I know Lemmy isn’t normally the best place to search for this, but are there any high-quality right-wing explainers, or modern books, or media outlets?
I myself am ultra-left (quite literally communist, to the dictionary sense of the word), but I’d like to quit the bubble that inevitably forms around and look at good arguments of the opposing side, if there are any.
Is there anything in there beyond temporarily embarrassed millionaires and fears that trans people will destroy humanity? Is there rational analysis, something closer to academic research, behind modern ideas of laissez-faire capitalism and/or political conservatism?
I’ve tried outlets like PragerU, but they are so basic they seem to target a very uncritical audience.
I’d like to see the world in the eyes of an enlightened right-winger, and see where they possibly fail (or if suddenly they have valid arguments).
I find the Austrian School of Economics really interesting.
Particularly books written by American economist Murray Rothbard, who talks about free markets, government (particularly government intervention) and inflation.
There’s a very short book you can read called "What has Government Done to Our Money?”
Thanks!
Maybe read something from Jordan Peterson? He’s conservative, against gender politics or modern life. Sells ‘simple truths’ that look well reasoned if you’re not too intelligent (or don’t believe in equality…) I think he wrote several books and has lots of YouTube videos available.
Peterson seemed more pretentious than competent to me.
As you well said, “look well-reasoned if you’re not too intelligent”
But thanks!
an enlightened right-winger
If they still exist they aren’t putting themselves in the (probably literal) crosshairs of the conservative/christianist goofballs.
It’s been actual decades since the right wing was anything approaching sane. The left is following suit lately too.
Ahh yes, a classic “both sides” argument.
Please, explain how the left has gone crazy with their ideology, because leftists don’t have much political power to actually mess anything up with, unlike conservatives.
If youre being honest, then youre going to need to look at historical material like Locke & Hobbes to get a foundation.
Modern conserativism… aggitation… can bw traced through Gingrich in the House in the early 90s, I cant think of the book off the top of my head but theres a pretty decent record of how he did manipulative things with unmanned cspan cameras at the time.
This. Perhaps even some “Wealth of Nations” and similar.
Adam Smith is less right-wing than the cargo-cultists think.
True, but it is in part a philosophical basis that OP seems to want to understand, so I felt it was relevant.
I’m not sure of you’ll find the academic research you are looking for, at least out of the US, since the modern Conservative movement seems to have eschewed academia as filled with Liberals.
I haven’t read this book yet, but I’d recommend Hillbilly Elegy, a memoir about JD Vance’s life in Appalachia, It came out in 2016, and I recall folks thinking that it was a good read, even if they didn’t agree with Vance’s politics, and partially explained Trump’s appeal to rural voters whose lifestyle bears no resemblance at all to Trump. The book has to be somewhat compelling, since Ron Howard made a movie out of it. And Vance parlayed it into a Senate seat, after all.
Foundations of geopolitics by Aleksander Dugan. This is the basis of modern European, conservative actions and the Russian playbook for the last 30 years.
Ayn Rand is where modern right wing ideology started. You really don’t need to read a whole book, she beats you over the head with the message repeatedly.
Fast forward to the Rush Limbaugh talk show and listen to some of his monologues.
Then jump back to Mein Kampf to see the future of the right wing.
It’s all bullshit, and it’s easy to fall down the rabbit hole of right wing talking points. Ask critical questions like what happens to the most vulnerable populations under that system and you realize quickly that it’s Sparta all over again and they will be actively killed because they believe in eugenics.
If you really consider reading Mein Kampf, don’t.
I thought your review of conservatism was very fair and balanced. I give it a perfect 5/7.
Hard disagree with Rand, thats just a libertarian circle jerk.
Better would be anything from Jefferson. If you really want to get into the weeds, the Anti-Federalists from the 1790’s opposing the Constitution in favor of keeping the original Articles of Confederation that governed the US right after independence.
Jefferson sounds like a barely relevant choice from a very distant time, something that an average libertarianist will shove in people’s faces without telling it fails to describe shortcomings of capitalism highlighted by later thinkers.
But as a starting point, I see how that may be useful. Thank you!
If you’re looking for credible conservatives who actually confront the shortcomings of capitalism, I can’t think of any. But these early writings were pretty well-thought out and are foundational to later ideas, so I think they’re worth reading.
Yes! I’ve been on this journey!
Thomas Sowell’s bibliography is easily the best starting place. Just pick something and have at it. As a prominent conservative economist, his books actually make good arguments. It takes actual effort to deconstruct his arguments and identify where he’s wrong. He’s widely and highly respected in conservative communities and tackles a lot of the common cultural war issues.
Then there’s granddaddies Milton Friedman and F.A. Hayek. Also economists, they were directly impacted by the Cold War, and make intellectual cases that capitalism is the only economic system that leads to real individual freedom. And they also try to prove why the totalitarianism of the Soviet Union and every lesser species of it undermines liberty. Hayek’s Road to Serfdom and Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom are staples.
Castigated by modern conservatives because they’re not serious about anything, sociology’s Emile Durkheim is a cornerstone of the discipline. I’ve never read it, but his book *Suicide *concerns individuals within community and the institutions of it. He talks about a type of suicide derived from moral disorder and lack of clarity, anomic suicide.
One book that I found incredibly insightful was Yuval Levin’s The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left. This book is genuinely fair to both sides, and it shows the historical roots of conservatism and its relation to the French Revolution, when the right and the left as political stances first became a thing.
Thomas Sowell is an american pseudo intelectual…
A lot of his analysis doesn’t hold any water is reviewed in context of the world.
He is essentially doing the bidding for the regime which I guess what “conservatives” do but he is disingenius IMHO sort of Ben Shapiro type of lapdog telling working peasants sucks to suck, git gud.
While I don’t disagree exactly, the way he puts his arguments is far better than Shapiro. Reading or listening to Sowell is a lesson in uncovering sophisticated conservative arguments. It took me a while to understand how Sowell reasoned, so that’s why I include him and think he’s a great example of conservative thinkers.
And they also try to prove why the totalitarianism of the Soviet Union and every lesser species of it undermines liberty.
Proving totalitarianism undermines liberty seems pretty trivial to me. An attempt to prove that communism must necessarily be totalitarian would be much more interesting.
OP, this guy has given you an honest answer that is actually good material.
Seconding these recommendations.
Love the name
iirc Friedman changed his mind about the welfare state later in life
Wow, thank you for such a detailed response!
I’ll check out the sources you’ve given.
Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State and Utopia is a solid philosophical foundation for a lot of right wing thought. If you want to engage further you can follow up with Michael Otsuka’s critique in Self-Ownership and Equality: A Lockean Reconciliation.
Nozick provides an underpinning for what many think of as traditional conservative American values, without basing it in Christianity.
Then of course there’s the Chicago school of economics (Friedman et al), which is just a somewhat naive and more it less completely discredited take on how the economy works. It’s fundamental for understanding American politics the previous half century, but their ideas are not really worth interacting with unless you’re particularly interested in economics. It’s not like the idiot politicians who push it in front of them understand the theories either.
The theories is not far right; there’s no salvaging the far right, and their ideological basis is mostly just bigotry. You could read Ayn Rand to try to understand which hole these idiots crawled from. Or better, don’t waste your time.
I see! Actually, I think I should touch Ayn Rand at some point to get more popular sentiment - in modern times, her books, particularly Atlas Shrugged, seem to be the Bible of common liberals.
Mein Kampf
Would unironically take a read someday, though it shouldn’t be considered mainline right-wing despite Trump debacle.
It’s actually a really shit book
I’m from Austria and in my early youth I wanted to work though the history of my family and country, especially because nobody wanted to really talk about it.
‘Mein Kampf’ really really disappointed me. It reads like a whiny, misunderstood dude thinks he got cheated and looks for someone at fault - and obviously it would be best, if everything would follow his ideas, because then he would never feel rejected/disappointed anymore.
Of course this is a more than subjective, and quite polemic, view on this book, but although I’ve always identified much more with anarchism, I really wanted to get what’s so intriguing about this book and its ideas.
But it was just a series of whining autobiographic stories and some blaming for just someone to be at fault for his suffering.I’ve found the more common books during the period of the Nazi regiment much more interesting.
There are quite some books about how girls should fulfill their role as a mother, when they are reaching adolescent.Pretty much the same for boys who get indoctrinated into being some kind of selfless knight - but always with the motivation of social admiration
Every form of self fulfillment always needs to be for the good of the empire (read: in line with the Führer’s will/ideology/order)
I can completely understand how a young person would join a moment with such promises and I think it’s very dangerous to just ban those books.
Instead they should be part of the educational curriculum, so the actual problems and weakness (to put it lightly) of such systems can be discussed and understood early.Moving to simple solutions in times of crisis seems to be part of human nature. So we have to take care, that we don’t do stupid things in challenging situations
Thanks for your opinion!
Any other Nazi books you’d recommend?
(Gosh, I never thought I’d say something like this)
If I recall from the Alt-Right Playbook’s Origins of Conservatism video, some of the early founders of conservative thought you might want to read include:
- Edmund Burke
- Thomas Hobbes
- Joseph DeMaistre
Thanks!
Probably more right-wing than you’re looking for, but The Concept of the Political by Carl Schmitt. Insightful on how these people think, and much more readable than works by some Nazi philosophers I could mention. Also if you’re interested in a good deconstruction of far right views, I highly recommend Neoreaction a Basilisk by Elizabeth Sandifer
It partly depends on whether you want to understand pre-9/11 “reasonable” conservatism or the more recent Tea Party and Trump conservative populism.
Ayn Rand expresses the fairy tale version of romantic, rugged individualism, which is pretty important to understanding modern right-wing politics, especially in North America. I think the main idea conservatives take from her work, directly or indirectly, is that progress is driven by individual work and achievement, and that any kind of forced wealth re-distribution (through social programs, for example) is effectively theft, and therefore immoral.
The modern populist right-wing movement was originally driven and disseminated by right-wing talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh. So, listening to right-wing talk radio or podcasts is also a good window into the modern movement. It puts on full display the resentment felt by modern right-wingers.
If you would rather not experience right-wing media directly, but would rather read rational analysis about it, then one good choice is David Frumm. He is an old school Reagan/Bush conservative, and has lived through the transition of the Repubs to populism. He is very critical of Trumpism, like most people, but he comes from the perspective of a reasonable and well-informed conservative insider.
Fareed Zakaria has a new book called Age of Revolutions, which views modern conservative populism as a very significant political re-alignment with similarities to various revolutions of the past, both successful and unsuccessful. Fareed talks about the conditions that lead to populism. In that sense, he treats Trump’s popularity as a symptom and outcome of specific underlying societal problems.
Thank you! I’d like to understand both, really, though my first concern is about modern, “Trump” conservatism.
Others have weighed in on the academic, but a lot of the American conservative braintrust is (literally) in think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, Federalist Society, John Birch Society, etc. These organizations vary from “pretty right wing” Heritage to “nearly literally fascist” John Birch Society, and they put out a LOT of papers and material they use to…I’ll generously say “inform” the public discourse.
Thanks! Will check them out. Useful to get closer to sources everyday conseratives lean to
Have you already read through Plan 2025? It’s kinda the latest huge report from the Heritage Foundation, and I’d say it does a pretty good job of outlining modern right-wing ideology. It can definitely be a hard read though, some of the things they want are really stomach churning to me.
Planned to go take a read, didn’t do it yet
There’s an episode of Behind the Bastards touching on the subject - “How Conservatism Won”. Not a right-wing resource at all, obviously, but that’s where a lot of the money goes indeed.
Yep it’s a great one. Knowledge Fight talks about JBS all the time as well
This is not a right wing resource, but if you’re interested in learning about the arguments and historical evolution of ideas that underpin economic liberalism/neoliberalism, I highly recommend Geoff Mann’s Disassembly required : a field guide to actually existing capitalism. It’s concise, relatively short, and treats the ‘other’ side like rational actors (which is important for understanding, I think).
Ofc this would only help understand people who are quite well informed.
Thank you!
