Skip to main content
Home
Dave Lane

Main navigation

  • Abilities
  • Blog
  • CV
  • About
    • About
    • This Site
    • Commercial Terms
  • Contact
User account menu
  • Log in

Breadcrumb

  1. Home

Noble vs Ignoble

Profile picture for user dave
By dave , 30 July 2026

I consider myself a committed political progressive - apparently somewhat unusually and unexpected from someone in my demographic. Some will consider me 'woke' (I'm happy to be awake to the world around me), and others will say I'm 'Left', even 'Radical Left'. Here's the conundrum: I not only accept my labels, I wear them proudly. I can't think of anyone on the opposite side of the spectrum who proudly calls themselves 'Right-Wing' or 'Neoliberal'. Those are labels applied by others, like the media.

I think that the qualities that make someone 'Left' are broadly admirable, and are aspired to and respected by all: consideration for others, ability to put oneself in the shoes of others, sympathy and empathy, providing for those less fortunate, curiosity of the other, trusting others by default, community over individual.

The qualities that make some one 'Right' are far less socially desirable: selfishness, nepotism, distrusting others by default, prioritising the individual over the interests of the community.

Because 'Right' in English has the unfortunate connotation of 'correct', and 'Left' the connotation of 'sinister'... I think new terms without that baggage are required. I propose that the Left<->Right spectrum be replaced by the Nobel<->Ignoble spectrum, which is more objectively accurate in any case.

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.

Filtered HTML

  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a href hreflang> <em> <strong> <cite> <blockquote cite> <code> <ul type> <ol start type> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
CAPTCHA
Solve this simple math problem and enter the result. E.g. for 1+3, enter 4.
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.

Note to commenters: due to problems with spam comments, your comment will only appear on this site after it's been deemed (by me) to be legitimate.

Blog posts

Fixing government IT procurement
22 Sep 2018 - 23:38
Microsoft, there is a way to win our trust
27 Jul 2018 - 10:32
Committed to freedom?
3 Jun 2018 - 09:00
TPPA Select Committee Redux, 2018 edition
7 May 2018 - 22:21
Wanted: someone to meet massive latent market demand
13 Apr 2018 - 09:54
Why Slack is better, and why open communities shouldn't use it
7 Mar 2018 - 14:16
Modern Trade Agreements and the Mega-corporate End Game
26 Jan 2018 - 09:06

Pagination

  • Previous page
  • 6
  • Next page
More posts...
RSS feed

Creative Commons License - CC By attribution, Share alike - International 4.0

Contact Dave!
Download Dave's CV
Eliminate DRM!

Contact Modes

Social Media

Software

Terms of Engagement
Attribution
Terms of Reference
Powered by Drupal