“The Left!”

“The Right!”

These words are shouted daily, as if their meaning were self-evident. Yet few ever stop to ask: What do they actually mean?

Most people imagine a straight line: the center is “neutral,” the left is “liberal,” and the right is “conservative.” But this model is not merely simplistic — it is deliberately misleading. It conceals what is truly at stake: not politics, but truth itself.

The False Idol of the “Neutral” Center

We must begin with the so-called “center.” It is advertised as a realm of “objectivity,” a moderate place between extremes. In reality, it is nothing of the sort. The center is not neutrality; it is nihilism. It is the denial that truth exists. Those who take refuge in this middle ground are not “reasonable” but indifferent. They neither discern right from wrong nor good from evil.

This posture may appear safe, but in a society wracked by moral upheaval, it is dangerous. A people that refuses to take a stand for truth has already surrendered it.

The “Ultra-Right”: Common Sense in Disguise

By contrast, those derided as the “ultra-right” are, in fact, the only ones still somewhat moored to reality. Their supposed “extremism” consists of believing in God and morality, defending family, honoring tradition, respecting law and order, and taking pride in their nation and culture.

Far from radical, these values are the default everywhere outside the modern West. In Muslim-majority countries, in India and East Asia, in Africa and Latin America — everyone takes such convictions for granted. Meanwhile, no Western political commentator would ever label them as “far-right” — despite the fact that the peoples and governments of these non-Western civilizations would never dream of compromising their culture or societal norms to accommodate minorities. Rather, minorities (as all minorities instinctively understand until emboldened otherwise by the West) — are the ones who must learn to fit in.

Non-Western societies instinctively recognize what the West has forgotten (or been “groomed” into rejecting): civilization depends on continuity; family, faith, and cultural memory are not “ideologies” but the very fabric of survival.

Incidentally — and, again, unlike in the West — it is usually the governments of the diverse peoples and civilizations of the non-Western world that most zealously promote national pride, cultural values, and religious tradition.

As one slides leftward of the “ultra-right” position — even while remaining technically “right of center” — compromises begin. “Centrist conservatives” dilute principles to accommodate fashionable opinions. Each concession eats away at reality until one reaches the nihilistic center, where no truths exist, and therefore all opinions are equal.

The Left: From Nihilism to Madness

The true Left, moving beyond the supposedly “neutral” center, represents an even more troubling departure from truth: madness fills the void made by nihilism. Having been “neutered,” objective reality gives way to subjective narratives — increasingly brazen claims that contradict common sense, reason, science, and/or established knowledge. Delusions are elevated to sacred dogma.

Consider the ongoing assault on biological reality. That men and women are distinct is obvious to reason, science, and common sense. No one outside the West thinks otherwise. Yet “the Left” insists that “identity” — a mere assertion — overrides biology. From a Christian perspective, such confusion is spiritual affliction; from a secular one, it is psychological disorder. The one requires a priest; the other a psychiatrist. Either way, the maladies being suffered by the “left” should not be open to discussion — much less normalized or “celebrated” — on the mere fact that they are inherently false.

And yet, by referring to them as “leftist” — and in keeping with the assumed model of left vs right, one “liberal,” the other “conservative” — you immediately legitimize them as valid positions that, even if you disagree with, must be debated. Instead of treating falsehood as falsehood, we pretend it is just one more opinion to be debated. In doing so, we open the door to instantly, allowing it to metasatize and masquerade as ideology.

History and the World as Witness

When viewed historically and globally, the absurdity of the Western spectrum becomes obvious. For most of mankind, what the West smears as “extreme right” is nothing more than common sense. Chinese Confucianism, Islamic sharia, Hindu dharma, African tribal custom, Latin American Catholicism — though wildly different in theology, all converge on the same basic principles: the centrality of family, the sanctity of tradition, the preservation of morality, and the priority of community over the whims of the individual.

It is only in the West that the most basic realities — sex, nation, faith, order — have been overthrown, and those who still cling to them tarred as crazy “far-right” extremists.

Conclusion: A War Over Truth

The conventional spectrum of left, center, and right is not neutral analysis. It is propaganda. It smuggles falsehood into the public square under the guise of legitimate “positions.” In reality, there is no symmetry. The so-called “ultra-right” is simply fidelity to truth, order, and sanity. The center is detachment — nihilism dressed as moderation. And the Left is the logical culmination of this detachment: relativism, delusion, and eventually, destruction.

If we are to withstand the crises of our age, we must abandon the deceitful spectrum altogether. Some things are not political opinions. They are matters of reality, grounded in the eternal — in reason, in nature, and in God. To pretend otherwise, as the West does, is the road to destruction.

Raymond Ibrahim, author of Defenders of the West and Sword and Scimitar, is the Distinguished Senior Shillman Fellow at the Gatestone Institute and the Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.