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Friday::Nov 29, 2024

Rightward

T

he Librarian of Celaeno, on the Eurosiberia podcast, posited that cultural pressure from above will not reform the nation. It will not work to take control of the government, and then tell everyone "You're all right-wing now." On this, I agree with him.

He goes on to say, and I paraphrase, that the right-wing has the advantage of naturalness to its political and cultural aims. Timeless truths and human nature are inherently right-wing, while left-wing politics seek to re-make man in some utopian image. If we can just cultivate organic relations amongst people, start to make real communities at first small scales, then increasingly larger ones, right-wing patterns of culture will naturally crop up again; such things as hierarchy, diversity of peoples, local traditions, and so on will return to life, if only protected from the smothering attention of modern liberalism.

I don't claim to have a particular dog in the fight between left and right at the moment. I lean conservative, and a bit to the right, but hold myself in an intellectual limbo at the moment, as I seek to understand better what political and cultural ends and means best fit the hopeful citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. That said, the Librarian's take on the natural restoration of right-wing values sounds rather optimistic to me.

While I tentatively concur that the right-wing mentality is historically more prevalent and natural than that of the left-wing, I think that right-wing structures are generally reactions to hard limits in the sphere of human activity. In particular, they are survival mechanisms for dealing with poverty, lack of mobility, and (by modern standards) rampant violence. Right-wing structures are born in and for hard times, and I believe are very difficult to maintain when wealth makes citizens less dependent on social standing; when capital accumulates in cities, and moving is easy; and when there is little to fear for one's physical safety. And what is hard to maintain, is nearly impossible to grow in such circumstances. Liberalism is well-suited to enormous societal wealth (even if it doesn't make people happier). Trying to unseat it in good times (and yes, these are very good times, historically speaking) is going to prove very difficult; and I don't think it will develop "organically".