...getting our bearings Right
The scope of this piece doesn't include the cancer of the Right, the white supremacists, wannabe fascists, or anti-semites. What is wrong with tiki torch-wielding lunatics doesn't require explanation. World War II inoculated Western culture against open racism. I won't cover religious fanatics either. What I try to marshal here is a coherent critique of attitudes and ideas on the center-right, leaving its positive side for another day.
I try to make a distinction between issues that comes from just being human, e.g. corruption, hypocrisy, double standards or confirmation bias, and therefore can be found everywhere on the political spectrum, and the ones that are inherent to conservatism, like contradicting ideas, anti-intellectualism, a soft spot for Right-wing dictators, persecution mania, problems with religion.
I try to point out issues that apply to the political Right in general, regardless of location, but everything I write is informed by the American conservatism. I know close to nothing about right-wing thought in Western Europe, but more than I want to about the Eastern-European Right. The two main schools of American conservatism, Libertarianism and Traditionalism, are much more of uneasy allies than relatives, and they will be discussed separately when it makes sense. The conservative worldview and the way politicians and pundits on the Right behave also deserve independent examination.
The Enemies of the State
Let's mete out some tough love, in kind, for libertarians first. Theirs is a very neat philosophy, I personally like it and they are reluctant conservatives anyway.
The free markets might be humanity's single best invention; putting personal freedom above everything else is morally defensible and it completely pre-empts the ideological foundations of the worst forms of governments in the world, fascism, communism, theocracy, and plain dictatorship in general.
But the purer the libertarian idea is, the less moored it is in reality. There are no societies in history where the state has withdrawn completely and that left everyone better off. Anyone who thinks that healthcare, police, courts are best run privately, and you should only get what you paid for, is free to go and live in the Congo. Competition, and not freedom alone, is the driving force behind capitalism. I'm not free to burn down your bakery you insolently opened just next to mine. Rules of the game should be established and forced, and that requires....well, a state. To be fair, even more practical libertarians regard Rothbard Murray-like right-wing anarchists as lunatics. But they still owe the public an articulate explanation on why the fire brigade is a public good, but universal healthcare is a step toward socialism.
On the matter of individual freedom, prostitution can be viewed as a consensual activity between two willing parties, but the simplification ignores the drug-addiction and physical abuse it almost always entails. Selling your own organs is nobody else's business, but most people still recoil from the idea.
Simple and elegant ideas are powerful, but to paraphrase the famous observation about battle plans, no single idea survives contact with the reality unscathed.
Standing athwart history, yelling Stop
Having gently done away with libertarians, it's time to aim the gun to the ones who want to conserve. Principled and intellectually honest Traditionalists are in a difficult position. Searching for the higher meaning of life, being distrustful towards strangers and strange customs, and finding comfort in the old and tried ways and social structures are natural instincts for humans. They are also slippery slopes. Higher meaning can turn into dogmatism, cautiousness to xenophobia, and desire for order to a police state. The lines are contextual and ill-defined, and conservatives especially are in need of a very strong moral compass to resist being swayed too far. Exceptional characters are by definition very rare. The rest, even the better part of it, is prone to give an easy pass to anyone who is at least willing to pay lip-service to Christianity, or praises the idea of small government, or sounds patriotic enough. Whenever I read the usual wishy-washy Orban-apology in the National Review, my toes curl involuntary and my lips form silently: "Man, you really have no idea what you are talking about". By being so closely tuned to human instincts, the Right seems to be particularly gullible by conmen who know how to appeal to them. And speaking of credulousness...
Camels and riches
The most glaring contradiction in conservatism is between its reverence for Christianity and enthusiasm for getting rich. There is nothing wrong with the latter, and capitalism and unleashed human invention have propelled our species from two hundred thousand years of miserable existence on the brink of starvation to the world we live in now. But it is the exact opposite of what Jesus said.
"Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God" - Matthew 19:23-26
For those who don't get metaphors:
“Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” - Mark 10:17–31
Plain and simple. You have to contort yourself into an intellectual pretzel to explain why the son of God didn't really mean what he obviously and repeatedly meant. And this is exactly what conservatives do. Following this teaching would make the world a very poor place, but if one sincerely believed this is what his Creator wishes, he could be expected to pay the price happily. In earlier times people chose to being thrown to lions rather than giving up their faith. Today losing comfort alone is too much to ask. Accepting that cognitive dissonance is the part of life, as conservatives commendably do, doesn't absolve them of hypocrisy and dishonesty.
Jesus's other famous teaching doesn't reflect very well on conservatives either.
"Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye;
and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." Matthew 7:3-5
Following this one would make the world a better place, but it's not what conservative politicians and media do. If there is any correlation between the tone one uses against his opponents and his preaching of forgiveness and self-criticism and loving your enemies, it's a negative one. I admit this observation is subjective and hard to quantify. Universal human flaws spread across the political spectrum. But doing something bad and preaching the opposite is worse than just doing the damned thing with honesty.
According to the mainstream conservative view, our most important values, free speech, democracy, human rights, even capitalism(!) is the direct consequence of Christian teachings. Why these teachings hadn't produced any of them in the thousand years and more before the Enlightenment is a question they don't ponder too much. The ascension of modern values did not merely coincide with the waning of religious belief. Those values took inroads only when and where the Church retreated.
Atheist or agnostic conservatives, like Charles Murray, Douglas Murray, or George Will, more often than not argue that religion is nevertheless important for the society. Either they are sincere or just toe the party line, this is a very questionable point of view. Is religion not good for you, but it's enough for the masses? Even charitable explanations have problems. It's degrading to use sacred values, that ought to mean the most to their believers, as mere tools to regulate society.
On morals and character
A related issue is the conservatives' insistence on the importance of virtue and morals coupled with their frequent and apparent lack of them. Republican politicians are not necessarily less honest or courageous or generous than their left-leaning peers, but not more either. As they say, the time when the anti-abortion stance of a Republican melts away is the time when his mistress gets pregnant. This is very human and understandable behavior. But understanding is much less deserved when leaders of mega-churches, like Ted Haggard, who rail against homosexuality from the podium, found out to pay for sex to male prostitutes. The sanctimonious defense of "we are all fallible before God" just doesn't cut it.
When asked what they seek most in presidential candidates of the United States, Evangelical Christians traditionally named the quality of character. Came Donald Trump and gone was the conviction. It really doesn't require further explanation.
Evangelical Christians are not alone on the Right to have failed their own character test epically. Fiscal discipline, international commitment, firm criticism of dictators, restriction of presidential power, a God-fearing leader, almost everything Republicans ostensibly revered, were thrown out of the window in 2016. Because they found themselves in a similar position as the opponents of bloody dictators in the past and were afraid for their lives? Nope. They just wanted to get the job.
"Why Richard, it profit a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world. . . but for Gorsuch!"
Birds of a feather
The archetypical Republican is religious, climate skeptic, anti-gay-marriage (or used to be until very recently), anti-abortion, pro-gun-rights, respects traditions, and wants to lower taxes and curb the welfare state. Groupthink is a human tendency that is not owned by the Right alone, but it's worth pointing out. Nothing in the nature of climate change indicates that one's view on it should correlate in any way with the person's opinion on gun rights. Adherence to Christian values goes directly against the desire for objects that were made for killing or teaching tough love to the poor.
The cohesion in this group of ideas is weak. They are the result of historical processes and not pure reasoning; they are reinforced by financial pressure in the form of donors, as even conservatives admit sometimes.
There are prominent people on the Right that deviate from the mainstream (e.g. the secular conservatives, like Heather Mac Donald) in some issues, but in general, the front is much more united than on the Left. Which might be the defensive reaction to the fact that...
...They are all against Us!
An amusing character flaw of right-wingers is the persecution mania. As far as I can see, this doesn't respect borders, it's the same in the USA than in Hungary. Even if all they have put their hands all the levers of power (and in Eastern Europe, they managed to silence the media as well), they still complain about the liberal dominance. The whining is irritating, but to be fair, they have a point. Cultural and academic elites are liberal-leaning everywhere. Banning the New York Times or its local equivalents Western conservatives don't want to and Eastern European right-wingers don't dare to do. They will always face opposition, but so will liberals from other parties. Telling your parents you are gay is probably a tougher one than being called a moron stuck in the '50s.
...yeah we are not proud of that, but have you seen the Left?!
Everyone is guilty of confirmation bias. But the tendency to strawman the opponent and apply double standard is the norm and not the exception on the Right. By the measure of exerted influence on their respective sides, the Fox News and the New York Times are comparable. But they are not the two sides of the same coin. It's not only that if Obama did an hundredth of what Trump does on a daily basis, the Right would have been apoplectic. If the NYT openly reveals a blatant partisan streak, it pays a price for it - exacted by his own readers. See its handling of the recent sexual accusation against Joe Biden. Followers of the Fox News don't watch it because they want objective news coverage. It loses nothing for being openly biased. See its handling of Roy Moore.
Even in highbrow magazines, like the National Review (which is my favorite and which, I'm proud to say, denounced Roy Moore right away), the Left almost always appears as a monolithic menace, as if the mainstream Democrats were the same as moronic Social Justice Warriors or Jeremy Corbyn-like useful idiots. If you were offended by being mentioned on the same page with Richard Spencer, you might be expected to exercise a bit more nuance in describing your opponent. Every time Trump does something indefensible (like 3 times a day), the National Review grumpily points it out - it is important for mental hygiene - then quickly locates the Latest Terrible Thing The Left Did to vent its anger on.
Anti-intellectualism
"I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University" - William F. Buckley Jr.
Anti-intellectualism might be the most interesting self-delusion on the Right. The conservative worldview is skeptical of human reasoning, that's why it's cautious about novelty and abhors radicalism. Good sounding ideas might turn out very badly, after all. But the conservative thinkers and journalists don't value intelligence and education any less, and they are not behind their liberal peers in any respect. Buckley's quip is catchy but pretentious. And their skepticism conveniently doesn't apply to their favorite untested ideas, like the ones about the afterlife or the worldy paradise of the night-watchman state.
We speak for the people
The second most-interesting delusion is the conservative belief that they represent the common people against the liberal elites. That might be, and sadly, true for the Fox News (or would be if Sean Hannity drove a pick-up instead of a private jet), but imaginging the editors of National Review pondering the differences between Burkean and Lockean ideas in front of an average constituency is amusing. Almost as amusing as picturing Ryan Paul as he explains his working class audience that he plans to take away their and their parents' Medicare because it's a bad socialist idea.
The average voter is below average, as far as political and moral literacy goes. He doesn't know much about abstract ideas and doesn't care. There is an endless list of things in life worth spending time with, and reading news and philosophers is just one of them. Besides, a Republican professor is the same kind of an egghead as a Democrat one. People don't commit to their political parties by reading dead philosophers and op-eds in highbrow magazines, but rather by emotions and tribalism - as the Brexit and the Trump presidency proves.
Those pesky Swedes
The most powerful critique of conservative ideas is the mere existence of the Scandinavian states, and a mention of them can send conservatives through the roof. They are the living proof that a strong welfare state doesn't need to corrupt the people. Atheist societies don't descent into nihilism and get engulfed in crime. The absence of universal gun-rights doesn't lead to tyranny. In almost every respect regarding the quality of life, the Northern countries beat America, except innovation and a general vigorousness of the society. These are important things, but not the ones conservatives claim to keep in highest regard.
If they are forced to confront the question, thinkers on the Right invariable start hemming and hewing about the "different character" of the Danes or Swedes, or embarrassing simplicities like "they have money to do that because we pay for their defense". The critique is devastating because it's not some leftish intellectual challenge to brush off, but a damn fact that just doesn't go away.
The Times They Are a-Changin'
Today's conservatives are much more liberal than liberals were in the '50s. General views about gays, race, gender roles, and sex have undergone a massive change in the last couple of decades. It's hard to believe that even Obama opposed gay marriage as recently as 2008! Conservatism is a contextual worldview. One wants to preserve the structure she got used to. In a sense, conservatives are just laggards, perpetually 20-years behind the world. This, as firm believers in slow, gradual change, many of them proudly concede to. But I wish they were more honest in their relation to their forebears and articulate more what principles guide them to distinguish between good and bad traditions.
That's an as exhaustive list of grievances with the Right as I could muster. Each one of them could and does fill books, but longer explanations have diminishing returns. Not everything is bad, though, and the bright side of conservatism deserves another piece.
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