I was reading some article or another about politics and so forth, and one phrase caught my eye.\u00a0 “The Democratic candidates who oppose Barack Obama, by and large, do so from the right.”<\/p>\n
And the entire political spectrum in my brain suddenly went askew.\u00a0 I abruply realized that in my brain, Left is Right and Right is Left.<\/p>\n
No, that’s not some weird, to-be-explained metaphor.\u00a0 My entire brain acts dyslexic about left and right regarding envisioning political ideologies.<\/p>\n
So look at what my brain says:<\/p>\n
LEFT <———————————> RIGHT<\/p>\n
No question about that, right?\u00a0 That’s the way it works.<\/p>\n
But when I picture <\/em>the political ideological spectrum, I get:<\/p>\n RIGHT <———————————> LEFT<\/p>\n or<\/p>\n GOP <———————————> DEMS<\/p>\n or<\/p>\n CONSERVATIVES <———————————> LIBERALS<\/p>\n I’m not quite sure why my brain does this.\u00a0 Am I thinking from an on-stage perspective (“Exit! Stage Left!”)? Or is it some sort of personal narrative, reading left-to-right corresponding to my political evolution over the years, or as a “progressive” sort of thing?\u00a0 Hell, maybe it’s because I’m left-handed.<\/p>\n I have no idea.\u00a0 But when I imagine someone being “Left of Center” politically, it translates out …<\/p>\n RIGHT <——————–|——X———–> LEFT<\/p>\n … even though it’s actually “right” of center on the line.<\/p>\n I guess it’s similar to the tricks my mind plays when I remember auto driving in the UK — I know I was driving on the left side of he road, but a casual “playback” of my mental video has me driving on the right, like usual (which goes to show how much of our memory — or mine, at least — is a series of symbols with associations, as the “driving” symbol gets filled out driving on the right, unless I force myself to really, carefully, thoroughly, “bitfully” remember it).<\/p>\n (Of course, my brain is also still stuck on “Republicans are Blue, Democrats are Red,” which the Media recolored for everyone else several election cycles back.)<\/p>\n The brain’s a funny thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"