Under the principles of Archimedes where opposites balance equally, how does this apply to the political situation of the ‘UK’ in 2026?
Public discourse in political and left wing media talk refers to the far-right, with its own hyphen, plenty of analysis, and BBC programmes, as within the bounds of politics, but a dangerous extreme, some feral group of people who are a real danger to politics and society. As such people are a material part of a human society, existing as it does, as it has to, on the surface of the spinning Earth, how do directions of left and right sit within the principles of Archimedes where two different mediums inevitably balance within the greater whole. For Archimedes it was a container of water, for the terms left and right in the ‘UK’ the container is the political syste.
As there is a term of far-right, what is the opposite? The term far-left is not in daily parlance, instead things like left wing extremism, anti-capitalism, or the Communist, Marxist, Socialist Workers Party are the very left, and are clear in the equal and opposite to ‘all things right’. Militant left rarely is used these days, although the effects of the obstructive efforts of trades unions pervades all of industry, and the Militant Tendency, the Trotskyist group within the Labour party in 1964 does not now make headlines. Instead the very left, including all those who demonstrate and state views of social matters, Gaza, ‘UK’ politics, welfare state cuts, and all things which look to the right of centre, push into politics, that the government and the State will solve everything.
The far-right could be seen as the opposite, but in reverse direction, facing out of the political system far, far away, into a much more basic and simple societal organisation, and of course more aligned with the real facts, which are the basic and simple societal organisation permitted by Earth and its tiny few miles of life below and above the surface of this spinning ball of rock in the infinite universe.
The very left political folks, who might be called anarchists or people wishing to overthrow capitalism government in the ‘UK’, equally go far, far left, and out of politics altogether. What if the far, far-right set off east, and the far, far-left set off west, and in opposite directions went all the way around the world (because we are on a spinning mass of rock, held in place by the power of Helios, the light, the warmth, the gravity), were not allowed to fight when they passed each other the other side of Earth, and came back to meet in the ‘UK’? There is not much natural space left now with the population increased from 50million in 1950 to c.70 million in 2026, the concrete spreading daily, and the high rise flats going into the sky, but there would be somewhere on the coast in mid latitudes where venison is plentiful and still some fish in the sea, a fresh water supply and lots of trees down in the storm useful to build houses.
The meeting point again of extreme right and extreme left then might sit easily together, having left the political realm altogether and arrived in the post-political ‘UK’ and where a simple and practical human grouping could be formed, with a flag of their choice on the town gates, and a life blissfully free of political definitions.
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