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).
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.
OP, this guy has given you an honest answer that is actually good material.
Seconding these recommendations.
Love the name
Wow, thank you for such a detailed response!
I’ll check out the sources you’ve given.
Thomas Sowell is an american pseudo intelectual…
A lot of his analysis doesn’t hold any water if 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.
Proving totalitarianism undermines liberty seems pretty trivial to me. An attempt to prove that communism must necessarily be totalitarian would be much more interesting.
Yeah, that’s what they do and say.
iirc Friedman changed his mind about the welfare state later in life