Economic right has some heavy weights but social right is sort of a wasteland.
The social right is a wasteland. Forget “sort of”.
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I was a contrarian when I invested and sort of globalist minded then, so I dunno. I’ve heard Adam Smith and Milton Friedman, but I couldn’t get into them.
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The LAST intellectual from the right that I read was this and he was complaining about pseudo-conservatism taking over. This was back in 2004 and it could’ve been written today.
http://www.dnipogo.org/fcs/comments/c507.htm
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What can be difficult is finding non-reactionary right intellectuals.
Reactionary is easy to find, and once the blame game starts, their perceived intelligence goes down quickly.
If you look around the Buckley / National Review conservativism range, there’s lots.
You can also find a lot around the Ayn Rand range, although they’re more like motivational speeches than anything.
But Conservatism isn’t necessarily Right and visa-versa.
One reason for the seeming wasteland is the diversity among the right in opinions that leave the Overton Window
Despite heavy efforts from the right to modify the Overton Window over the past decade, it’s been limited in success.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
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q: “Does the right have intellectuals?”
a1: triggered
a2: list and leave
a3: “What kinds of intellectuals are you focusing on?”
a4: insert alt response
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This is a problem in India too, but the author found one:
”
Perhaps the only serious intellectual in India who is also socially conservative is Arun Shourie. Unlike Sudershan Rao or Dina Nath Batra, or indeed the right-wing columnists referred to above, Shourie has published a number of books based on original research. These expand on distinctively conservative themes, such as the importance of national unity and solidarity, the dangers of excessive cultural heterogeneity, and the threat to India from external enemies—namely China and Pakistan. Shourie has been a BJP member of parliament, and a minister in a BJP-controlled government. Originally trained as an economist, unlike India’s other free-market thinkers he wears his conservative political and social orientation on his sleeve.”
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Same. I remember Rush Limbaugh on the radio in the early 1990s. What I see today is an expansion of that.
Fiscal conservatism has a respectable intelligentsia historically but social conservatism is a sad realm indeed.
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