RIP Ted Byfield

 

A persistent of reason in Canada.

The death of Ted Byfield is another reminder that so many of the voices of moral clarity are gone.

This seems a useful way to define the difference between left and right in both politics and culture. The right is for moral clarity; the left is for ambiguity, for blurring the edges. This seems to me to have been true at least since the 1960s. It was obvious in a debate I recall between Robert Kennedy and Ronald Reagan circa 1967. It was obvious in the contrast between Goldwater and Johnson in 1964. Perhaps it is the most consistent definition of the two tendencies. 

Another way to look at it is that the left sees man’s natural tendencies as unambiguously good. The right sees man’s natural tendencies as tending at least at times toward evil. The right therefore wants checks and balances, boundaries. The left wants to tear them down; it wants spontaneity.

On this definition, I am on the right. I crave moral clarity—I hunger and thirst after righteousness. And I believe deeply in original sin.