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Passion guided by reason's avatar

Your personal concept of "left" differs from the common usage in discussion today in the US. Since my writing is motivated by desire to communicate with others based on shared definitions when possible, I will continue to use the definitions with broad consensus as having more functional utility.

The association with a label like "far left" is *always without exception* going to depend on context. There is no absolute and objective framework which transcends time and place. In the Stalinist USSR it will have a different association than in contemporary US usage. If I'm discussion issues with a Stalinist, I'll keep your concept in mind; if I'm discussing things with a contemporary American, I'll use contemporary contextual word definitions.

One of the things I dislike about the "social justice warriors" you reference is how often they focus in distracting word games, rather than agreeing to some shared definitions so we can move into the core of the conceptual disagreement. I'm a bit wary of your framing for similar reasons.

I think your underlying point ("correct" word usage aside) is that the range of political approaches humans have historically adopted exceeds the contemporary American contextual understandings of "far left" to "far right", which is undisputed. Neither Genghis Khan nor Pol Pot fit within the spectrum of contemporary US politics. However, we are not discussing them much today. If we were, I would agree with you that contemporary conceptions of "far left" and "far right" are inadequate. But within contemporary usage, AOC might reasonably be seen as on the far left end of today's mainstream politics, as the terms are used today.

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