Reddit reviews The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Donald Trump
We found 13 Reddit comments about The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Donald Trump. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
One possible explanation, which looks quite reasonable as a first approximation, is that the US libertarian fringe has been assimilated by the neo-Nazis. After all, once you take one red pill, why not take another, and another, until you overdose on the bloody things?
I think this is the case.
There has been quite a bit of writing lately examining the "libertarian-to-Nazi pipeline", the Niskanen Center (a bunch of libertarians who saw the slide start with the Kochs and Cato and are growing alarmed by it) has been giving it a hard look for a while now. These, in series, do a good job laying it out
https://niskanencenter.org/blog/explaining-white-nationalisms-anti-statist-bedfellows/
https://niskanencenter.org/blog/libertarian-democracy-skepticism-infected-american-right/
https://niskanencenter.org/blog/libertarian-origins-libertarian-influence-ruling-american-right/
These 3 are the pretty critical ones but this
https://niskanencenter.org/blog/black-liberty-matters/
looks at the historical biases which shifts things a bit and here
https://niskanencenter.org/blog/defense-liberty-cant-without-identity-politics/
It goes into a bit more that "black lives should matter as much as tax rates so why don't they to libertarians?"
Here they go into how libertarianism is shooting towards fascism because they only do a superficial consideration of their principles on markets and ignoring most of what Hayek said
https://niskanencenter.org/blog/the-shortcut-to-serfdom/
This one covers how trying to be "edgy" with their ideas feeds the fascism
https://niskanencenter.org/blog/public-choice-theory-politics-charity/
Here they go into how the embrace of climate denialism is very tied to fascism
https://niskanencenter.org/blog/climate-change-denial-historical-consciousness-trumpism-lessons-carl-schmitt/
Here about how their embrace of the republican line on nationalism is goostepping towards fascism
https://niskanencenter.org/blog/fuzzy-borders-benign-nationalism/
here they are more explicit about it
https://niskanencenter.org/blog/liberal-case-nationalist-immigration-restrictions/
And here even more so
https://niskanencenter.org/blog/individual-liberty-power-exclude/
With this one they try to point out to their fellow libertarians that they aren't willing to fight this and "what the HELL man!"
https://niskanencenter.org/blog/revitalizing-liberalism-age-brexit-trump/
And here they talk how the idea of being a libertarian is becoming toxic because of all this and they may need to shift
https://niskanencenter.org/blog/moderation-ii-rules-moderates/
Additionally, while I haven't completed it yet, the second edition of The Reactionary Mind https://www.amazon.com/Reactionary-Mind-Conservatism-Edmund-Donald/dp/0190692006/
Deals a lot with how the libertarian style worship of markets and business ties in with the same reactionary impulses we see in neoconservatism and its take on military prowess and how both are tied with domination.
I highly suggest reading The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Donald Trump. It is a fundamental history of modern political conservatism.
> In The Reactionary Mind, Robin traces conservatism back to its roots in the reaction against the French Revolution. He argues that the right was inspired, and is still united, by its hostility to emancipating the lower orders. Some conservatives endorse the free market; others oppose it. Some criticize the state; others celebrate it. Underlying these differences is the impulse to defend power and privilege against movements demanding freedom and equality -- while simultaneously making populist appeals to the masses. Despite their opposition to these movements, conservatives favor a dynamic conception of politics and society -- one that involves self-transformation, violence, and war. They are also highly adaptive to new challenges and circumstances. This partiality to violence and capacity for reinvention have been critical to their success.
I know you're not actually interested, but for anyone in the audience who wants to learn about the sociological background, here are some books that elaborate on the patterns described above:
Here are a couple of books that will get you on the right track:
The Reactionary Mind and Anti-Intellectualism in American Life.
Corey Robin: The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Donald Trump.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0190692006/ref=dbs_a_w_dp_0190692006
If you want to understand conservatism, I recommend reading some academic books about the ideology, rather than following them online. This will explain how fundamentally unserious it really is.
I can recommend this one to start
Conservatives-are-uneducated-rubes is the oldest analysis in the book, and it’s led progressives to spend countless hours trying to grace them with information they don’t care about because it’s not relevant to their ideology.
Conservatism is about one thing only: preserving hierarchies of power. All the religion and economic waffling is a decoy that prevents their opponents discussing and interfering with the real issues that motivates the right.
Corey Robin is the only theorist of the last century who has actually grasped this, and it’s pretty much impossible to effectively combat conservatism without an understanding of his work.
If that’s heavy going, at least watch Ian Danskin’s rendering on conservatism and fascism.
>alt-righty types seem to reject this premise as well
That might have something to do with them not being very conservative, just "edgy" weirdos who wanted somewhere to whine about women in their videogames. As a result, they went to libertarians because to be crude and quick, libertarians don't ask you to wake up for Church every Sunday. But actual libertarianism doesn't scratch that itch well, so then they drifted into a bizarre land of /pol/ paleoconservatism as Angela Nagle has documented.
Of course, these people (as seen with Trump) are now in some ways the face of Movement Conservatism^tm . But they're not very philosophically coherent (at least, not for American conservatism), and I think would only be inherently conservative per Corey Robin's thesis. As I've written in the past, I disagree with Robin and other lefties on hierarchy; Damon Linker's review of Robin's new book (which I just bought and can't wait to read!) sums it up nicely enough for me. Long story short, I'm really not surprised the alt-right puts no value in literature, they don't put value into anything because they think of everything as "for teh lulz".
You asked for opposing viewpoints in another post, I cant really help with that, but if you're interested in non-leftist theory, I'd recommend reading Corey Robin's two books and following him on fb/twitter - he is a leftist who really dug into conservative philosophy and usually has interesting takes.
the definitive text here is probably "The Reactionary Mind" by Cory Robin - which I would never advocate stealing - the second edition however is updated to include remarks on Trump... though I suppose you could buy the book
The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Donald Trump is an amazing read and I think it's what you're looking for. It tracks the intellectual and political history of the right wing in Europe and America. It's very enlightening.
He is actually quite conservative in the historical sense
> In The Reactionary Mind, Robin traces conservatism back to its roots in the reaction against the French Revolution. He argues that the right was inspired, and is still united, by its hostility to emancipating the lower orders. Some conservatives endorse the free market; others oppose it. Some criticize the state; others celebrate it. Underlying these differences is the impulse to defend power and privilege against movements demanding freedom and equality -- while simultaneously making populist appeals to the masses. Despite their opposition to these movements, conservatives favor a dynamic conception of politics and society -- one that involves self-transformation, violence, and war. They are also highly adaptive to new challenges and circumstances. This partiality to violence and capacity for reinvention have been critical to their success.
This is getting an update in a couple months. It's more historical, but still should help you.