There's no such thing as a conservative intellectual — only apologists for right-wing power
From Burke to Buckley to Patrick Deneen, we've seen a 200-year history of defending the indefensible
right-wing imprints in recent years are almost invariably distinguished by their numbing sameness: a shrill cry of victimhood, a hunt for scapegoats, a tone that alternates between hysteria and heavy sarcasm, and a recipe for salvation
Man this rings true for my experience growing up in a conservative area
As these comments are mostly outrage over the headline, I’d like to hear which republican policies people here are particularly happy about.
You won't get an honest answer, because an honest answer is about how they want to go back to 1950s American, where straight white men were the only demographic that mattered.
Even better when you talk them through that and watch them realize we will never go back to that post war economy because America can’t compete with a global stage that wasn’t bombed into oblivion by the Nazis.
Most conservatives are woefully ignorant of actual policy or what conservatives do. I have a friend who leans conservative, and asked him what he thought Trump did well. His first point was Trump helped to reduce the deficit, despite Trump massively increasing the deficit
And they can't be honest about that because they know it's a bad opinion. At least if they outright said the honest answer, I could understand it a little. If they're a straight, white male and have zero empathy for anyone else, it would probably benefit them (at the cost of everyone else).
But even if they have zero empathy, they still know that anyone who does have empathy (or isn't a straight, white male and has the slightest bit of understanding for what's going on) will never agree with them. So they have to come up with all sorts of bullshit. Hence how we get stuff like comparisons to lobsters, unsupported claims that LGBT whatever is harming kids, and general turning a blind eye to any blatantly harmful stuff that progresses their goals.
Straight white men weren't even particularly well off as a whole. Yes, The upper middle and upper class were almost exclusively white men but that was a small portion of their entire demographic. What they really want is to be able to go back to a time when they could beat their wives, divorce was not available, black people had to call them 'sir' or get strung up, and all the gay people were 'where they belonged', i.e. France, dead, or in the closet.
They're excited to force women to have babies against their will.
The answer for people here is probably no republican policies, ever.
The onus is on Republicans or so-called conservatives to name one, just one time they have been on the right side of history in the last 100 years.
So I would consider myself at least reasonably inclined to thinking and somewhat conservative. Note, however, that does NOT mean Republican. When I use conservative, it's in a different context than the modern "conservative movement". The modern movement seems to be more regressive than conservative. Conservative in my way of thinking is about calm, measured progress. Don't upend everything in massive sweeping changes... but don't reject change either, change is necessary and inevitable. The more moderate Biden-y neoliberal wing of the Democrats is probably the closest to that these days - the more progressive Democrats with wanting massive social upheaval type changes and the Republicans favoring the repeal-and-replace burn it down and maybe fix the ashes approach to undoing those changes, neither of which appeals to me.
The chances you are neoliberal isn't zero.
The title is pretty bad. All the conservatives I know are monarchists. Not republicans.
I know plenty of conservative intellectuals, they are not Republicans though. Look up topics on individual freedom, limited government, or the rule of law to find thousands of examples.
Most would call themselves moderates as conservative is a poisoned title, but they exist.
So ask yourself, what perspective have conservatives been groomed view the United States? Roger Kimball describes it as, “A damsel (America) is locked in a dark castle, which was once a glorious palace in years gone by.” But now “liberal elites, the bureaucracy, academia” have sapped “her vitality,” turning her “weak and infirm” due to a dastardly belief system in “left-wing ideology, political correctness, egalitarianism. Using this metaphorical trope, Kimball continued to describe citizens as having turned into weaklings who secretly long for a return to national greatness. This view of decline and decadence, so core to the conservative intellectual tradition, is prone to eventual faith in a strong, authoritarian leader. And thus, Donald Trump becomes, for Kimball, the only one ready to rescue the country from its demise.
Their perspective is so vastly different due to indoctrination from years of talk radio, right wing news, and sites like facebook, reddit and 4chan where echo chambers reinforced the indoctrination.
The aspect free minds are missing us that, to quote Kimball again, "Trumpism represent[s] conservatism at its essential core, a kind of return to its roots in monarchism". This “monarchism” is now being nurtured by a populist faith—a combined belief in the supposed goodness of the masses, led by the sort of paternalistic authoritarian leader that conservative intellectuals can get behind.
A free mind can obviously see through the deception has it is full of holes. If you don't believe Steve Bannon is the next Pluto than you've already come to the conclusion that these buffoons are actually fascists attempting to strip American citizens of their rights and to gain power through the courts, through the power of the mob, and to gain power through forced religion, just as the Nazis did in the 1930s. The difference is they have absolute imbeciles in charge who have mucked up the process and exposed what they are doing. The mirror was broken for the vast majority of the American people to see. Thus this movement stalled, but it isn't dead yet.
... individual freedom, limited government, or the rule of law...
There is nothing inherently conservative about any of those values. Depending on the ruling government at the time, those concepts were often considered decidedly progressive. In fact, it could be both at the same time depending on which freedoms, which limits, and which laws you're discussing.
Conservatives at every point in history redefine conservativism to encompass the values that most benefit themselves at the time. If conservatives own businesses and do not control the government, they support limited government and deregulation. If conservatives face competition and can capture regulatory bodies, then strict guidelines and requirements are absolute.
The reason why conservative intellectuals don't exist is simply because any non-trivial thought dismisses most arguments they have and would make them leave their conservative position. They ignore constant massive contradictions, bad faith arguments and misused language. The closest you could come to an intellectual position as a conservative is to openly say you want to power trip, enslave, kill, imprison people that disagree with you etc, which you obviously wouldn't say(in this lemmy instance).
One thing to understand is that our ability to reason comes down to how we weigh our knowledge of the material in question. Someone can be extremely knowledgeable (and through that knowledge, intellectual) about one topic; and dumb as rocks in another. One of the culture shocks for me when I started working in the medical field was not just the existence, but the prevalence of stupid doctors. You'd think that someone who could become a doctor would be an all around curious and open-minded person... and when they're talking about their area of expertise, it 100% seems that way; but once they deviate into other areas, it starts to show that they're just as much a joe-dipshit as the rest of us.
So, you could have someone who's intellectual as fuck in the context of like orthopedic surgery; but even in other parts of the field of medicine, their brain hits a brick wall and suddenly your ortho doc drinking the covid conspiracy theory koolaid; or conned by some talkshow host into paying money for NFTs; or swallowing the lies about dragshows somehow being about grooming children.
There is absolutely such a thing as a conservative intellectual: just means they're really smart in some unrelated area; and really stupid with politics. There are also plenty of folks who buy into the hatred spewed by the political rightwing. Tricking rednecks into voting against their own interests is one thing - a bigger problem is that for a lot of voters, the cruelty is the point. They don't give a fuck about children: they just want to hurt trans people. They don't give a fuck about fetuses: they just want to hurt women. Assuming that conservatives are just politically stupid is actually giving them the benefit of the doubt - cuz the alternative is that they're just evil.... and evil paired with intellect is both real and incredibly dangerous.
I'm changing careers to become an engineer so I have been keeping an ear to the ground in those industries.
When COVID rolled around, there were engineers on reddit complaining about thier peers buying into the vaccine and anti-mask bullshit.
How could someone who needs to be versed in the difficult subject of physics be hoodwinked by con men?
Stupid people are truly everywhere.
DUDE.... I don't even work in the medical field. But I have such a similar experience. I grew up going to private schools and had lots of friends as doctors.... so many of them were dumb as rocks outside of their area of expertise.... Especially socially. To this day I constantly meet doctors that have no "social" or "street smarts" and are dumb as hell at technology, etc etc etc. I know that becoming a doctor takes a lot of effort, and focus, and specific knowledge.... But... There's a certain intuitiveness that comes with being generally "smart". And for whatever reason, doctors don't have that. I don't think all doctors are "stupid". But it seems like a profession you send someone who is stupid into, to do well..... I really hate saying that but I relate so much to your comment its crazy lol.
The social bit is pretty wild. I've seen doctors - in the middle of surgery - lash out yelling at the techs and nurses, throw instruments, stomp their feet... straight up like a toddler, but with 20+ years of education. You'd think part of medschool would include some basic social and leadership training. I mean, in terms of the team dynamic, the doctor is always the leader, and it's not a great look when your leader is throwing a tantrum like some 4 year old who just got told 'no' for the first time in their life and is an hour passed nap time.
The other extreme exists too ofc - some of the absolute best people I've ever met are doctors.
The takeaway is there isn't really a correlation, or at least not near as much of one as you'd expect. Take almost any slice of the population and you'll find a handful of genuinely outstanding human beings; a few absolute wastes of oxygen; and a horde of folks scattered in between. Take a slice exclusively of doctors, and... same. You'd expect that slice to be heavily weighted on the positive end, but the reality doesn't pan out that way. I suspect you'd get similar results with a random sample of physicists, or highschool students, or people living in some ghetto - you get the point.
The only times I'd expect it to deviate much from that are population samples that are in a position to abuse power. CEOs, oligarchs... looks at thread title ...those guys.
I only disagree on one thing:
What we think as Evil is not done by charicatural evil people with who enjoy hurting others, rather it's done by people who see themselves as good people and have massive excuses to hurt and even do harm to others, and sometimes that's to such a level that they believing they're actually helping those other people their forcing to comply with their own morals.
So a lot of that stuff is Moralism, practiced by people who actually see themselves as good people, which is why you'll also find people who believe themselves to be lefties trying to force others to comply with their own beliefs (rather than, you know, trying to convince them). That said, this kind of leveraging social systems to stroke their inner authoritarianism seems to be a lot more common in the rightwing.
PS: By the way, I think it's because of this paradox of people who see themselves as good people forcing their moral compass on others all they while telling themselves they're "doing the right thing" that is so difficult to stop this kind of thing. Such righteous autoritarians are extremelly defensive when confronted with what they're doing because they genuinelly think they're good people doing what's-right/needs-to-be-done/some-other-excuse.
Oh for sure -- but I'd categorize those as the 'politically stupid' variety. They're the ones convinced that they need to step up in defense of all the damsels in distress from the trans boogeymen just waiting to pounce in womens' restrooms. They think they're doing good, it's just their gullibility has been taken advantage of and steered into unwittingly supporting horrible things. Not evil, just stupid, and thjus a tool for evil.
Then there are the ones who just straight up hate trans people. Evil.
It's more of a spectrum than a dichotomy, but the modern 'red team' falls somewhere between those two points.
A lot of you people haven't read this, and it shows.
https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/agre/conservatism.html
Ps. You can literally just ask yourself what it is conservatives want to conserve...
Rabbits
There is not such thing as "there's no such thing"
This is the most progressive type article ive read in a while.
The party openly doesn’t publish policy documents any more.
There absolutely are conservative intellectuals, they just don't tend to endorse MAGA.
Here's a great example: https://scholars-stage.org/ Knocks it out of the park all the time. Then again, he rarely spends his time talking directly about culture war topics.
It regretfully doesn't matter how intellectual they are if the two-party system forces them to let their anti-intellectual minorities run the party. Once a governing body decides that keeping power away from "the other team" is more important than their principles, they cease to have the merit of those principles. Middle of the road negotiation simply ceases to exist. Either you have an overwhelming majority and don't need the other party's consent, or you have a narrow majority and policy making gets held hostage by the most belligerent minority faction within the party. When that belligerent faction is anti-intellectual, the result is the current shitshow.
Since American politics are right-leaning on the Overton window, that makes both parties more susceptible to getting kneecapped by their most right-leaning belligerents when they hold a narrow majority. A narrow Republican majority gets kneecapped by the Freedom Caucus, and a narrow Democrat majority gets kneecapped by the likes of Sinema and Manchin.
You… know it's possible to be a conservative without being a Republican, right?
If you want to say there are no politically relevant conservative intellectuals, that I would agree with. the Republican party is currently dominated by grifters, so anyone involved is going to be doing a lot of shoddy post-hoc justifications. But to say that being conservative of any stripe bars one from actually thinking deeply and critically is narrow minded.
hopefully lemmy will not become gab for the left...but it's a free world!
Gab is actually a Mastodon instance, so you can directly see what people in the Fediverse can/will do to fringe content ... defederate
The problem is that outside of tankies, the far left basically wants people taken care of and treated like people and the far right wants certain types of people to not exist (how they want the not exist part to happen is up for some debate amongst the right, but, they still need to be gone and gone quickly)
In a practical sense, you cannot really compare the two.
Yes, there are whackjobs on the left too, but they're not taken seriously by anyone and not getting prime time TV coverage of their runs for office.
If we get away from practicalities and talk pure theory, then I guess other arguments can be made, but if we're restricting ourselves to the things as they are now with labels as they're typically used, the far right is barren as far as intellectualism goes.
i've seen other forums starting out as pretty open-minded and becoming that.. so it's definitely possible.. i think gab is not that far right. i would not mention the names.
I’m a leftie, but I’ve found my beliefs challenged, altered and enriched by debating right wing intellectuals.
It’s possible for two ideas to be equally right and incompatible
I don't know if I agree that they can be equally right and incompatible. I think there can be shreds of truth scattered throughout different ideas and that you can pick them out and use that to construct an actual truth, though, so I guess I agree with your overall sentiment. I also agree with the fact that open conversation and an exchange of ideas is for the best, but I haven't found many conservative ideas to hold water under scrutiny even if the conversation is ultimately helpful.
I think there are times when your values dictate your opinion rather than the facts.
There’s a reason logic isn’t what sells cars, skin care and fashion.
We’re emotional creatures.
A strong opposition should help reign in excesses of either side, and we should crave it.
There are ideas that originate on the right and are embraced in the left - universal basic income comes to mind.
I’ve had multiple conversations with very smart traditional conservatives who argue for personal freedom and often libertarian economic foundations (although I think they are very wrong). However none of the ones I respect identify with the right wing movements in the US and UK (and other countries) over the recent years.
So while I agree with you, I think this post is trying to say “the current popular right wing movement”.
"People that don't agree with me are dummyheads! Wah!!!!"
"People that want others to exist peacefully and be able to love who they love are dummyheads! Wah!!!!"
While I do agree that's where OP article is going with this...
American right produces fuax intellectuals that are more focused on justifying current regimes existence at any costs. it is not logically congruent or grounded in any sound philosophical underpinnings beyond I am rich, I got mine, slave for low wages BC you are poor and stupid, youare poor stupid BC your parents suck, I am good cuz I gotz money, I am better BC I crawled out of rich womans vagina, look at these tests score, they prove whyte b smart...
American left shares much of similar clown idealogy, although there are some independent thinkers but they end shilling tankie shit which ends with some weird positions just to create opposition to the right
Either way, you can't have an intelectual discussion within the framework of two party political system and most Americans can't get over this hurdle.
People always shilling some predetermined point for "their side" this is literally definition of anti intellectualism
What a horrendous take
Reality is definitely something the conserved brain cannot handle. Cracking open that tin can is sure to relieve some of that debilitating pressure bearing down on the logic of basically any situation. In my exerience not one conservative has a good argument about their viewpoints, as their viewpoints are grandfathered in and pasted over their ability for compassion, logic and critical thinking. If the world weren't in the hands of people using dumb conservatives to rob and maintain wealth, it would be classified as a mental illness akin to schizophrenia.
Well not every intellectual was born in the past century. Virtually all of these would be conservative based on our modern values. Virtually no one 100 or 200 years ago would have been in favor of gay marriage. There were plenty intellectuals 100 and 200years ago.
So, no.
