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https://doctorow.medium.com/nathan-j-robinsons-responding-to-the-right-brief-replies-to-25-conservative-arguments-4ae6210ce0e>
"In
Responding to the Right: Brief Replies to 25 Conservative Arguments,
Current Affairs founder Nathan J. Robinson addresses himself in a serious,
thoughtful way to the arguments advanced by right-wing figures, even when those
arguments aren’t themselves very serious:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250777744/respondingtotheright
Robinson is a keen student of right-wing media. He reads the books, watches the
talk shows, listens to the podcasts. This is a lot of work, because the right
wing media machine is extremely repetitive, often unhinged, and frequently
grossly offensive. But, Robinson argues, a close study of right-wing media is
worth it for what it reveals: the currents and fracture lines, and the
underlying beliefs that the whole edifice is built upon.
Robinson sets up his subject with an essay on the curious un-reason of
conservative arguments, which are inevitably styled by their proponents as
“rational” (with left arguments condemned as irrational, softheaded and
sentimental). But conservative arguments, motivated by fear and discomfort with
uncertainty, are frequently, demonstrably, historically, provably irrational.
The arguments against letting everybody vote — proffered in the mid-19th
century — threatened societal collapse if the “wrong” people were given a say.
Despite society’s manifest failure to collapse, these same arguments were
advanced again for the next 150 years (and are still repeated today) in
conservative circles.
Likewise, the general conservative pessimism that reform isn’t possible — bad
regulations can’t be replaced with good ones, bad working conditions can’t be
improved through unionization. These arguments are repeated again and again,
impervious to evidence.
Robinson describes conservativism as a comforting, fixed ideology that allows
its adherents to move through the world without having to question themselves:
you broke the law, so you’re guilty. No need to ask if the law was just or
unjust. This sidelines sticky moral dilemmas: no need for judges to ask if
something is good or fair — merely whether it is “original” to the
Constitution. No need for a CEO to ask whether a business plan is moral — only
whether it is “maximizing shareholder benefit.”
There are rigid, dogmatic leftists, too (whom Robinson decries) but
conservatives who are quick to point out how Marxist dogma can lead to ghastly
atrocities — as in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge — are completely indifferent
to, say, the horrors of US imperialism in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
