As part of my Neither right nor left mantra, another datum.
Most people use “right” and “left” journalistically: to designate shifting bundles of social-political beliefs and attitudes. The bundles are usually not internally coherent. So more analytic thinkers try to bring order out of mush by identifying multiple dimensions of contrast: individual versus collective, liberty versus authority, majority- versus minority-rule, etc. They abandon the simple one-dimensional left-right spectrum and use Venn Diagrams and other arrays better to capture the realities.
And/or they add adjectives to clarify the genus-species relations. For example, conservatives on the right become traditional conservatives, neo-conservatives, religious conservatives, and so on. And now we have Trump conservatives.
Here’s an important quotation from this helpful article by Matthew Continetti on what the “Trump right” is:
Beginning in 2016, intellectuals who favored Trump have been searching for a new touchstone for conservative thought and politics. These writers are often described as populists, but that label is hard to define. Broadly speaking, they have adopted the banner of nationalism. They believe the nation-state is the core unit of geopolitics and that national sovereignty and independence are more important than global flows of capital, labor, and commodities.
Pulling out the key phrases and their implications:
1. “Flows of labor”: Where and when to apply one’s labor is part of liberty rights.
2. “Flows of capital and commodities”: Where and when to use them are aspects of property rights.
3. “The nation-state is the core unit of geopolitics”: That means the individual is not the core unit of politics and the nation-state merely a proxy or protector of the individual.
4. Integrating the above with “National sovereignty and independence are more important than …”, we get this result:
The nation is more important than the individual, and the sovereignty of the nation is more important than liberty and property rights.
And that is one more reason why I am not on the right, as much as I am not on the left. Both subordinate/suppress liberty and property rights, and both subordinate the individual to a collective (nation, proletariat, race/gender identity, etc.).
National conservatism is perhaps the best label for this post-2016-Trump package.
Yes, there are differences within conservatism and between conservatives and the left. But national conservatism overlaps with national socialism which overlaps with international socialism. And when drawing the Venn Diagrams to clarify who belongs inside which circle, it’s important to remember that there are other positions completely outside the circles.
Source:
“Making Sense of the New American Right: Keeping track of the Jacksonians, Reformicons, Paleos, and Post-liberals.” Matthew Continetti, May 31, 2019)
Related:
“Conservatives Are Not Free-market Capitalists.”
“Conservatives: Get Over the Dark Ages.”
Both are part of my Open College with Stephen Hicks series.
Stephen R. C. Hicks is a Senior Scholar for The Atlas Society and Professor of Philosophy at Rockford University. He is also the Director of the Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship at Rockford University.
他是《推理的藝術:邏輯分析讀物》(W. W. Norton & Co.,1998)、《解釋後現代主義:從盧梭到福柯的懷疑主義和社會主義》(Scholargy,2004)、《尼采與納粹》(奧卡姆剃刀,2010)、《創業生活》(CEEF,2016)、《自由主義的利弊》(康納·考特,2020)、《藝術:現代、後現代和超越》(與邁克爾·紐伯里合著,2021)和《八大教育哲學》的作者 (2022). 他曾在《商業道德季刊》、《形而上學評論》和《華爾街日報》上發表文章。他的著作已被翻譯成20種語言。
他曾是華盛頓特區喬治城大學商業倫理客座教授,俄亥俄州鮑靈格林社會哲學與政策中心客座研究員,波蘭卡西米爾大帝大學客座教授,英國牛津大學哈裡斯曼徹斯特學院客座研究員和波蘭雅蓋隆大學客座教授。
他的學士和碩士學位來自加拿大圭爾夫大學。他的哲學博士學位來自美國布盧明頓的印第安那大學。
2010年,他獲得了所在大學的卓越教學獎。
他的 開放學院播客系列 由多倫多的可能正確的製作公司出版。他的視頻講座和採訪在 CEE視頻頻道在線,他的網站 StephenHicks.org。
Instagram Takeover Questions:
Every week we solicit questions from our 100K followers on Instagram (a social media platform popular with young people. Once a month we feature Stephen Hicks' answers to select questions, transcripts below:
還有幾篇文章,選擇客觀主義讀者可能感興趣: