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Comment by m0nty | Hacker News Reader

> one-sided political publication

They certainly are left-aligned: they are famous (and notorious) for it. The "Guardian-reading lentil-munching sandal-wearing lefty" is a popular caricature, I've even seen people criticised during debates for being a "good Guardian-reader" (i.e. a part-time socialist).

But they do publish articles on relevant topics, and are prepared to stick their collective neck out for important stories like the Snowden case. They are probably a few notches above the open sewer which characterises much of the rest of the UK press, and it's clear that many people on HN find them relevant, if not always correct.

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Lately, though, they seem to have developed a bias (or maybe it's just become more evident?) against what you might call the "non-establishment" left, people like Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders get unexpectedly short shrift from most of their writers, whereas their (often female) competition, like Yvette Cooper and Hillary Clinton, get glowing coverage. This has been pointed out extensively in the comment sections, to no avail...

I think a lot of people over 40ish view Jeremy Corbyn as very much establishment left, with impeccable roots in the years when the establishment left were in the business of losing and losing hard. The guardian certainly give that view a good deal of prominence, but also feature writers who take a much more positive line on the left. The overall quality has dropped a bit with more clickbait and cif nonsense, but it's still the best place to get news, and the fact that they publicly sweat policy like this is a positive sign

Likely becase the left has been represented by what i have seen labeled "champagne left". Basically people making "leftist" claims while socially and economically being far removed from the traditional (workers) left.

> The "Guardian-reading lentil-munching sandal-wearing lefty" is a popular caricature

I find some of these caricatures interesting. Like how many leftists are vegans or vegetarians, and how many libertarians are meat-lovers. You would perhaps think that diet should have no correlation with political opinions, but it certainly seems to have.

Or take clothing. Among leftists, there seems to be more people wearing stuff like sandals, colorful clothing, dreadlocks, piercings etc. than among right-wingers or libertarians. When I see pictures of libertarians or right-wingers, they often seem to be wearing conformist looking clothes, such as suits. Is there a reason for this?

In order to do well economically, you probably need to be careful not to offend other people, so you cannot express yourself too much. People who express themselves more (wear what they want to, rather than what is inoffensive), are probably more likely to become economic losers. And if you're an economic loser, I guess left-wing politics (tax the rich!) is appealing.

Right-wing, besides being capitalist, also means being conservative. Which implies respect for tradition, etiquette and savoir-vivre. Other than diet, another interesting aspect is architecture. Leftists like brutalism and modernism, while right-wingers like traditional architecture, have a look here: https://www.facebook.com/ArchMMXII.

That's an oversimplification of the story in relation to architecture.

A lot of modernist architects have espoused socialist views, but someone like Mies van der Rohe also built some work for the Nazi regime. The modernist architect Philip Johnson was a notorious Nazi sympathizer.

There's an article here that starts to unpick the architecture/politics relationship in relation to one architect's work: http://archinect.com/features/article/4618/peter-eisenman-li...

Since architecture requires significant wealth and organization, it's rarely, if ever, something that comes out of anarchism. So statism or philanthropy is often behind it.

another interesting aspect is architecture. Leftists like brutalism and modernism, while right-wingers like traditional architecture,

On the other hand, preserving old traditional buildings tends to be a leftist cause, while wanting to bulldoze them and replace them with new modern buildings tends to be a right-wing cause.

And this is why i find the concept of a dual axis political sorting better.

One axis is economic, the other social, with the traditional left-right divide being mapped to the social axis.

Here is the tricky bit, that once you start mapping liberal and conservative on the economic axis things tend to reverse compared to the social one.

So quite often social conservatives end up in the economic "liberal" (or laissez-faire) end.

> if you're an economic loser, I guess left-wing politics (tax the rich!) is appealing

That is, in itself, an appalling caricature, albeit some left-wingers might be in that category. It's like saying all libertarians/right-wingers are Gordon Gecko "greed is good", devil-take-the-hindmost callous money-grubbers.

It's you who has used the word 'all'. Replace all with some in your counter example and both are undoubtedly true. Appalling? I agree.

The use of the word "loser" (which has emotional connotations) is mostly what I object to here.

Replace "all" with "some," and every political grouping becomes lentil-munching sandal wearers, including Trump voters.

"When I see pictures of libertarians or right-wingers, they often seem to be wearing conformist looking clothes"

Isn't simply a case of advertising that you are part of a particular social grouping (or at least aspire to it) by conforming to the styles used by that group?

NB My own favourite example being spotting genuinely posh people by the colour and state of their cords trousers... (is it an ex-army thing?).

Also Jack Schofield was writing regular decent IT-focussed articles in The Guardian long before most other UK newspapers.

"Left" is a pretty simplistic way to characterize the Guardian's editorial stance. It's far more authoritarian and New Labor than you would expect from something described as on the Left. 70% of the non-entertainment stories are based in identity politics, so that would seem very left, but it also aggressively attacked Wikileaks, and is constantly attacking Corbyn and Sanders.

I'd probably describe it as economically Liberal (in the non-American sense), pro-safety net/NHS, and pro-legal enforcement of civility. Basically the non-angry upper-middle class. Anti-petty bourgeoisie. Fabian.

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