about right-wing conservative thinkers/intellectuals
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Philosophy
tommyboy — 7 months ago(August 23, 2025 06:02 PM)
before the French Revolution, the right-wing conservative state was largely self-evident and did not require special reflection. yet the right-wing conservative idea is found in the highest peaks of world philosophy and literature. i will mention here only a few key names: Heraclitus, Callicles, Thrasymachus, Confucius, Plato, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Machiavelli, Hobbes.
after the Revolution, right-wing conservative thought crystallized into a powerful spiritual movement, a sign of resistance against the disruption of the established order, and through several currents, it gained momentum in European countries: Germany (Friedrich Julius Stahl, Adam Müller, Justus Moeser, Heinrich v. Treitschke, Nietzsche), England (Edmund Burke), Spain (Juan Donoso Cortes), France (L. G. A. de Bonald, Joseph de Maistre, Alexis de Tocqueville), Russia (Konstantin Pobedonostsev) etc
the classical thought was then followed by the Conservative Revolution with dozens of first-rate minds (Moeller van den Bruck, Spengler, Spann, Freyer, E. Jünger, E. J. Jung, Carl Schmitt), then German neo-conservatism (Gehlen, Schelsky), Georges Sorel, Julius Evola, Italian neo-Machiavellians… all the way to the Nouvelle Droite with Armin Mohler and Alain de Benoist. -
Paul P. Powell — 7 months ago(August 31, 2025 02:28 PM)
Nooo. You have it all wrong. Utterly backward and opposite-way-around.
Rattling off a cherry-picked grab-bag of names the way you did, is sending people down a detour.
The right-wing is largely bereft of any intellectual underpinning. It has no intelligentsia. No art, no literature, no music, no rationale, no method, no ideals.
If this was a proposal for a term paper I'd grade it no more than a 'D'.
yet the right-wing conservative idea is found in the highest peaks of world philosophy and literature. i will mention here only a few key names: Heraclitus, Callicles, Thrasymachus, Confucius, Plato, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Machiavelli, Hobbes.
The 'key names' you mention are a motley, wildly-distorted assemblage. As if plucked from a rubble heap.
Hobbes is the only standard-bearer for the conservative platform and his ideas exhibit a paucity in the extreme.
And you can't include Aquinas or Augustine for cryin' out loud. Thrasymachus was a sophist. Heraclitus was simply disgruntled; a Pre-Socratic with a measly handful of scraps to his name.
Plato of course –it is obvious why you would include him –and just as obviously flawed. Yet you don't even mention that he should be regarded with any excess precaution. One might assume from his inclusion that he was a fascist? When of course he was anything but. Ditto Confucius. Was Confucius not a humanist? Come on.
Machiavelli? You're seriously citing Machiavelli as a pinnacle of world philosophy? Another loser. And what's de Tocqueville doing in your grab-bag?
after the Revolution, right-wing conservative thought crystallized into a powerful spiritual movement,
Of all the grotesque hyperbole …nobles fleeing for their rotten lives, securing their wealth beyond the reach of the mob, and clamping down on freedom in Europe is not a 'spiritual movement'. It is nothing which a common man himself can follow.
a sign of resistance against the disruption
Yes. This is the only fair statement in your musings. Reactionaries are not forward-thinkers. They're not philosophers. They're just mouthpieces for the class strata which was still extant in their lifetime. Nothing more than running dogs.
and through several currents, it gained momentum in European countries: Germany (Friedrich Julius Stahl, Adam Müller, Justus Moeser, Heinrich v. Treitschke, Nietzsche), England (Edmund Burke), Spain (Juan Donoso Cortes), France (L. G. A. de Bonald, Joseph de Maistre, Alexis de Tocqueville), Russia (Konstantin Pobedonostsev) etc
Another compendium of minor and insignificant schleps and palookas. de Maistre and Burke. Yep, that figures. Small potatoes.
Who else? Spengler? An intellectual wastrel. Sorel? Garbage-headed. Advocate of bloodshed.
People
en masse
do not subscribe to the ideas of such men. They write, speak, think, and publish for the sake of the narrow, upper-crust segment in which they themselves germinate.
There's no important philosopher who advocated for authoritarianism; other than teh utterly revolting Thomas Hobbes.
And for anyone who even comes close to Hobbes, every Nietzsche (a madman), and every stodgy, 'ol, fuddy-duddy like Edmund Burke there's a hundred better brains who promulgated liberalism and humanism.
There is simply no cohesive idea at the heart of right-wing philosophy, it is simply the exertion of power or class; economic stratification; social hegemony. It is merely a self-interested, self-serving stance. It is drawn from opportunity.
Liberalism is the primary political spirit flowing through western civilization.
Turn your eyes toward more genuine philosophers like
John Locke
.
Paul P. Powell, Pool Player