Per Scott Alexander it's possible that the right optimizes for survival, while the left optimizes for thriving. If so would a society entirely optimized around thriving actually function?
So a slightly different take on this that I would have is:
- Reality has a real left wing bias.
- Fiction has a real right wing bias.
By that, I don't mean that fiction creators have a right wing bias. The professional ones are quite left wing most of the time. Yet the dynamics of fiction pull good stories towards the right wing. Yes you can make a villian a capitalist, a businessman, a powerful religious fanatic. But the dynamics of fiction nonetheless will favor a shift to the right unless you're extremely skilled. (Hint: if you're writing a piece with a hero and a villian, you've already mostly lost).
Even then, right wing fiction has a habit of being easier to keep itself alive. Joyce's Ulysses will have a harder time gaining its next 1000 readers than the Lord of the Rings movies their next 10,000. There are also fiction creators who are not seen as such. Conspiracy mongers, professional wrestling 'script writers', marketing people, and influencers for the most part all are fiction creators but are not often seen as sharing in the craft.
I would say then that the tension between right and left is not so much linked to 'survival' modes being triggered. It's about the reality that reality has a left wing slant, leadership and communication requires the creation of fiction which has a right wing and there will be a tension between the two. Making Mexico pay for a wall has a nice fictional ring to it (in a kind of professional wrestling way), the reality does not. Normally the two should balance each other so fiction coming apart is checked by a return to reality, but things can go bad if one instead doubles down rather than course correct.
So a slightly different take on this that I would have is:
- Reality has a real left wing bias.
- Fiction has a real right wing bias.
By that, I don't mean that fiction creators have a right wing bias. The professional ones are quite left wing most of the time. Yet the dynamics of fiction pull good stories towards the right wing. Yes you can make a villian a capitalist, a businessman, a powerful religious fanatic. But the dynamics of fiction nonetheless will favor a shift to the right unless you're extremely skilled. (Hint: if you're writing a piece with a hero and a villian, you've already mostly lost).
Even then, right wing fiction has a habit of being easier to keep itself alive. Joyce's Ulysses will have a harder time gaining its next 1000 readers than the Lord of the Rings movies their next 10,000. There are also fiction creators who are not seen as such. Conspiracy mongers, professional wrestling 'script writers', marketing people, and influencers for the most part all are fiction creators but are not often seen as sharing in the craft.
I would say then that the tension between right and left is not so much linked to 'survival' modes being triggered. It's about the reality that reality has a left wing slant, leadership and communication requires the creation of fiction which has a right wing and there will be a tension between the two. Making Mexico pay for a wall has a nice fictional ring to it (in a kind of professional wrestling way), the reality does not. Normally the two should balance each other so fiction coming apart is checked by a return to reality, but things can go bad if one instead doubles down rather than course correct.