Since praxeological reasoners are neither Left or Right, perhaps we would be objective in judging both.
In that respect, I'd say that the Left is the most self-flattering side of the spectrum. One might even say that they have constructed a proud self-flattering mythology, of all their proud battles and successes.
Tony Blair, whenever faced with harsh questions about the failing National Health Service system in Prime Minister's Questions, would always counter Liberal and Conservative opponents with a reminder that "We, the Labour Party, created the NHS, and we are the ones who have kept it functioning properly". No matter how many reports of the year-long waiting lists for cancer patients who die when their turn comes or how many reports of people who get sick from unsanitary rooms in NHS, Blair always touted the system as a crowning success of the Labour Party, which should not be criticized for petty shortcomings like public hospitals killing patients.
The American Left is always proud of how its peaceful protests produced the Civil Rights Act...peaceful protests that turned into violent riots in Detroit and various rich upscale cities of US, with knives and machine guns becoming the new political arguments. It's always the CRA itself that is glorified, not its actual effects - the spontaneous increase in poverty and social immobility of black Americans.
The American Left also is proud of having started the New Deal and entering WW2 - both of which had destructive effects on the US, with the New Deal lengthening the Depression and WW2 impoverishing Americans at home and killing millions of Americans abroad; all of it just to strengthen Stalin and give him half the world.
The American Left is proud of its antiwar movement in later years - except when Lyndon Johnson started the Vietnam War, when Clinton aggravated the Bosnian war, and when every major leader from the Left only fought unnecessary wars, rather than stop war. Indeed, the Left has lost its interest in antiwar stands, as Barack Obama butchers hundreds of Pakistanis, with not one word of protest from the Left.
The African Left glorifies men like Kwame Nkrumah, who quickly turned his prospering nation into one of the poorest countries in the world.
The South American Left glorifies child murders like Che Guevera, and thinks that the anti-imperial totalitarian authoritarianism that arose in various South American nations actually helped their countries. Of course, not only did Leftist dictators butcher many and ruin lives of countless others, South America never won the anti-imperial struggle. Even with Chavez and Morales doing all they can, South America is still a playground for the US, and both their and other countries in South America are freely kicked around as often as possible by the US. There has been not one single success in ending US imperialism in South America. Not one.
The European Left glorifies its high unemployment rate, low growth, destructive social engineering welfare state policies that have left France and Spain as broken state-financed nations
Ironically, the Right never glorifies any achievements. Indeed, the Right claims perpetual failure against the Left. It has a more pessimistic tone, about the failure and decline of their society. Some members of the Right claim that society started falling apart in the 1960s, some say in the 1910s, some say in the 19th century, some even say in the 18th century. The Right always talks about what went wrong and who did wrong.
But I must admit: what self-flattering myth would the Right ever have? "We successfully killed millions of communists during the Cold War under dictators like Franco and Pinochet." I guess deep down, the Right knows that it should be a little more humble in claiming to have done anything.
It sounds like you're successfully being divided and conquered. The "Right" is only more quiet on its activities and accomplishments because its former rarely result in the later. Furthermore, while the "Right" may be silent with their esteem, it is only because their actions are nearly identical to the "Left", which they rhetorically oppose.
Consider how US Democrats were so opposed to the aggression of the Middle East under Bush & the Republican majority, yet silent on the issue as the wars drag on and even expand under a Democratic president and Congress. Likewise, the US Republican Party now bemoans the over-reach of The State; whereas previously, they were silent under a Republican president and Congress.
The "Right" is only less apt to boast their prowess because in doing so, they self-incriminate and reveal themselves as hypocritical statist. Don't not be fooled into thinking an opposing engraving is not the same coin. That is precisely how the world ended up as it is now.
Yeah and plus, the right wing isn't going to say, "We're way more socialist than you liberals" -the two groups have opposing ends and values; they could never compete with each other on the same ideals.
I do tend to think though, that the right doesn't tend towards flattery often because it doesn't have much of a record to flatter itself with and that's probably due to the trend for conservatives to either get bogged down in scandals (nixon) and because a good deal of conservatism is about slashing government so you can never flatter yourself on what you do, but in large part, for what you don't do.
A lot of this is also because the education establishment is run by liberals which means continual demolition of conservative accomplishments in history through attacks on the "free market" of the 1920s, the reagan revolution and feminization of poverty, the patriot act, iran-contra, the el salvador dictatorship, etc.
I would make a distinction between Leftism and Democrats; and between Rightism and Republicans. Left and Right are two separate ideologies or world-views which different people are drawn to. Republicans and Democrats are self-interested individuals who pander to the two different groups in order to acquire power (votes).
In a very general sense the Right assents to big business and the Left assents to big government. All the examples you give of Leftist pride are associated with the accomplishments of government. What you miss is that the Right claims credit for the accomplishments of big business, that is to say that their boastful myth is nothing less than the Rightist roots of industrialization and capitalism which gave us the affluent standard of living we all enjoy.
When I said 'the American Left', I did not refer to the Democratic Party.
The Democratic Party itself is one of the biggest enemies of the American Left. This is a party which glorified racism for the longest period, which had Ku Klux Klan members like Robert Byrd, and had men like Al Gore Sr. who fought to keep segregation in the American South.
By Left, I meant the kind of people who were protesting on the streets for the Civil Rights Act, the Equal Pay Act, and others. The kind who unsuccessfully tried to prop up George McGovern and Jesse Jackson as presidential candidates. I meant Leftists like Alexander Cockburn, David Sirota, and Robert Scheer - all of whom consider the Democratic Party to be worse than the Republican Party. I meant the hardcore Leftists on American radio of the 1930s who called anybody who refused to intervene in Europe a fascist.
The entire body of intellectuals, would-be social engineers, youth protesters, and college professors who consider themselves part of the American Left all allege victories in the past. They say they defeated racism, which they did not. They say they empowered blacks and minorities, when the policies they demanded did the opposite. They say the helped protect the poor and unprivileged, when they did not. They say they fought for a good cause in Europe in WW2, when they actually ended up killing millions of innocent Germans in fire-bombings. They say they helped uplift women in status, even though women were already some of the best paid and highly positioned people back in 1880s itself. They claim that all the useless legislations they tried to fight for were actually worth something. In truth, those were all empty victories, which sometimes did more harm than good.
Sadly, I don't think this mentality will ever be uprooted, at least in any future worth considering. There has been no form of propaganda that has been so successful and no religion in the past has been so successful in making a living off of glorifying catastrophic results and establishing mythologies that billions of people are willing to fall for while feeling good about themselves for doing so.
Right now the right is not so boastful... we shall wait and see? I think they will be just as annoying as the left. After all, its just the same religion by a different name, and people simply believe the religion they were brought up with. They're still the same people.
By mentality, I was specificaly refering to the leftist mindset, not any other group of self deluded people. Speaking of myth, any reason why you chose that name Zerubbabel?
"Self-deluded" would literally be one who loses the game on purpose. The one who plays the game yet thinks he's not playing the game might be the one truly living out a myth.
My use of "delusion of the left" is they are the ones "possesed" under the leading "Zeitgeist"; that is the one in the most control of information, culture, and the direction of policy; I see the entire mass revolutionary spirit from the Reformation (or non Western cultures governed by Western ideals e.g. Communist Russia) to today by the left as something of being led by some immaterial "spirit" (be it mankind, democracy, etc) to lead, direct, and allocate material things in a material world. This "spirit" is ultimately opposed to, and tends to completley and utterly destroy any customs that come in conflict with it with more rapidity than anything else before it in history; and I tend to find its (self satisfied) results rather gruesome. Furthermore, this "spirit" tends to be far more evangelical, and successful at evangalizing its will at a greater success rate than anything else in history.
If you have the time and wish to put forth the effort, you may want to do a wiki on the name on my sig (max stirner) to see where my terminology and thoughts are kind of comming from; I will admit, it is certainly heterodox (he is a pretty obscure philosopher). If you don't feel like doing so, just think of Nietzsche to get a very rough idea as to where I am comming from. But I do consider "egoisim" to be an ontological fact.
P.S: Accident or not, The Zoroastrian/Babylonian diacotomy/dualism could actually work beautifully. The problem is, it is about some very obscure subjects.
I unfortunatly tend to think and speak better in metaphors, I'll try to cut down though
It is human nature that we all believe ourselves to be free from delusions. It is always the other that is deluded. In the moment we become convicted of our delusions (disillusioned) we drop them and once again become delusion-free.
That is unfortunately not what happens. Most people cling on to beliefs however shattered they may be by evidence.
To make it personal we ask ourselves: "What delusions do I have?" And if we were aware of any delusions, we would become convicted and remove them. What you perceive is our capacity for willful blindness. With such a tool we can remain unaware of our delusions and hence delusion-free.
Since this is getting off topic, I just sent you a PM.