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French readers, and historians in general, probably get the references "Jacobin" and "Girondin". Those were the two main political parties during the French Revolution. The Jacobins, who sat on "the Left" side of the Assembly, were the "Liberals". The Girondins, who supported the monarchy, sat on "the Right".
The other political parties sat between the two, in "the Center", in what was known as "the Plane".
I read *The Guillotine And The Cross* a couple of decades ago. It is about the French Revolution, the Reign of Terror that occurred during those years (where we get the word Terrorism from), and the Catholic resistance from the Vendee. It was from this book that I first learned the origins of our political terms "Left" and "Right".
Below is a quote from his book from page 57.
They met, as had their predecessor assemblies ever since the Third Estate was locked out of the Hall of Diversities in Versailles and went marching to the tennis court, in a peculiar building which had been a royal riding academy. It was in shape a long rectangle, designed to include a racing oval and tiers of benches for spectators at horse shows, with overhanging galleries on each of the four sides. Never intended for regular daily use by hundreds of people, it was poorly lit and poorly ventilated, the windows were few and small, high up near the ceiling. The only source of heat for winter sessions was a single porcelain stove which was (one of the many weird ironies of the Revolution) a model of the destroyed Bastille. The floor was the old racing oval, somewhat restricted to all the maximum placement of the maximum possible number of benches. The president sat in a chair elevated above the oval, with the tables for the recording secretaries immediately below him. Directly across the oval from the president's chair was the podium or "tribune" from which the delegates addressed the Convention. All around the oval were the deputies' benches; the public was only admitted into the galleries above, which had no connection with the floor. In the middle of the building, next to the long sides of the oval, the benches were lower but laterally more extended; on either end, next to the short sides of the rectangle and back from the short ends of the oval, the benches rose up to a considerable height. In the Legislative Assembly, the more violent revolutionaries had congregated, at first simply by chance, on the higher benches to the left of the president's chair, from which they became known as "the Left" or "the Mountain." (The persistence to this day of the former term, along with its opposite "the Right," is a forceful reminder of how much the legacy of the French Revolution is still with us.) Perhaps in a feeble attempt to defuse political labels and hatreds, when the National Convention met the president's chair had been set up on the opposite side of the Riding School, so the high benches where the radicals had sat where now on his right. But they held resolutely to their benches, and so marked had the political connection of the term "the Left" already become that it did not matter to anyone that the Left in the National Convention was now physically on the right. The deputies opposite them were the Girondins, who at first had been the radicals, and were quite uncomfortable with their new role as conservatives. Those in between, because their seats were lower down, were known as "the Plain."
Etc.
So are you a Jacobin, or a Girondin? Or, like me, do you not like "labels" constantly being applied to you, being fit into a "box".
Modern society, especially the media and politicians, seem to delight creating new labels, new categories of people, and pitting people against one another.
A long time ago, as part of fighting against this *classification*, I started eschewing labels, stating "that is not how I define myself".
Or, quoting Jane Hawk from "The Silent Corner" (Dean Koontz), when the character was asked "If you could apply a political label to yourself, what would it be", and she answered "disgusted". From pages 29 and 30 (hardback edition):
He waited for her to continue. When instead she took the next-to-last bite of her burger, he said, "My column's not political, it's human-interest stuff. But if you had to put a political label on yourself, what would it say?"
"Disgusted."
He laughed, making notes. "Might be the biggest political party of all. Where are you from?"
It is good to know where the terminology that we use, and that we even apply to ourselves, comes from. Just as good is to push back against these labels, to view ourselves as individuals, not let ourselves be pushed into little boxes, and pitted against each other.
But if one needs to apply a political label to me, I will use that of Jane Hawk.
"Disgusted."