Horseshoe Theory

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About

Horseshoe Theory is a political and conspiracy theory revolving around the idea that the political spectrum is not shaped like a straight line, but rather in a curved form like a horseshoe, suggesting that the far-left and the far-right are actually closer to each other than either is to the political center. The idea first emerged in the 1970s and from there spread online in the 2000s as it became a regular topic for memes during the 2010s. In 2023, a series of memes applying horseshoe theory to topics other than politics in which opposites could be seen to converge spread online.

Origin

Horseshoe theory (or théorie du fer à cheval) was first proposed by French writer Jean-Pierre Faye in his 1972 work Langages totalitaires ("totalitarian lingos"). Faye, who was a notable collaborator with post-structuralist philosophers like Félix Guattari as well as a student of anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, wrote Langages totalitaires as an analysis of the political scene in Germany in the 1930s when Hitler came to power. The theory that Faye proposed argued that the far-left and the far-right in Weimar Germany actually mirrored each other in terms of organizational structure, rhetoric and (to some extent) ideological goals. The illustration below shows Faye's idea:

Faye's work has been criticized by both historians of the 1930s and other philosophers. For example, Jean-Pierre Favre criticized Faye for applying horseshoe analysis to pre-Mussolini Italy, since he believed the two cases were not the same.^[1] Faye's work, like that of other French philosophers of his era such as Michel Foucault, focused on discourse analysis. To discourse theorists, defining things a certain way, creating certain metaphors and ways of communicating, can alter the texture of reality (as experienced by people in a really media-heavy environment). Faye's elaboration of this theory was somewhat inspired by texts from 1930s Germany which used the metaphor.^[2] For Faye, if a meme like horseshoe theory gets big enough and people believe in it, that way of thinking and talking could make the actual political landscape start to look (and behave) like a horseshoe.

Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, political commentary about horseshoe theory proliferated, as commentators used the theory to try and understand the rise of far-right and leftist movements around the world.^[5] An image from the Wikipedia article for Horseshoe Theory, uploaded by user Richard Abendroth on May 16th, 2010 (seen below), became the basis for memes about the idea.^[3] An English language version was uploaded to the article at some point afterward.

Spread

The earliest post uploaded to Know Your Meme describing horseshoe theory makes reference to GamerGate (seen below, left).^[3] Later posts began to apply the same horseshoe image graphic from the Wikipedia article to other situations. On August 23rd, 2017, X / Twitter user @eremitpurpur posted a meme about Twitter avatars and profile pictures to the platform, earning over 2,200 likes in six years (seen below, right).^[4]

Later versions began to incorporate different graphics for the horseshoe. For example, Instagram's @northwest_mcm_wholesale, a furniture and Pacific Northwest-themed meme account, posted a meme about chairs (seen below, left) in early 2022.^[6] On X on September 26th, 2023, @Iittlstrawberry posted the meme (seen below, right) taking a broader philosophical approach to horseshoe theory, earning over 52 likes in three weeks.^[7]