Left and Right, Part I.

Conservative, Liberal & Socialist?

In the 19th century, the main conflict in politics was between the Conservatives and the Liberals. This shifted in the 20th to the conflict between the Conservative-Liberal Right and the Socialist Left (with the significant exception of the US, where Socialism never really got off the ground and has remained a marginal influence on the Liberals).

In the 21st century, a shift back towards the conflict between the Conservatives and the Liberals, thus ending the "American exceptionalism", which becomes the norm? (Giddens' hypothesis).

The terms are misleading.

Ideas such as the Political Compass are groping towards a better description of the political landscape. Yet, somewhat questionable why particular axes should be selected as "the" definitions of the political orientation; many such possibilities have been offered.

We should start by clarifying what the possible poles actually are. Thus:

conservative - mobilising
liberal - restrictive
authoritarian - democratic
socialist - capitalist
religious - secularist
order - chaos
moderate - radical
closed - open
totalitarian - partialist (small-t totalitarian!)
teleological - escapist

A closer look at some of the less obvious distinctions:

small-c conservative refers to the preservation of the status quo. Thus, it expresses no particular preference for capitalism vs. socialism, authority vs. democracy, etc.
This is also the reason why the distinction is not "conservative - progressive". The opposite of preservation of the status quo is change. But there's no necessary reason why change needs to be progressive. The Nazi destruction of the Weimar Republic was a change, and Social Democracy that was opposing it was acting to preserve the status quo. Yet in no sense was Nazism progressive. Hence, the contrast is between mobilising movements and conservative positions (sic).
Why then the perception that conservatives are right-wing? a) because for the most part they act to preserve the order which itself is perceived as "right-wing" in some sense (feudalism, capitalism, authoritarian regime etc.) b) more to the point, the nominally "conservative" parties tend to actually be reactionary, or regressive, to be more neutral about it. Instead of acting to preserve the existing state of affairs, they hanker for the past (often largely mythical), perhaps as a counterpoint to the mobilising progressive tendencies - only by pushing for reactionary positions status quo can actually be preserved. Or so it may be perceived.

Turning to liberal vs. restrictive, this comes from the realisation that liberal means roughly allowing for a relatively large number of options (hence "a liberal helping", signifying a great amount). Liberalism thus may be mobilising or conservative in the above sense, depending on whether the status quo is restrictive or not.

Small-t totalitarian does not mean "dictatorially imposing conditions on all areas of social life", since dictatorship is not implied automatically. It does mean, however, viewing the social life as a totality and attempting to push for a particular viewpoint in all of its areas. The opposite is partialist, where some areas are seen as legitimate targets for changes, while others are off-limits. A fundamentalist religious movement would be totalitarian in this sense - though perhaps remaining democratic in the sense of preserving the option of democratically changing the laws that it again democratically adopted - while the secularist countermovement would be partialist, allowing for the private exercise of worship, but arguing against religiously motivated steps in the public arena.

Teleological orientation of a mobilising movement is one that favours a particular goal; on the other hand, an escapist movement is simply trying to get away from the existing state of affairs, almost regardless of what the alternative is. Thus, many people may have joined the Nazi Party in Germany initially simply out of dissatisfaction with the Weimar state, rather than any craving for a racially pure world-dominating Reich. Similarly, after 1945 in Czechoslovakia, people may have been joining the Communist Party as the clearest alternative to the pre-war order, perceived in terms of the double failure of the Great Depression and the Munich betrayal. Some escapists turn into teleogicals later on, but others do not and may well become the staunchest oppositionists of the new regimes - which certainly does apply to the Czechoslovak experience, up to 1968.

A note on the poles and the centre:
It may be difficult to see what the "central ground" may be between the authoritarian and the democratic orientation, or the religious and the secularist one. The point is that the poles represent opposing values. These are things that happen to be a priority for their adherents. However, there may well be other people for whom an issue X is not a priority - but neither is not-X. These people represent the "centre". They simply do not have an opinion and thus can go along with whatever position their current ally takes, as long as there is no conflict on issues where they do have priorities.