I do agree with you that MapleEngineer is being silly. You can’t just dismiss Canadian Dimension because it’s “on the left”. Frankly, the best Canadian journalism is on the left, including The Tyee, The Narwhal, Canadaland, Literary Review of Canada, etc.
That said, I think these labels can be useful. I doubt you would object so strongly if someone pointed out that Rebel News is far right. If I didn’t know what Rebel News was, I would consider that useful information. I would sooner say that reality has a left leaning bias than deny that a news source is left leaning.
Right, there’s no problem with saying something is on the left or on the right. The two observations I’m making is that what we consider to be the centre is relative to our culture, and that sites like media bias are themselves inherently biased.
For example, around 90% of young people in China identify with Marxism. So, what would be considered political centre in China would be considered far left in Canada. And this highlights how silly it is to rely on such labels when deciding whether a particular position is reasonable or extreme.
I do agree with you that MapleEngineer is being silly. You can’t just dismiss Canadian Dimension because it’s “on the left”. Frankly, the best Canadian journalism is on the left, including The Tyee, The Narwhal, Canadaland, Literary Review of Canada, etc.
That said, I think these labels can be useful. I doubt you would object so strongly if someone pointed out that Rebel News is far right. If I didn’t know what Rebel News was, I would consider that useful information. I would sooner say that reality has a left leaning bias than deny that a news source is left leaning.
Right, there’s no problem with saying something is on the left or on the right. The two observations I’m making is that what we consider to be the centre is relative to our culture, and that sites like media bias are themselves inherently biased.
For example, around 90% of young people in China identify with Marxism. So, what would be considered political centre in China would be considered far left in Canada. And this highlights how silly it is to rely on such labels when deciding whether a particular position is reasonable or extreme.