I’ve been wondering this for a while, but what do left and right even mean? Like I’m sure they started from empirical definitions, but I’m also sure every tumblr user just picked up a vibes based definition
So the historical origin of the terms is empriical enough - it refers to the literal way delegates to the National Assembly during the French Revolution sat. Radicals and republicans tended to sit on the left wing of the assembly chamber, monarchists/loyalists/conservatives to the right.
As right-wingers in the sense of 'defending the ancien regime in 1789' are basically extinct across the liberal democratic world, the terms basically are entirely vibes-based these days. Various political theorists have tried to give the conflict rigorous definitions ('hierarchy versus equality', 'individual freedom versus collective solidarity', 'pious traditionalism versus libertine bohemianism', 'the interests of the rich versus those of the poor' - take your pick) but none of those really hold water when applied globally as a Grand Unifying Theory of politics. Which is what people really want them to be.
Now the vibes aren't nothing - there really are emergent patterns and within the political context of what the Marxists would call a bourgeois state it's generally fairly obvious how to order the major political factions from left to right. Trying to compare across political contexts or come up with formal ordering formulae or anything rarely works well though, and outside of what political scientists call liberal democracies things get very messy very quickly.
