Left and Right: Part V

To get better handle on the differences between left and right, I highly recommend the recent book by Dennis Prager: Still the Best Hope. It is available on Amazon: 

One of the deeper insights that Prager offers is that Leftism is really a kind of Ersatz religion.  In the history of Western Society since the Enlightenment, leftist utopianism has tended to fill the vacuum left once religion is out of the picture.  His thesis is that religion is a basic part of our wiring and satisfies a basic human need for meaning.  Thus, when religion is absent, political utopianism will often takes its place.

Prager cites Hillary Clinton's expression "the politics of meaning" which she used as First Lady of the United States.  He points out that this phrase, while highly meaningful to the left, was meaningless to conservatives.  The reason is that conservatives do not look to politics to get their meaning, but many on the left do in fact.  Thus, politics is for many on the left their de facto religion.