In
politics,
right-wing,
political right,
rightist and
the Right are terms used to describe a number of positions and ideologies. They are most commonly used to refer to support for preserving
traditional or
cultural values and customs or for maintaining some form of
social hierarchy or private control of the
means of production.
[1][2][3][4] Nevertheless the terms have been used for different things in different countries.
The phrase right-wing was coined during the French Revolution, refering to seating arrangements in parliament; those who sat on the right supported the monarchy, the aristocracy and the established church.[5][6][7][8] The concept of a distinct political Right developed after the second restoration of the French monarchy in 1815 with the Ultra-royalists. Today the term the Right is primarily used to refer to political groups that have a historical connection with the traditional Right, including conservatives, reactionaries, monarchists, aristocrats, religious fundamentalists, and some nationalists. But in modern times, the Right has also encompassed views supporting capitalism and free markets.
The political term right-wing originates from the French Revolution when liberal deputies from the Third Estate generally sat to the left of the president's chair, a habit which began in the Estates General of 1789. The nobility, members of the Second Estate, generally sat to the right. In the successive legislative assemblies, monarchists who supported the Ancien Régime were commonly referred to as rightists because they sat on the right side. One major right-wing figure was Edmund Burke whose political principles were rooted in moral natural law. He believed in prescriptive rights and what he referred to as "ordered liberty", as well as a strong belief in transcendent values that found support in such institutions as the church, the family, and the state.[9] He was a fierce critic of the principles behind the French Revolution, and in his Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), he took to task the radical innovations of the revolutionaries, such as the "Rights of Man". Another major figure on the right was Joseph de Maistre who argued for a more authoritarian and less liberal form of conservatism. Throughout the 19th century, the main line dividing Left and Right in France was between supporters of the Republic and those of the Monarchy.[8] On the right, the Legitimists and Ultra-royalists held counter-revolutionary views and rejected any compromise with modern ideologies while the Orleanists hoped to create a constitutional monarchy, under their preferred branch of the royal family, a brief reality after the 1830 July Revolution. The Bonapartists advocated the idea of a strong and centralized state, based on popular support.
Since then the term right-wing has come to be associated with preserving the status quo in the form of institutions and traditions. Burkean traditionalism was transported to the American colonies, where it became characterized by an adherence to the legal principles of prescription and custom, as well as social order, hierarchy, faith, the natural family, ordered liberty, and tradition. It may have affinities with reactionary thought, and some adherents of Burkean traditionalism embrace that label, defying the stigma that has been attached to it in Western culture since the Enlightenment.
