This is a really astute piece, John. I think (as I often do) that you've identified in broader conservatism something that has been explicit in evangelical communities since at least the 1990's, when those communities really tried to create a parallel culture of pop music and potboiler horror novels and kids' entertainment to supplant what they saw as the evils of the age (rap, Stephen King, Saturday morning cartoons). The failure there birthed some of the despair that you see in right-wing Christian pundits like Eric Metaxas and Rod Dreher today, and I think led them to a closer alliance with far-right Catholics like Vermeule.
I have not thought this through as a full argument, but this piece makes me think more and more that conservatism hostility towards thinking structurally makes conspiracism the most politically and "intellectually" viable alternative to conceptualize friends and enemies. If class/race as a social analysis is anathema then something needs to fill the gap.
I’ve been reading about conservative intellectual history and came across the name Albert Jay Nock and his disaffection with liberal early 20th century America stood out. This guy’s work was supposed to be influential on conservative thinkers post WWII. I read a piece he wrote in 1913 about a lynching in the town where I currently teach high school.
He was appalled by the lynching, not because of the horrors of racial violence but because the whole response by the town and the state was evidence of the ills of industrial capitalist society. His description was a social order where the upper class was materialized, the middle class vulgarized, and the lower class brutalized. It’s sticking with me because this guy was very influential on conservative thought in the 40s and 50s and obviously guys like Buckley and Co. have influenced conservative thought and politics since. It appears that even the seminal figures of conservatism are just downright suspect of the industrial world and all the changes it has wrought on society. It’s their core belief that any social order post industrialization is fundamentally flawed.
When you believe any kind of Just World Hypothesis, yet see a world that patently is not just, you have engineered a Satan-shaped hole in your soul. So an unconstrained Market _obviously_ would be better for everyone, or at least everyone who _deserved_ it (the use of the word 'bum' is a major Randroid 'tell'), yet belief in this is staggeringly unpopular, so obviously some Great Deceiver is at work.
(I'm definitely not Christian, not least from revulsion at the notion of Original Sin, but at their best the Christian's belief that the World and the Natural Man are in a fallen state can sometimes keep them from the worst of this…sometimes.)
I wonder if there's more to be said about the political utility of "cultural despair" for those in positions of discursive influence/those who desire discursive influence. There's a lot more market potential for conspiracism and catastrophe than there is for a more historically contextualized grappling with the present. In that sense, what you're describing here probably discourages looking to the past for precedent -- if we are encouraged to exceptionalize our own moment to amplify our work, then any precedent that suggests our own moment in time is not all-important actually cuts down own "unique" potential for engagement.
This is a really astute piece, John. I think (as I often do) that you've identified in broader conservatism something that has been explicit in evangelical communities since at least the 1990's, when those communities really tried to create a parallel culture of pop music and potboiler horror novels and kids' entertainment to supplant what they saw as the evils of the age (rap, Stephen King, Saturday morning cartoons). The failure there birthed some of the despair that you see in right-wing Christian pundits like Eric Metaxas and Rod Dreher today, and I think led them to a closer alliance with far-right Catholics like Vermeule.
I have not thought this through as a full argument, but this piece makes me think more and more that conservatism hostility towards thinking structurally makes conspiracism the most politically and "intellectually" viable alternative to conceptualize friends and enemies. If class/race as a social analysis is anathema then something needs to fill the gap.
I’ve been reading about conservative intellectual history and came across the name Albert Jay Nock and his disaffection with liberal early 20th century America stood out. This guy’s work was supposed to be influential on conservative thinkers post WWII. I read a piece he wrote in 1913 about a lynching in the town where I currently teach high school.
He was appalled by the lynching, not because of the horrors of racial violence but because the whole response by the town and the state was evidence of the ills of industrial capitalist society. His description was a social order where the upper class was materialized, the middle class vulgarized, and the lower class brutalized. It’s sticking with me because this guy was very influential on conservative thought in the 40s and 50s and obviously guys like Buckley and Co. have influenced conservative thought and politics since. It appears that even the seminal figures of conservatism are just downright suspect of the industrial world and all the changes it has wrought on society. It’s their core belief that any social order post industrialization is fundamentally flawed.
Repeating myself, but:
When you believe any kind of Just World Hypothesis, yet see a world that patently is not just, you have engineered a Satan-shaped hole in your soul. So an unconstrained Market _obviously_ would be better for everyone, or at least everyone who _deserved_ it (the use of the word 'bum' is a major Randroid 'tell'), yet belief in this is staggeringly unpopular, so obviously some Great Deceiver is at work.
(I'm definitely not Christian, not least from revulsion at the notion of Original Sin, but at their best the Christian's belief that the World and the Natural Man are in a fallen state can sometimes keep them from the worst of this…sometimes.)
I wonder if there's more to be said about the political utility of "cultural despair" for those in positions of discursive influence/those who desire discursive influence. There's a lot more market potential for conspiracism and catastrophe than there is for a more historically contextualized grappling with the present. In that sense, what you're describing here probably discourages looking to the past for precedent -- if we are encouraged to exceptionalize our own moment to amplify our work, then any precedent that suggests our own moment in time is not all-important actually cuts down own "unique" potential for engagement.
So fucking good.