
 * Slim requested that an uninvolved editor close : which I am
 * Closure by admin for an RfC is not mandatory
 * Wikipedia is not a democracy: voting is factored into a result, but voting does not determine the result. In this particular case, I took into account the votes, but based my result on policy, WP:LEDE. This decision is proper under WP:CLOSE.
 * The discussion is closed. If you have a problem with the result, open a new RfC. If you have a problem with me, take it to AN/I. Reverting the closure is disruptive. Lionel (talk) 19:36, 18 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Another editor reverted your close because your conclusion was inaccurate. TFD (talk) 19:43, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Accuracy of my conclusion cannot be judged by an involved editor. That is why, as an uninvolved editor, I closed discussion. Lionel (talk) 20:45, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Lionel, there are quite a few who disagree with your conclusion at this point, and it goes against the plurality. Either way, I think you should consider not trying to force your will by fiat on this case, since it has so far proven counter-productive. siafu (talk) 21:17, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * siafu, your comments are well taken. However, if I had a $1 for every AfD RfC CfD etc that went against majority, went against commmon sense, went against my expectation, I would be editing from my very own tropical island purchased with my accumulated $1s. Any editor unhappy with the close can open another RfC. Lionel (talk) 21:27, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The fact that another RfC can be opened does not change the fact that you've taken a discussion and turned it into an antagonistic situation where quite a few editors feel unheard. Unfortunately, that can't be undone.  Perhaps you may choose to be more circumspect in the future. siafu (talk) 22:10, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Why can't it be undone? --FormerIP (talk) 23:00, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Unless you have a time machine, you can't undo the fight that just happened above and the negative views it's created. siafu (talk) 01:08, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I find this farcical. An RfC is normally closed by an uninvolved admin. An RFA means the the community has placed some trust in the individual concerned.  Ok if the RfC is very clear in its view it doesn't really much matter who closes it, but in a contentious one like this the manner and authority of the editor matters.   The comments by Lionel above and on his/her talk page are arrogant to say the least; maybe this should go to ANI if Lionel is not prepared to reverse and post a request for closure on the admins notice board (which is how it should be done).  -- Snowded  TALK  23:18, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

I have reverted and placed a request for closure by an uninvolved admin here -- Snowded TALK  23:39, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Concur that an uninvolved admin should review the RfC and close as appropriate. A quick review of the discussion reveals no consensus for inclusion, but also no consensus for omission. My own two cents' worth is to extend the cutoff of the RfC in order to gain consensus, else there is a risk of continued contentious editing of the lede. --Alan the Roving Ambassador (talk) 23:47, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Ditto what Alan said re uninvolved admin and extending cutoff. We had another !vote come in just a few hours ago. –  OhioStandard  (talk) 23:58, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Until such a time as an uninvolved admin intervenes I believe WP:BRD applies here. Tentontunic (talk) 00:25, 19 February 2011 (UTC)


 * That's a good plan going forward, although I'd be more impressed if you hadn't put yourself at 2RR just three minutes prior to making that observation. I've indented your comment, btw, but also bolded it so it doesn't get missed. –  OhioStandard  (talk) 02:08, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Uninvolved Admin
Hi, I have yet to read anything here - I am responding to the request for an uninvolved admin at AN/I. Before I get involved, can I ask the involved parties to show they are willing to accept my assessment, even if it does not concur with their own viewpoint? If for any reason I am not acceptable or my assessment will not be accepted, then say so now, so we can save some time. Manning (talk) 00:47, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I believe I am uninvolved, apart from the reverts to enforce the RFC of course. But I will of course abide by your final decision. Tentontunic (talk) 00:56, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Apart from closing the RfC, I am also uninvolved. My only interest at this point is in confirming that the close was within policy, and that is why I posted the issue at AN/I. Lionel (talk) 01:40, 19 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Glad to accept your assistance and judgment, Manning; thanks. As you'll see from the section just above, user Alan the Roving Ambassador and myself, at least, think it would be productive to let the RfC remain open for additional comments, but please do as you think best. –  OhioStandard  (talk) 01:45, 19 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you Manning. I would ask you to consider in particular something that the previous closer seems to have missed. The OP asked a specific either/or question, which should get a clear answer in the closing comments. Other things have been raised, such as whether the lead is properly structured and whether the material in question needs attribution. You may find it appropriate to also comment on these and, if you think they are of central importance then you should say so. But the question at the nub of this is really whether or not it is UNDUE to mention far-right politics in the lead of the article. Nothing is solved unless that specific issue is addressed in clear language. --FormerIP (talk) 02:03, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I trust Manning and will trust his decision even if it is against my view on the subject. - BorisG (talk) 04:37, 19 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Sounds good to me. TFD (talk) 05:12, 19 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Good to see an experienced person here. You likely should also note the query made at WP:NPOV/N concerning the use of the first sentence of the CODP in the lede as opposed to the extensive quote and paraphrase of the later parts of the definition. Collect (talk) 12:41, 19 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm happy to accept Manning as a mediator and abide by his decission. I reverted Tentontunic's deletion of the controversial section before I read this section of Talk.  My bad.  I've now reverted myself, to allow Tentontunic's edit to stand until the mediation is complete.  For the record, I favor a brief paraphrase of the quote to the full quote, but oppose a spin which gives the current US usage of right-wing without mentioning other common uses. Rick Norwood (talk) 13:33, 19 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Happy to support Manning and my thanks for responding so quickly to the request posed. -- Snowded  TALK  06:22, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Collect, I note that in your comment above you did not agree to abide by Manning's decission. An oversight? Rick Norwood (talk) 13:43, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Moving-target lead section needs stability during RfC about it
The content of the lead section has bounced around quite a bit from the stable version that was present prior to Lionelt's non-admin closure of the RfC about it two-and-a-half days ago. It has been edited multiple times in such a way as to exclude the passage around which the RfC was formulated, viz.

Stephen Fisher writes in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics that in liberal democracies the term [right-wing] has been defined in opposition to socialism or social democracy, and that right-wing parties have included the philosophies of conservatism, Christian democracy, liberalism (in the European sense of the word), libertarianism, and nationalism, while extreme-right parties have included racism and fascism.

I presume that the repeated edits to remove or replace this version were made in good faith, but they've caused an unintended consequence that has adversely affected the ongoing RfC discussion and analysis. These edits have made the section a moving target, with the consequence that editors' comments, made about the actual passage (above) which the RfC was formulated around, haven't always been in sync with the actual lead of the article. The lead has "changed under" editor's talk-page and RfC comments, in other words, since the RfC began. That seems undesirable to me because it confuses discussion here. I don't mind saying that I'm partly at blame for this myself, in a small way, because in this article edit to normalize the ref to cite book format ( which I disclosed and discussed above, on this talk page ) I also intentionally dropped the note that gave Stephen Fisher's credentials. As I explained in my edit summary, and on talk, I believed that the imprimatur of the dictionary's publisher, Oxford University Press, was sufficient to establish the authority of the definition, sufficient to our readers needs, that is. No one made the least objection to that removal; indeed, several other editors had said previously that they, too, felt the inclusion of Fisher's individual credentials wasn't called for to address any need that our readers would have.

This "moving target" problem came up for me when I was trying to provide diffs to meet Manning's request for them, under the first of the four sub-headings in the section above. The last thing I want is to see the lead section continue to "bounce around" while Manning's review and the RfC are ongoing, but I also think it would make discussion here considerably more clear, as well as making it easier on Manning in trying to follow this rather complicated dispute, if the lead were to be restored to the state it was in before Lionelt's non-admin closure.

For these reasons only, I've restored the lead to its pre non-admin closure state, and I would ask that my fellow editors let it remain in that state, without consideration as to whether it's their preferred version or not, but only to avoid confusing this discussion unnecessarily. If Manning objects to this restoration, he should certainly revert me, but I think it would be best for the orderliness of this discussion if no one else were to do so at this point. I actually think the article should be fully-protected while Manning's review is ongoing, as well, to prevent this "moving target" problem, but I'll leave that up to him, and to other admins: As well as informing Manning of my action in this, via his talk page, I've also posted a short note at the existing ANI thread about this RfC, to point to the present talk page section, only because I'm not sure how soon Manning will see the talk page message I left to inform him of this. – OhioStandard  (talk) 14:40, 20 February 2011 (UTC)


 * OhioStandard - seriously! Now I absolutely intend no disrespect - your sincerity and commitment to the project is certainly not in doubt. However please, please read WP:TLDR - "succinctness" is a treasured virtue here, and for good reason. Manning (talk) 00:47, 21 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Alright, point taken. Thanks for making it so politely. I suppose I've overdone it because this is so hotly disputed: I've been trying to respect all sides by taking their likely objections and concerns into account and addressing those. But I'll knock it off. Cheers, –  OhioStandard  (talk) 01:15, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

My mediation method
OK, I am a retired Arbcom clerk as well as an adminstrator, and I have been arbitrating contentious matters for years. I am as "no-nonsense" as they come. Before I get fully involved, let me know what you are in for.

Some generic ground rules (from a template, these may not always apply): I do not tolerate ANY form of personal attack, or even heated comments. I recommend that you avoid any adjective of any form (positive or negative) when referring to another editor or their actions. I also recommend you keep your assessments of the article content as unheated as possible. If you can't abide by this, please avoid the discussion areas I am temporarily supervising. I don't like waving the "block-stick", however it is obviously at my disposal.

If I have a question, please answer calmly and provide diffs where appropriate.

OK, I am going to allow myself 24 hours to review all of the material. I recommend all participants enjoy their Friday/Saturday night and forget about this for a little while. You'll be amazed how much that helps. The RFC will not be closed in the interim, I assure you.

Manning (talk) 02:30, 19 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Dear Manning, I have a meta-comment. The question of whether to include this quote (in full or in part) is hopelessly narrow. Suppose we do not include it. What would we put instead? In a sense, inclusion of a quote like this signifies the failure of editors to come to our own definition reflecting a summary of RS's. I don't have the slightest idea how to frame this dispute properly, but dispute over one particular sentence looks too narrow. Soon we will have massive disputes about one word. Or one letter. But I hope you find a solution. Cheers and good luck! - BorisG (talk) 10:05, 20 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi Boris - sorry, I missed this comment earlier. All good points. I'll refrain from commenting at this juncture, but such issues are very much in my mind. Cheers Manning (talk) 09:47, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

"refactoring" undone
As it not only disrupted threading, but removed substantive comments. Collect (talk) 15:35, 22 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Collect, the benefit of having the two topics that Manning wanted to be considered separately ( whether fascism should be in the lede, and whether racism should ) kept separate, in the respective sections that were created for them, and that already have that respective content in each, outweighs the value to the article of one nine-word post by TFD and half of one of your sentences, when both of those were just sparring. Please stop posting to the article (in the wrong section, btw) and let me finish. There's some urgency about this, since all of the refactor will have to be started over "from scratch" if you continue sparring with TFD on this page, as you are currently, and especially if other editors join in, or other editors post new content to to that section of the talk page that also doesn't belong there. Please acknowledge immediately.  –  OhioStandard  (talk) 16:33, 22 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Alas you removed material when you did it. In case you were not aware, "refactoring" in order to remove material is fraught with peril, and must be done much more carefully than was the case here. I hereby state my opposition to any "refactoring" which removes threaded comments in any way (other than personal attacks).  I trust most people can follow the dated and threaded material without refactoring.  Collect (talk) 17:17, 22 February 2011 (UTC)


 * By the way, "please acknowledge immediately" seems a bit less than civil.  Thank you most kindly - but such assertions of supreme authority do not sit well on Wikipedia. Collect (talk) 17:18, 22 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I asked you to acknowledge right away because the more you continue to post to the page the more likely it becomes that the page will no longer be able to be refactored to keep the two topics separate, as Manning wanted. I'm sorry to hear that you found that uncivil, though. I don't consider myself any kind of authority at all here, btw, supreme or otherwise. Anyway, since Manning's apparently offline, and time presses on this, and since it's obvious you've no intention of undoing your revert, I'll be asking for help at ANI. When I took part in a discussion that resulted in you being blocked last October, you asked me to not post to your talk page, though, so you'll have to consider this your formal notice. I'll ask at ANI that someone there volunteer to inform you via your talk, as well. –  OhioStandard  (talk) 18:27, 22 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Such major refactoring should not be undertaken as a rule. When one person objects, it is odd indeed to go to ANI to complain. I did not revert until you had gone quite a while from the past edits, so any claim I was too fast fails.  And asides about editors are ill chosen at the best of times - I ask you to specifically redact such asides about me.  That, by the way, is a valid use for refactoring. Thank you most kindly. Collect (talk) 19:43, 22 February 2011 (UTC)


 * For anyone who cares, here's a link to my ANI post (permalink). Collect reverted my work while I still had the relevant sections tagged with "Refactor in progress" notices, exactly 8 minutes after my previous save, which I'd marked with the edit summary, "refactor in progress - savepoint", and exactly 2 minutes after posting his first objection anywhere. It does seem a shame that this talk page has to remain unnecessarily jumbled, and is likely to become still more so subsequently, all so Collect's half sentence of growling could be preserved, and even before he knew whether I'd be able to restore that, or at least introduce an explanatory note about it. Finally, you can all see for yourselves the "substantive" content I removed, perhaps temporarily: Here's where I cut from one section, and here's where I pasted (almost all of) that back to the section it belongs in. But arguing with Collect isn't my highest priority right now; I have a much more important matter to attend to. Someone just baked me chocolate chip cookies! Cheers,  –  OhioStandard  (talk) 21:29, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * 1. The WP pages on refactoring are clear. 2. You took more than 1.5 hours to do a partial refactoring. 3. You removed material from posts and re-ordered threaded content. 4. You brought this all to AN/I. 5. Upon being told you were wrong, you seem desirous of having the "last word" here.  Collect (talk) 21:53, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * From WP:LASTWORD: "NB: If your opponent attempts to seize the last word for themselves, be careful to point out the folly of this strategy, perhaps citing this project page. This clever technique allows you to simultaneously regain the last word for yourself while making any sort of reply from your opponent seem in bad faith." Now, do you think you can both stop being so pedantic and get back to the subject of import here? siafu (talk) 21:57, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Manning's comment - I am very much online, I've never been absent for more than 8 hours in the last few days. I'm less than impressed at the tone of some of the comments above. Keep it cool, keep it calm. Yes some of you feel very passionately about this topic, I get that. But if your heart rate is up, keep your fingers away from keyboard. Manning (talk) 09:24, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Ongoing debate.
The reason for mediation is that no consensus was found through debate. Thus ongoing debate seems unlikely to result in a consensus. Let's await the result of the mediation. Rick Norwood (talk) 20:35, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

RfC on lead of Right-wing politics
'''As an uninvolved admin, I have offered to review and close this RFC (see below discussion) and my offer has been accepted. I am allowing myself 24 hours to review the matter in depth. Please do not close this RFC in the interim. ''' - Manning (talk) 02:34, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

There has been a dispute for several months about whether the lead should contain that extreme-right-wing parties have included aspects of racism and fascism. The sentence being removed is:

Stephen Fisher writes in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics that in liberal democracies the term [right-wing] has been defined in opposition to socialism or social democracy, and that right-wing parties have included the philosophies of conservatism, Christian democracy, liberalism (in the European sense of the word), libertarianism, and nationalism, while extreme-right parties have included racism and fascism.

Should the lead contain this sentence in full, or should it leave out the reference to racism and fascism and place those issues lower in the article, as with this edit? SlimVirgin TALK |  CONTRIBS 17:14, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Comments
(no threaded replies here, please)
 * Support inclusion in the lead. The source is a neutral academic at Oxford working in this field, and writing for Oxford University Press. The entry he has written is on the meaning of "right-wing." We have stuck very closely to what he says, and have used full in-text attribution. In my view, if this is what a neutral, modern, specialist academic source says, we should use it as an introduction to the concept, but we should not use some of it and leave out the rest. SlimVirgin  TALK |  CONTRIBS 17:19, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support inclusion The article is supposed to explain how a term is used. The term "right-wing has been used to describe several ideologies, and the article should explain that,  TFD (talk) 17:32, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose full inclusion in lede: The lead should be about the mainstream right. The line about racism and facism belongs to the section on the extreme right. LittleJerry (talk) 17:59, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose full inclusion in lede: ...unless more sources support the two trailing words, per my comment below. The source is good but the 'racism and fascism' parts should be in an appropriate lower section unless it's shown to be a more widely observed part of the concept. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 07:20, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support inclusion - I'm no political scientist, but I think it's pretty commonly accepted that fascism is a member of extreme right wing politics. The statement doesn't seem controversial, and it equally seems notable.  I'm guessing opponents to the wording simply don't like seeing "right wing" and "fascism" in the same sentence.  As a side note, do we have to attribute this paragraph?  Attribution in the lead is inelegant.  NickCT (talk) 18:17, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose inclusion - this article ought to be about the mainsteam right. We have an article Far-right politics, it should go into that article yet oddly enough it is not even discussed there in any detail. Note this article is about "Right-wing politics", thus it would be legitimate to mention the politics of the Labor Right as opposed to the Labor Left, for example. Including fascism would squeeze out that kind of distinction. --Martin (talk) 20:00, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I found an interesting quote that provides a succinct description of the differing positions on where fascism actually is positioned in the left-right spectrum: "Several different points of view exist among the writers examined concerning where fascism fits on the conventional left-right continuum. Forman and Neocleous defend the standard left-wing interpretation of fascism as a right-wing movement in disguise, implementing a preemptive 'revolution against the revolution' to save capitalism from the socialist threat. Other writers take the anticapitalist pretensions of fascism seriously: Sternhell, for instance, regards fascism as an anti-Marxist form of socialism. Orwell, his own left-wing views notwithstanding, also recognises fascism as a form of collectivism. For yet others, the corporate states of fascism represents a 'third way' between capitalism and socialism (Mosse, O'Sullivan), while Lipset sees fascism as an 'extremism of the center'." Given there appears to be no scholarly concensus on where to place fascism, I am more inclined to oppose inclusion. --Martin (talk) 03:00, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * [I haved replied in the discussion thread below. TFD (talk) 05:12, 3 February 2011 (UTC)]


 * Undecided. - There are two schools of thoughts on leads. The first school says that lead should sumarise most mainstream views. The second says that it should only contain views/facts that are undisputed (except by tiny minority). If I take the first view, then citing dictionary is proper. If the second, then we should avoid the latter part of the sentence. In any case, I can live with it, if it is directly attributed. I know it may be ackward but this is the only way to convey the message that this is but one (though mainstream) definition. - BorisG (talk) 17:01, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The lead merely describes how the term is used, and does not pronounce an opinion. Nothing about the term right-wing is undisputed - Collect for example says that it is meaningless.  TFD (talk) 21:18, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Huh? Kindly accept the fact that your statement about me personally is wrong. Entirely.   Claiming another editor says something which is not accurate as to what that editor says is inane at best.   Collect (talk) 21:45, 3 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Oppose for two reasons. First, it is not generally a good idea to rely on a quote from a single tertiary source in the Introduction. Second, although the connection between right-wing and racism/fascism can be justified by numerous sources, same can be said about left-wing parties . Biophys (talk) 17:35, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose as not even being a true rendition of the actual wording made in the tertiary source. Collect (talk) 22:17, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support inclusion the nature of the source has authority beyond a passing reference in an article. -- Snowded  TALK  13:03, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support inclusion using this three–sentence explicit quotation and prettyprint cite format.  –  OhioStandard  (talk) 16:47, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support inclusion. Oppose votes seem to be based upon the idea that only the "mainstream" right (whatever is meant by that) should be taken into account for the purposes of the lead. Which is absurd. Would those users also be of the opinion that Communism should not be mentioned in the lead to Left-wing politics? --FormerIP (talk) 00:06, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose inclusion I do not think this is appropriate content for a lead section, and I am somewhat astonished that anyone would want it there. The lead is there to sumarise the content of the whole article. it is not there to act as a pedestal to display the opinion of a single source. As it stands now, over 50% of the lead is devoted to what a single source claims! All of the section begining with "Stephen Fisher ...." should be removed. Scribblescribblescribble (talk) 17:53, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose inclusion by agreeing with the line of reasoning of user:Martin. --Brunswick Dude (talk) 19:04, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose inclusion. I basically find the Oppose arguments above more convincing. If the quote said "...have at times included racism and fascism" I would be more comfortable with it. But he didn't say that, which leads me to question his neutrality and/or the global reach of his view. Yes he's an Oxford Don - a position I would automatically respect on matters of (say) philology and so forth... but not necessarily politics. All in all, certainly belongs in the article but not in the lead. Herostratus (talk) 18:18, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support inclusion The point is well sourced (any number of sources could be produced). I don't see any reason to limit this article to "mainstream right-wing" politics, at least the title doesn't suggest that restriction. Obviously, it should also be discussed in the article itself (fascism is currently discussed, racism a bit indirectly). Agree with NickCT that attribution in the lead isn't preferable. Some sources: 1 2 3 --Dailycare (talk) 22:18, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose full inclusion in lede per Scribblescribblescribble. Support inclusion of mention of fascism as right wing per FormerIP. Support mention of something like: "rightwing may also refer to a tendency within a political movement/party (e.g. Labor right) rather than the entire political spectrum," per Martin. --BoogaLouie (talk) 17:50, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support inclusion; the general term "right-wing" is inclusive of both center-right, "mainstream right", and far-right ideologies. The lead does not purport to say that all right-wing thinking is dominated or colored by the far-right, which seems to be the main objection.  Naive readers, like schoolchildren, may not be aware that fascism is a right-wing phenomenon, just as they might not be aware that communism is a far-left movement, and we would be remiss in omitting it from the lead. siafu (talk) 16:06, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose not because it isn't a great definition (on the contrary, I think it's a very strong, accurate, and not particularly controversial one), but because I have a general distaste for giving such a prominent position to what one third party says. Unless he is the universally agreed upon penultimate researcher into right-wing politics, placing him in the lead gives the impression that we are endorsing his ideas to the exclusion of others.  The intro should give a general, agreeable, neutral definition, or, if the definition is disputed, give information on what the dispute is.  Only later should the article get into so and so says this, so and so says that. --B (talk) 04:44, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I think this is a very good point. - BorisG (talk) 12:39, 19 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Support full inclusion - per various arguments made above, it is well sourced and is due weight. WMO Please leave me a wb if you reply 07:23, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose Scholars dispute the character of Fascism (many view it as nationalistic socialism - more akin to the political left than the right) and this controversy should be addressed in the main body of the article. The assertion that racism is right wing is also controversial. The two issues are of course are linked. It is a matter (as these pages testify) which is the subject of political debate, and it is not going to be settled on Wikipedia. The final bit of the sentence is very unclear, and thus unhelpful. On those grounds alone it should be deleted. ERIDU-DREAMING (talk) 14:17, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

 * Comment [in response to The Four Deuces above]: It does, the question is where where certain pieces of information should go. LittleJerry (talk) 17:59, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It seems that the term "right-wing" is normally used to describe legitimist, ultramontane, fascist or nationalist parties, while moderate conservative, Christian Democratic and conservative liberal parties are called "center" or "center-right", and liberal parties in Europe are generally called the "center". TFD (talk) 18:46, 1 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Actually, deciding what is "right" or "left" is frequently contradictory and arbitrary at best. Many sources now state that a linear spectrum is invalid and misleading. Collect (talk) 19:02, 1 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree with Collect on this. As an aside, I think TFD's two comments above contradict each other. He supports inclusion of the statement that the term right-wing includes conservative and Christian Democratic but a few lines below says that these are not called right-wing, but center or center-right. If he supports an inclusion of a sourced statement despite disagreeing with it, that is commendable. - BorisG (talk) 23:35, 1 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Maybe it is also a good place to question the inclusion of libertanianism. Libertarianism includes Left-Libertarianism and Right-Libertarianism. Presumably Fischer means Right-Libertarianism because anarchists and libertanian socialists are not usually called right-wing. I know that Wikipedia is about verifyability and not truth, but shouldn't we also exercise some common sense in addition to verifyability? - BorisG (talk) 23:44, 1 February 2011 (UTC)


 * It's a good source and certainly worth including. I imagine most sources would agree with the first part of the definition, but how many agree with the inclusion of racism and fascism? If they don't, while it's certainly worth having in the article, wouldn't it be undue weight to include it in the lede? If there's a good number of reliable sources that concur with the definition then it certainly qualifies for inclusion in the lede, but otherwise I think it would be more appropriate to move that portion of the quote to the appropriate section. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 01:16, 2 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Outside America, libertarians say they are neither right nor left. On the other hand, they usually receive less than 1/100th of 1% of the vote.  TFD (talk) 01:22, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
 * How is this last point (percentage of support) relevant? - BorisG (talk) 03:35, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
 * When people talk about "The Right", they are probably referring to parties they have heard about. Same thing when Americans talk about "The Left" - they are probably not referring to the fringe party that backs Kim Jong Il.  TFD (talk) 03:55, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't understand this at all. Left-libertarianism has been significant enough to have a sizeable wikipedia article about it, with a number of streams etc. And BTW, this is not just about political parties (which are miniscule across the world, including in the US), but also schools of thought, which are significant. But I am not sure I understand what you are saying. Please clarify. - BorisG (talk) 15:15, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The terms "left" and "right" have their origins in European legislatures, where political parties are seated from left to right, depending on their ideologies and based on the agreement of the parties themselves. From left to right, and depending on what parties exist, the seating arrangement is communist, socialist, green, liberal (including free market and social liberals), Christian democrats, conservatives, right-wing nationalists and populists, and fascists.  We may not like this, but that is how the basis for what the terms mean.  TFD (talk) 15:33, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Another comment unrelated to any previous question or discussion. I give up. - BorisG (talk) 15:57, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually related to the immediately preceding comment. If you have difficulty understanding the connection, then please post a note on my talk page.  TFD (talk) 20:11, 2 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Please elaborate. Who in the "mainstream" calls thenmselves "right-wing" or is called "right-wing"? TFD (talk) 20:14, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The Labor Right identifies themselves as right wing of a centre-left (constitutionally a democratic socialist) party. The problem with including fascism is that it squeezes out the discussion of more mainstream "right-wing politics". Fascism properly belongs in Far-right politics. --Martin (talk) 20:39, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The right side of the Labor Party is no more the Right than the right side of your left nostril is you part of your right nostril. Are you aware of the difference between relative and absolute descriptions?  Do you find it confusing that South Dakota is a northern state, while North Carolina is a southern state?  So what are these "more mainstream "right-wing politics"", and please don't tell me that they are members of the Australian Labor Party.
 * There are minority views that do not consider fascist ideology to be right-wing, but there are even more mainstream views that would exclude, Anglo-Scandinavian and American conservatism, conservative liberalism, and Christian democracy from the Right. Lipset for example, placed fascism in the center, because he saw it as similar to Robert Taft Republicanism.  But Lipset normally refers to fascism as far right.  By the way, you wrote at the NOR noticeboard, "Lipset isn't a historian, he is a sociologist, and his historical writing has been criticised according to one review I have read".  Is there any reason why you present his views now?  TFD (talk) 03:54, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * ?? My comment about Lipset was related to Lipset's writings about 1790's American republicanism. --Martin (talk) 04:59, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * So Lipset can be trusted for European history but not American history. Incidentally, the argument Lipset presented in his essay was based on a misunderstanding that laissez-faire liberals had supported the Nazis, which was based on the fact that Nazi support grew as liberal support declined.   TFD (talk) 05:13, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Presumably. I have only seen published criticism on his work related to 1790's history. Fascism is a more recent issue which is amenable to sociological study, apparently. --Martin (talk) 05:25, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Who is the mainstream right you keep mentioning? TFD (talk) 05:53, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Nationalist parties are frequently "left-wing". This all started from the National Bolshevism traditions. The German Nazi party was called "national-socialist" (hence left-wing) party, and they are indeed described as such in many sources, including books by Richard Pipes and Robert Conquest, even though Nazi were officially anti-communist.Biophys (talk) 04:14, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Can you name any mainstream writers who support your views? Can you even point to where these writers support your views?  TFD (talk) 04:19, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Sure, please see book "Russia under the Bolshevik regime" by Richard Pipes, for example. Whole chapter 5 is about this ("Communism, Fascism and National Socialism"). See page 260, for example. "The party grew from a union of German workers in Bohemia. ...", and so on, and so on. This is huge subject. But I can not really go further to these debates because of my topic ban. Sorry.Biophys (talk) 05:19, 4 February 2011 (UTC)


 * This is all very interesting, but not to the point. A discussion of the definition of fascism belongs in the fascism article.  The mention here is due to the historical fact that anyone who reads a history of World War II will find the term "right-wing" applied to the governments that self-identified as fascist. Rick Norwood (talk) 13:09, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * IOW, the lede should specify that "right wing was applied to governments which self-identified as 'fascist'" if that is what the facts are. It also keeps any definition of "fascist" from needing to be added.  Collect (talk) 14:06, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Was also applied to fascists who never came to power. BTW, right-wing parties may self-identify in many ways.  The Radical and Socialist Party of France, and the the Social Democratic Party are both right-wing.  TFD (talk) 14:26, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * And your assertion that all such parties are "fascist" is based on what? "'Right wing' was applied to movements which self-identified as 'fascist'" is about as far as one can stretch this.  Unless, of course, you feel we can have a fully accurate and concise definition of "fascist" specifying that it is always "right wing"? Collect (talk) 14:37, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * We face the same problem with conservative, Christian democratic and liberal parties. They are not always right-wing either and in fact do not call themselves right-wing.  TFD (talk) 14:52, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * IOW, the sentence I suggested is correct, lest we mislead any readers. Collect (talk) 15:01, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * No, the description already used is correct. TFD (talk) 15:03, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The second paragraph of introduction is based on a single tertiary source and should be modified or removed per discussion above.Biophys (talk) 15:43, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Political dictionaries are good sources for articles that are about the use of political terminolgy. For articles about political ideologies, however, I would agree with you.  If can provide any secondary sources that define the term "right-wing", then it would be helpful.  TFD (talk) 16:45, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * We face the same problem with conservative, Christian democratic and liberal parties. They are not always right-wing either . Why then include a sentence that says they are? - BorisG (talk) 01:01, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * We don't. TFD (talk) 01:29, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Didn't you support this: right-wing parties have included the philosophies of conservatism, Christian democracy, liberalism (in the European sense of the word)... - BorisG (talk) 02:49, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * No, because it normally refers to reactionary conservative parties, i.e., parties that support absolute monarchy and rule by the Catholic church and aristocatic landowners. Liberals and Christian democrats are historically centrist.  The liberals who were considered right-wing were the parties of monopolists who opposed laissez-faire economics.  No mainstream political party today self-identifies as "right-wing".  In France, the last party to call itself right-wing was the National Front, and they abandoned the label because of its identification with authoritarian conservatism and fascism.  TFD (talk) 03:17, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * No???? But you support inclusion! - BorisG (talk) 06:31, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * No, I support explaining how the term is used. TFD (talk) 15:15, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * this suggests that you support inclusion of Fisher's statement. Is this correct? - BorisG (talk) 15:37, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * In that link I say, "The article is supposed to explain how a term is used" which is consistent with my statement above, "I support explaining how the term is used". TFD (talk) 15:52, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * So you do NOT support inclusion of Fisher's statement? - BorisG (talk) 16:02, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Please stop writing in that manner. It is cross-examination and not appropriate for discussions.  TFD (talk) 22:26, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * If you don't want to clarify your opinion, that's ok. - BorisG (talk) 06:19, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Extreme right
An editor changed the text to read, "He says the extreme-right includes some parties that are avowedly racist or fascist". Does not appear to accurately reflect the text. TFD (talk) 15:33, 5 February 2011 (UTC)


 * The source (and most academic sources) just says that the extreme right includes fascists. Somebody objected that "fascist" was just a form of name-calling, and so I added the word "avowedly" to rule out any hint of name calling.  Clearly the source is talking about real fascists, not people called fascist -- which might include almost anybody.  Now it has been replaced by an almost quote (with two weasel words added in parentheses).  I can live with that. Rick Norwood (talk) 18:38, 5 February 2011 (UTC)


 * TFD, in fact, essentially accused me of lying when I pointed out that "avowedly" was not in the reference given. The "weasel words" are from the cite and are actually a direct quote from just before the part quoted.  I figured that was reasonable.   Collect (talk) 01:21, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Let's be careful of using words like "lying". TFD was mistaken about the source using the word "avowedly", but you are mistaken if you think he "essentially" accused you of "lying". To err is human, to forgive divine. Assume good faith. Rick Norwood (talk) 18:34, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

ALL racists and fascists are "right wing"
Is the implication where TFD specifically removed the word "some" which I felt would otherwise give a fully wrong implication to readers. Are, indeed, all racists and fascists "right wing"? Collect (talk) 16:18, 5 February 2011 (UTC)


 * We are supposed to reflect what sources say, not what we WP:KNOW. Also, notice that the source uses the term "awovedly".  If you think the source is wrong, then find one that you think is right.  TFD (talk) 16:30, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * BTW, the word "avowedly" is where precisely in the dictionary cite you give above? I have read it six times and that word is just not there.   When you insist something is there which ain't there, editors worry.   Might you have erred in your insistence? Collect (talk) 16:46, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I am using direct quotes now from the source to prevent any misconceptions being presented to the readers of the article. Collect (talk) 16:41, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * to be fair, What the source says is how it should be worded in the article Johnsy88 (talk) 16:42, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I ended up using exact quotes to prevent any of this becoming any sort of battleground at all. Collect (talk) 16:51, 5 February 2011 (UTC)


 * (re to the original question by Collect). The answer is obviously "no". Mussolini started as a leader of Italian socialist movement; some members of his government were also Comintern members. Many communist governments officially conducted massive ethnic cleansing campaigns, for example Khmer Rouge and Milosevich. This is not a matter of anyone's views, but a matter of fact, and the facts are very easy to source. But of course all partisan (left-wing) sources claim fascism to be "right wing". This is mostly a public propaganda stance unsupported by facts. Actually, this is interesting subject. For example, some well known researchers, such as Nikolai Berdyaev and Benedikt Sarnov, argued that Soviet internationalism was in fact a variety of Russian nationalism, but unfortunately I can not work with this subject. Biophys (talk) 17:14, 5 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Sigh. So, once a socialist, always a socialist, and anyone who associates with communists is a communist.  And communists are bad and fascists are bad so communists are fascists.  And fact means anything you think is true, partisan means left-wing, and standard reference works are all probaganda.  I would think the errors in logic would stick in your craw.  Rick Norwood (talk) 18:32, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * No, fact or event is something that actually happened, something that was experimentally observed, unlike an opinion. For example, the official cleansing of ethnic minorities by Khmer Rouge was a series of actual events and therefore a fact, just like sun eclipse. In contrast, defining a political party as "right-wing" or "left-wing" is a matter of opinion. However, no reliable source claims Khmer Rouge to be a right-wing party. Keep in mind that I am not an expert here. The examples with Mussolini and Khmer Rouge (as a proof of left-wing nationalism/racism) are taken from books by Pipes and Robert Conquest. P.S. No, I am not telling nonsense like "communists are bad" or "once a socialist, always a socialist". Many communists joined Nazi Party. Biophys (talk) 20:06, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * That is original research. Please not that this page is not here for general discussion and if you dislike the source provided you must present another one.  TFD (talk) 20:29, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * What OR? The title of book by Pipes was provided above and the book by Conquest is "Reflections on a Ravaged Century (1999)". I only came to provide 3rd opinion to RfC request on this page and responded to question by Collect and comment by Rick Norwood.Biophys (talk) 21:33, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Where in their books do these two writers explain how the term right-wing is used? TFD (talk) 22:14, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I only said that certain socialist and communist parties (traditional "left-wing") can be highly nationalistic. Yes, supported by the sources (see book by Conquest, chapter 4). Also keep in mind that German Nazi and Italian fascists were not "conservatives" (as "right-wing" parties suppose to be according to this articles), but revolutionaries: they strongly changed the existing social order in Germany, for example. This is also per the same and other RS.Biophys (talk) 23:21, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * More original research. What does Conquest say about how the term right-wing is used?  Please do not start broad discussions based on your interpretations.  TFD (talk) 23:30, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Please read these chapters. If you need exact quotes with pages from the books, I will certainly provide them, as I always do, but only with regard to specific changes I make in specific articles, not as a part of providing 3rd opinion here.Biophys (talk) 23:51, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * No, you need to provide a quote. We cannot read Conquest's views and form our own opinions based on them.  Where does he say that fascists are not considered to be right-wing?  TFD (talk) 00:05, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Try: ''The rise of fascism and communism illustrated vividly the fallacies of the linear conception of Right and Left. In certain basic respects-a totalitarian state structure, a single party, a leader, a secret police, a hatred of political, cultural and intellectual freedom-fascism and communism are clearly more like each other than they are like anything in between. This dilemma drove Prof. DeWitt C. Poole to an inspired suggestion. Right and Left, he said, should be conceived, not in terms of a line, but in terms of a circle, with the extremes of Right and Left-fascism and communism-meeting at the bottom. You can then look at the circle in two ways: with respect to property, fascism and the moderate Right are side by side against communism and the moderate Left; with respect to liberty, the moderate Right and moderate Left are side by side against fascism and communism.

''If we will understand further that the non-Communist Left and the non-Fascist Right share a common faith in free political society-a faith that the differences between them over economic issues can be best worked out by discussion and debate under law-we might even stop talking of Left and Right as if nothing lay in between. ''

1948 by the noted Libertarian(?) A. M. Schlesinger.

And also: ''British Fascism, 1918-39: Parties, Ideology and Culture, Thomas P. Linehan, Manchester University Press, 2000 ISBN 0719050243 306 pages, page 6: "The dispute amongst historians...overlaps with another contentious area of scholarship, the question of whether fascism was an ideology of the right, left or centre." ''

Need more? Collect (talk) 00:15, 6 February 2011 (UTC)


 * This article is about the term "right-wing". Can you provide any sources about how the term right-wing is used?  TFD (talk) 00:36, 6 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Try to follow this - you asserted more-or-less that racists and fscists are "right wing". One editor demurred furnishing a source. In fact you specifically asked Where does he say that fascists are not considered to be right-wing?  Therefore it appeared that you felt no fascists are not called "right wing." Hence the reliable sources in fact making that very comment.  Is this clear?  (Unless, of course, you find Schlesinger to be non-RS, and Linehan also to be not RS). Collect (talk) 01:23, 6 February 2011 (UTC)


 * The source says that "the ideologies and philosopnies of right-wing political parties have included...for extreme-right parties racism and fascism". Your man Schlesinger did not contradict this.  Schlesinger actually says that fascists "were assigned positions on the far right". (''The vital center, pp. 144-145  You are conducting original research, reading in things that Schlesinger did not say.  The view you present has only been presented by Cleon Skousen (an intellectual now popularized by Glenn Beck]].  TFD (talk) 02:23, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I have said absolutely nothing about Schlesinger except quote his words. Are you claiming that the quote was fabricated by me by any chance?  And trying to assert that I even listen to Beck is beyond the pale as an attempted ad hom attack.   And how on earth can exact quotes be "original research" pray tell?    I think your position is entirely untenable at this point. Collect (talk) 02:30, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Do you not see any inconsistency in the fact that you wish to qualify the statement that fascism is considered right-wing, despite being unable to find any contradictory source, yet you are happy to label the UAF as "left-wing" based on a few isolated references? TFD (talk) 03:17, 6 February 2011 (UTC)


 * A few "isolated references"? The AP, The Times, The Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph, the International Business Times, and a half dozen more sources do go beyond a "few isolated sources" for sure. And I would appreciate accuracy when making such claims in posts here. Collect (talk) 12:55, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
 * May I suggest that a statement that arouses so much controversy should NOT be in the lead. We can add it somewhere in the article along with statements from other sources with alternative views, but doing this in the lead will make it akward. - BorisG (talk) 06:27, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't see that it does arouse much conroversy. No one has presented a source saying that fascists are ordinarily considered left-wing - even fringe sources do not make this claim.  Instead they say that people are mistaken in calling the fascists right-wing.  TFD (talk) 06:42, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Isn't this a controversy? - BorisG (talk) 07:06, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

There is no "controversy" among serious scholars. The only "controversy" is arises when people try to change the historical meaning of words to favor a particular political cause. Rick Norwood (talk) 13:30, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
 * RN, I think your definition of serious scholars is too narrow. People here cited reliable sources with different views. I personally think that mainstream usage is that fascists are at the end of the right-wing. But while this view is most common, it is hardly universal. As for racists, I wouldn't even include this word, as this is not an ideology. And for Wikipedia, consensus is consensus of Wikipedia editors (backed by reliable sources, not serious scholars). - BorisG (talk) 14:20, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
 * From what I have read (not a lot), serious scholars generally avoid the use of simplistic labels and cliches. Terms like right-wing are more a domain of journalists, politicians and pundits. - BorisG (talk) 14:44, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Serious scholars do explain how words are used. An editor btw has presented the Cold War writings of Arthur Schlesinger, who argued the totalitarian thesis, that both fascists on the Right and Communists on the left had elements in common.  Whether or not he was correct he did not argue that fascists were not right-wing, that is original research.  Here is a link to the diagream that Schlesinger offers - notice that fascism is on the Right.  Can you provide an example of serious scholarship you have read that avoids the term right-wing.  TFD (talk) 14:53, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Again the false charge of "original research" looms it ugly head. Please refrain forom that false allegation, please. And I take it Linehan is not a "scholar" by your standards? Lipset is not a "scholar"?  seems an odd definition of "scholar" is involved, indeed! Collect (talk) 15:12, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Linehan is discussing the ideology developed by fascists in the 1920s, not fascist political parties in govenrment or neofascist parties following the war. If Linehan thought that people did not normally consider fascism to be right-wing he would not have called on of his books The culture of fascism: visons of the Far Right in Britain.  Lipset drew comparisons between Nazis and Robert Taft republicans - they were both middle class movements and could therefore be "centrist".  But Lipset still referred to them as right-wing and his assumnptions have been challenged by later research.  You have not and cannot provide any evidence to support your position (at least published in mainstream sources) and are arguing your position based on original research.  TFD (talk) 15:39, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

The full-text definition
For fair-use convenience on this talk page only, here's the complete definition of "right(-wing)" (sic) given in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics, courtesy of the publishers and Google Books:


 * right-(wing): The opposite of left. As with the term left-wing, the label right-wing has many connotations which vary over time and are often only understood within the particular political context. In advanced liberal democracies, perhaps more than anything else the right has been defined in opposition to socialism or social democracy. As a result, the ideologies and philosophies of right-wing political parties have included elements of conservatism, Christian democracy, liberalism, libertarianism, and nationalism; and for extreme-right parties racism and fascism. As the policy platforms of parties have varied, so has the popular conception of the left-right dimension. In surveys, self-placement on a "left-right" scale is associated with attitudes on economic policy, especially redistribution and privatization/nationalization, post-materialism, and (particularly in Catholic countries) religiosity.

Also, while I made no content change to the body of the article at all, I just now normalized the ref/cite format, albeit excluding the credentials of the individual contributor for this entry from the reference section. ( The imprimatur of Oxford University Press should be more than sufficient to the needs of our actual readers. ) If however, anyone chooses to re-add the individual credentials for Stephen Fisher, who contributed this definition, please be advised that page viii lists his credentials exactly as follows, verbatim, and in italics, for what that's worth: University Lecturer in Political Sociology, University of Oxford –  OhioStandard  (talk) 18:44, 6 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I am concerned about neutrality: "Avoid presenting uncontested assertions as mere opinion. Uncontested and uncontroversial factual assertions made by reliable sources should normally be directly stated in Wikipedia's voice. Unless a topic specifically deals with a disagreement over otherwise uncontested information, there is no need for specific attribution for the assertion. Further, the passage should not be worded in any way that makes it appear to be contested."
 * Although the article is signed, the dictionary is not a collection of articles representing different viewpoints, but the editors endorse what is written in the various articles. In fact, the source should not be represented as presenting an opinion, but as summarizing the opinions of reliable sources.
 * TFD (talk) 19:02, 6 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I see your point entirely, and agree with it emphatically, but we do have a severe problem at the moment that necessarily supersedes what you've said. None of us knows how to "reduce that to practice", as a patent lawyer would say. In other words, no one here seems willing to accept anyone else's "in Wikipedia's voice" paraphrase of the Oxford source; everyone has been objecting that everyone else's paraphrase improperly expresses the meaning of that source. OTOH, people do seem to accept the verbatim language of that Oxford source, although perhaps some of them have to hold their noses to do so. So if we use the only wording that seems to have the power to put an end to the battle here, we can't deliver it "in Wikipedia's voice", because that would be plagarism. We'd be using Fisher's/Oxford's words exactly, and if we do that we obviously have to put quotation marks around them, and attribute them to their source. Am I wrong in any of my statements? ( I admit the possibility: it nearly happened once in 1978. ;-) Best, –  OhioStandard  (talk) 19:57, 6 February 2011 (UTC)


 * How about. "The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics defines that term right-wing as follows: [blockquote]". (The source should include the author and name of the article.)  TFD (talk) 20:34, 6 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Sounds fine to me, although you'll need to determine whether or how to disclose that the obligatory clarifying remark re the European meaning of "liberal" is not present in the original, i.e. that it's not in the source document. I don't have a strong attachment to the precise wording we end up with, although I would be disappointed if the cite book (populated) template I just added to our "live" article – see demo page, which also presents one way to address that necessary clarifying remark – were to get lost in the shuffle. It took me a while to figure out how to most–properly display the ISBNs for both the softcover and the hardcover instances of the current editon, and to make the second one behave like the first re its clickable linking to its own correct Special:BookSources page. It was probably overkill to do that for a dictionary, but I like the idea that if anyone wants to try to get access to the full content via either of the two ISBN numbers using the options available on its respective "Special" page, that they can do so via the same clicking behavior for either.  –  OhioStandard  (talk) 22:30, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The book uses American spellings ("ize"), so I am quite unsure the "clarification" would actually be correct. I remain with reservations about using any "dictionary" as a source for the lede, although it might be used in a section on the meanings of terms.  Collect (talk) 23:02, 6 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm not well-informed about the variations by region in the meaning of political descriptions like "liberal". But I do seem to remember that you have some strong feelings about that particular word, and that you use it in a way that seems pretty much the opposite of what I think 99 out of 100 of us who grew up in the Western United States mean by it. If I understand your preferred usage (and I'm by no means sure I do), and if I'm correctly recalling what I've seen you post about this before, you describe yourself as a "typical Northeastern liberal", by which I vaguely infer you mean something like what I would think of as "a libertarian" or perhaps "a fervent individualist." Feel free to let me know if I have any of this wrong.
 * Re the dictionary using American spelling, I do remember hearing a radio program about that. It wasn't a rep from Oxford University Press who was being interviewed, but he was from some large British publishing house, I'm sure. He was saying that the market for his firm's books was just so much larger in the Americas than in Britain, that his firm, and most of his firm's British competitors, used American English as their default, it being too expensive to publish editions customized to multiple geographic variations of the English language. But maybe you and the rest of our friends can sort all this? I'm going to have to be offline for the next 16 hours or so, at least mostly offline, although I may be able to drop in very briefly. Anyway, everyone play nice, and have fun! Cheers, –  OhioStandard  (talk) 23:50, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
 * This is quite off-topic - but let me assert that I am not a "libertarian" though I share the concern about authoritarianism, and share a belief that indidualism is more economically productive than any other "ism" yet found. This means a strong support of civil rights in general, and not a support of government interference with individual beliefs or acts which do not harm others.  I am bemused by "authoritarian liberals"  which I regard as a tad oxymoronic.  I trust this settles everyone's speculation about my political and economic beliefs.  Collect (talk) 00:11, 7 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I see no reason to assume that the author is using the term liberal "in the European sense of the word". The main article for liberalism does not define it that way.  TFD (talk) 00:31, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I find the full-text definition so much better than any paraphrasing/description I have seen so far. The first sentence in particular was always omitted. This sentence actually introduces broad perspective and inherent uncertainty of the term, dependency on context etc. Such a broad perpspective is sadly lacking in Wikipedia, and not just in this article. In this sense, the use of a tertiary (reference) soruce is a plus, compared to specific academic studies which are usually written from individual academic's perspective. I also agree with TFD that in this case it is unnecessary and may even be misleading to mention the author. However the use of the word 'liberal' is confusing to me. TFD is right that if 'european' is not mention in the source, adding it to the statement is misleading. I was myself mislead, thinking that this is what the source said (it sounded a bit strange but ok:). However if we do not say this, we will call all the liberals right wing. This is a bit strange, because in the US liberals are usually considered to be left of centre. But if the source says so... - BorisG (talk) 13:32, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The Oxford article is not calling all liberals right-wing. The emergence of new parties on the left, such as socialists, and the decline of the historic right, e.g., supporters of absolute monarchy, has meant that some parties that were formerly considered left-wing or centrist later found themselves on the Right.  In many cases, liberals went into alliance with conservatives in order to oppose socialism.  For example in the Canadian province of Quebec, the Quebec Liberal Party had been the opposition to the reactionary conservative Union Nationale.  The UN disappeared and was replaced in the legislature by the social democratic Parti Quebecois.  The Liberals now found themselves to be the right-wing party.  TFD (talk) 16:22, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * TFD, you are absolutely right. Roughly similar is the origin of the Liberal party in Australia. But in the US, the term liberal clearly has a different meaning. - BorisG (talk) 17:00, 7 February 2011 (UTC)


 * (e/c - well, sort of) Hi, Boris. We've been operating at a disadvantage relative to Collect and TFD, I find, or at least I have, in this discussion so far. I'm afraid I don't have time to do more right now than just say that, basically, and hint at the gist of the matter. But they understand the terms very differently than your average American does, for example, and also correctly from the rigorously technical perspective that a political scientist or an economist would enjoy, as it turns out. I've just spent maybe three hours reading some of our multitude of articles about various flavors of "liberalism", in its corresponding multiplicity of historical and regional flavors, and also other tertiary–source materials that discuss the terms. In considerable haste just now (apologies in advance if my copy-editing here turns out rather sloppy, and the presentation seems a little choppy) here's some of what I found that may be of help ... well; I'm going to outdent, since what I have is long. See following, and excuse any silliness; I don't have time to tidy it up from what I wrote as I was making notes, and going through the process of learning about these terms. See following. –  OhioStandard  (talk) 17:22, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

( ← outdenting ) No! Aargh! Did Collect and TFD just agree?! Don't you two realize that you've introduced a paradox so blatant it could cause a chain reaction that might disrupt the fabric of the space-time continuum and destroy the entire universe?! 1 Much more to the point, I've read much more about the history of Liberalism now; at first I had no idea how you could suggest that some "clarification phrase" similar to our present "in the European sense of the word" isn't needed.

The source we're using for our "right(-wing)" quote in this article's lead section, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics, is also very helpful in its entries for both "Liberalism" and "Liberal parties", as I discovered. ( Neither is accessible via Google Books, but I found I could view most of the lengthy "Liberalism" entry in that book, where it occurs on page 308, and all of the "Liberal parties" entry by going to the book on Amazon and searching within it there for the phrase power relations illuminated. I did have to log in to my previously-existing Amazon account to access the page, for some reason, but your mileage may vary in that respect. ) Both entries in the book are well-worth the trouble of creating an account there, if you don't already have on, imo.

For the convenience and edification ;-) of other editors here, who won't be bothered to do that, I think it's appropriate to quote from part of the first paragraph of the Oxford book's page 308 definition/entry for "Liberal parties":


 * Liberal parties are as varied as the idea of liberalism is broad and vague. All liberals believe in the freedom of the individual, but that belief takes very different forms, varying from the 'classic' liberal belief in natural rights with which the state cannot interfere to the 'new' liberalism, which has dominated the English Liberal Party for over a century and which sees an important role for the state in liberating people from poverty, ignorance, and discrimination... The nature of a liberal party in a particular state has very often been determined by the kind of main party to which it has been opposed: those parties which have seen a socialist party as their main rival tend to be more favourable to free markets than those which have opposed a conservative party.

Even more helpful for me was this sentence, from the lead of our own article that's entitled simply Liberalism:


 * Liberalism encompasses several intellectual trends and traditions, but the dominant variants are classical liberalism, which became popular in the eighteenth century, and social liberalism, which became popular in the twentieth century.

If one follows the wikilinks that sentence contains, one sees that the two main "variants" it identifies are really quite different, despite the common elements they do share. ( I found their commonality to be particularly well explicated in the Oxford source's entry on "Liberalism", btw. ) Specifically ... oh, heck: as long as I'm flinging excerpts and quotations about the room, here's the very first paragraph of our article on social liberalism:


 * Social Liberalism is the belief that liberalism should include social justice. It differs from classical liberalism in that it recognizes a legitimate role for the state in addressing economic and social issues such as unemployment, health care, and education while simultaneously expanding civil rights. Under social liberalism, the good of the community is viewed as harmonious with the freedom of the individual. Social liberal policies have been widely adopted in much of the capitalist world, particularly following the Second World War. Social liberal ideas and parties tend to be considered centrist or centre-left.

In opposition to this kind of liberalism, it's my impression that any notion of social justice is pretty much anathema to the adherents of classical liberalism. If I understand correctly (and I probably don't ;-) "classical liberalism" is closer to what I'd normally think of as libertarianism than to what most Americans probably think of as "liberalism". Here's a quick excerpt from our own article on classical liberalism:


 * In the late 19th century, classical liberalism developed into neo-classical liberalism, which argued for government to be as small as possible in order to allow the exercise of individual freedom. In its most extreme form, it advocated Social Darwinism. Libertarianism is a modern form of neo-classical liberalism. The term classical liberalism was applied in retrospect to distinguish earlier nineteenth-century liberalism from the newer social liberalism.

That's helpful, in my opinion, as is the same article's mention that economist Milton Friedman was associated with the concepts of classical liberalism: I recall that Friedman was one of the darlings of the Reagan White House, and of Margaret Thatcher, too, for that matter. Of course, Reagan and Thatcher were about as far as one could get from the principles of social justice that sits at the core of social liberalism. I don't find our article on classical liberalism as concise and well-written as the one on social liberalism seems to me to be, btw, so I won't quote from it further. But I do find it telling that our classical liberalism article includes, at its right hand side, an organizing template labeled "Individualism". Paraphrasing what I said to Collect, above, it's my somewhat fuzzy impression that adherence to what I called "fervent individualism" is at the core of what I now understand to be properly termed classical liberalism.

Also very relevant to this discussion, and especially, imo, to whether any "clarification phrase" is needed for our lead-section Oxford dictionary quote that includes "liberalism" as an element of "right(-wing)" politics, take a look at page 37 of Modern Political Philosophy ( available here via Google Books ), where its author Richard Hudelson discusses "Classical Liberalism", saying, in part:


 * By the middle of the nineteenth century a coherent vision of how society should be organized had taken shape in England, western Europe, and the Americas. This vision is the political ideology of classical liberalism. It is important not to confuse this classical liberalism with the political ideology known as "liberalism" in the United States in the twentieth century. In fact, the ideology of classical liberalism is closer to what today is a current of conservatism in the United States. Central to the classical liberalism of the nineteenth century is a commitment to the liberty of individual citizens... Also central to classical liberalism was a commitment to a system of free markets as the best way to organize economic life.

The emphasis in the above passage is mine, of course. Anyway, it's taken me hours to sort this well-enough to make any sense of the inclusion of "liberalism" as an element in "right(-wing)" ideology. I doubt I'm alone in being confused by this. It seems to me, at least, that some "clarification phrase" is absolutely needed for the non-experts among our readers to be able to properly understand our current Oxford (political) dictionary quote in the lead. Perhaps a phrase that identifies the "liberalism" in that quotation as being "classical liberalism" rather than "social liberalism", with those two varieties wikilinked would be preferable to the existing regionalized disambiguation phrase ( viz. "in the European sense of the word" ), however.

But without some such "clarification phrase", I'm absolutely convinced that the quote we all seem to be moving toward here will either require our readers to go through the same kind of educational/research process I found it necessary to undertake, or will simply leave them baffled and annoyed; many will no doubt think it's an error, and will try to "correct" it. Without such a clarification, in other words, something like 200 million of our potential readers ( those who grew up in America, and who haven't studied political science, political history, political economy, economics, or related areas ) will be trying to interpret the Oxford quotation's mention of "liberalism" from the perspective of the only acquaintance they have with the word, viz. one that corresponds to Modern liberalism in the United States, J.F.K., the Great Society, and so on. And that won't do at all, imo. – OhioStandard  (talk) 17:31, 7 February 2011 (UTC)


 * WP policy is not for editors to interpolate things into sources. We would need a separate RS for such an interpolation as a minimum. Collect (talk) 17:40, 7 February 2011 (UTC)


 * That does not seem to me to be a reasonable requirement. British English is not the same as American English.  The book quoted is a British book.  The explanation:(in the European sense of the word) is transparent in both its meaning and its applicability.  Why object to it?  If I said that an office was on the first floor (in the European sense of the word) would you object? Rick Norwood (talk) 18:25, 7 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Alas for you - the book specifically uses American English spellings - the assertion that all meanings in it are therefore "British meanings with American spellings" would have to get an RfC at the very least. Personally, I would suggest that where an editor uses American spellings, that the intended readers are Americans.  Your mileage may differ. If the intended audience is American, he better assume the Americans will know the American meanings. Collect (talk) 22:55, 7 February 2011 (UTC)


 * A good analogy, Rick. Just "liberalism" used without qualification wll cause many or most of our readers to end up wandering around on the Social Liberalism floor, or the  Modern Liberalism in the United States floor, when, given that the Oxford source says the liberalism it refers to arose from ( or is defined in terms of ) a reaction to  Social Democracy it's very clear that our British friends meant them to go to the  Classical Liberalism floor. If we don't give them a clue, those readers who we leave mentally wandering around on the wrong floors are just going to get annoyed and leave the building entirely.  –  OhioStandard  (talk) 21:02, 7 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I sympathyse with OS and Rick, but I see absolutely no reason to see that the said dictionary meant Liberalism in the European sense of the word. They did not say this and there is absolutely no inidcation that they meant this. We can't just make it up. And spare a thought for, say, Australians. Now if they did not mean in the European sense of the word, what the hell did they mean? Who knows? Maybe it is not a good phrase at all, after all. However, we are saved by TFD: The Oxford article is not calling all liberals right-wing.  Just read it carefully, note past tense, and relax. - BorisG (talk) 00:36, 8 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Boris, with respect, I'm not sure anyone but you ever thought it was. On the contrary, without clarification, our Oxford friend's words seem to imply the reverse, that all right-wing groups are liberal. Or, rather, that some of them are. Clearly he can't have meant that they were Social liberals, because the right wing rejects the notion of  social justice that Social Liberalism is founded upon, and is indeed defined in opposition to that principle. And since the only other kind, in the grand scheme of things, are  Classical Liberals, it seems obvious to me that that's what he meant, that his single word "liberalism" refers to the Classic variety. Any critiques to this reasoning would be welcome.  –  OhioStandard  (talk) 06:08, 8 February 2011 (UTC)


 * ( An aside to Boris: I suspect, Boris, that some terminological confusion might be arising in our discussion due to the fact that in Australia, what's named "the Liberal Party" is actually the more right-wing of the two major political parties there, the Australian Labor Party being the other. If so, may I suggest that we're not really discussing any particular political parties here, or shouldn't be, anyway, however they choose to name themselves, but that we're discussing ideologies. Admittedly, ideologies upon which parties are formed, but it seems important to me to keep the distinction between party names on the one hand, and the names for ideologies on the other, quite sharply before us. It's unfortunate for the purposes of this present discussion that so many parties incorporate the name of an ideology into the title or appellation by which they choose to be known. Indeed, as the entry for "Liberal Parties" in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics puts it, "There are liberal parties which some liberals would regard as not very liberal, and parties that do not contain a reference to liberalism in their name but which many liberals would recognize as being essentially liberal in their aims." Best,  –  OhioStandard  (talk) 06:08, 8 February 2011 (UTC) )


 * This is all very well, but we can't just decide by ourselves what the authors meant. Besides, I do not think the word liberal has European sense at all. First of all, to be pedantic, an English word cannot have a European sense. I think the correct expression would be something like: how the word is used in European context. But, more importantly, I think the differentiation is not between Europe and elsewhere (what the term European sense of the word suggests), but rather between the US and the rest of the world. We have discussed that Liberal parties in both Canada and Australia are (or were) sort of right-of-centre, in addition to Europe. A similar approach applies to the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan. In any case, I think the quote should say exactly what the source says, and any calrifications should be added afterwards, so that the reader is not mislead into thinking that the clarification is in the source. Ideally, clarification should also be sourced. - BorisG 13:51, 8 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I do not see why it is assumed that the source uses the term liberal in the "European sense", when it is used in the UK in a broad sense. Where there is a strong socialist movement, especially when it is extreme, social liberals may find themselves on the Right, as they do today in Cuba, Venezuela, Zimbabwe and Burma.  This book about the Liberals in New South Wales says that the party was divided between the "liberals" and the "conservatives".  Both European and American type liberals co-existed in the same party, yet it was the right-wing party in Australia.  TFD (talk) 14:41, 8 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I think TFD is suggesting that Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics means right-wing in relative sense of the word, right? - BorisG (talk) 15:16, 8 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, remember the full definition from Oxford source (CODOP?) does include the sentence, "As with the term left-wing, the label right-wing has many connotations which vary over time and are often only understood within the particular political context." –  OhioStandard  (talk) 18:31, 8 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree with you, TFD and Boris, that "in the European sense of the word" is problematic; it was first introduced into the article by an IP in March, 2005 (diff), and then, along with its surrounding passage, deleted and restored by multiple editors, in 12 subsequent edits beginning late last month . But the sense in which "liberalism" is meant in the Oxford source is not, imo, really a regional matter at all, or not primarily so.


 * So if we're all agreed in our dislike for "in the European sense of the word", then may I ask you to do two things, please, to see whether we can move closer toward a possible consensus on the admittedly complex decision about how to present this?


 * (1) Will you please examine the reasoning I presented above, and see whether it's sound or flawed? If it's sound, then I'd say, Boris, that we certainly can and should provide some kind of clarification for our readers re "liberal". It's not original research to give our readers an assist in understanding a technical term, as "liberal" most assuredly is in the context of this quotation, not if our careful, consensus–based analysis of the Oxford dictionary entry concludes that it can't mean anything else. Our readers shouldn't have to have a degree in political science or follow links three levels deep to understand what they read, not if we can agree on a simple, brief, unobtrusive way to help them avoid that necessity. Nor should they have to themselves repeat the somewhat excruciating process we're undertaking here to try to understand. ( The foregoing only looks like an unsigned comment because subsequent comments were interleaved, which I think was fine, btw. The content was added by Ohiostandard as part of a single, multi-paragraph post made at 17:03, 8 February 2011 UTC )


 * Well I think your analysis is more or less correct, except that many people already know this. But many don't. So clarification would be reasonable. However I think it must be backed up by a reliable source. Not sure how to achieve this. - BorisG (talk) 14:59, 9 February 2011 (UTC)


 * (2) Only after you've done that, will you please review at least these three versions of a page I've just been playing with to try to work out how we might assist our readers with the technical term "liberal" more effectively than our article's current use of the phrase, ""in the European sense of the word"? Or if you're feeling really masochistic, you can step through all the revisions I've made by beginning with this diff. ( The foregoing was added by Ohiostandard as part of a single, multi-paragraph post made at 17:03, 8 February 2011 UTC )


 * I have reviewed your three version. While version 3 is more acceptable than others, I don't like any of them. The first reason is that it is very akward (give something, then say it is not in the source. Confusing). The second, and far more important, reason is that nowhere the source says that liberalism is meant in a classical sense. Sorry it is your interpretation, and while very plausible, it is not so obvious as to not require sourcing. I am not sure what we can do about it. One way is to leave the passage without clarification and rely on the fact that this is just one passage in the lead, and even if it causes some confusion, the meaning will become obvious in the main body of the article. Note that most if not all readers will actually know quite well what right-wing means. It is hard to mislead them. So the sentence's role is sort of setting the stage, rather than informative. Alternatively, clarification can be done in the form that not all types of liberalism (and libertarianism) are considered right-wing: social liberalism and left-libertarianism are more often defined as left of centre while classical liberalism and right-libertarianism are often chategorised as right-wing. The latter sentence can be backed by sources, for instance sources you mention above. What do you think? - BorisG (talk) 15:14, 9 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I wasn't quite ready to present this to you all just yet, and I meant to do so here rather than on some one of my too–many subpages. ( It seems a little presumptuous to ask you guys to visit one of my subpages; I don't in any way feel I "own" any of this process we're cooperatively engaged in, of course, but your comments above have kind of rushed me, forced my hand, so to speak, in disclosing what I've been experimenting with. ) Btw, in examining the three versions, above, you might like to do so in a way that gives you access to their edit summaries; I used that field to try to call attention to the differences between revisions. Thanks, –  OhioStandard  (talk) 17:03, 8 February 2011 (UTC)


 * @BorisG: Boris! I just now saw your careful replies from February 9th. I have no idea how I managed to miss them: I'm so sorry! I won't comment more substantively now, because I think it's best if this talk page doesn't change significantly while it's undergoing admin review, but I did want to let you know that the apparent slight wasn't intentional... Okay, I'll just add that I agree that the wording I offered via the last link, viz. version number 2.1.0, was the best of the three, too, but will leave replying re your alternative suggestion until Manning is through with his review. I value your analysis and comments, though; thanks. –  OhioStandard  (talk) 05:21, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Reverting
The point of the RfC is to decide the issue and hopefully put an end to the reverting, so it's best to leave this part of the lead as it is until an uninvolved editor closes the RfC. SlimVirgin TALK |  CONTRIBS 17:14, 5 February 2011 (UTC)