I know Lemmy isn’t normally the best place to search for this, but are there any high-quality right-wing explainers, or modern books, or media outlets?
I myself am ultra-left (quite literally communist, to the dictionary sense of the word), but I’d like to quit the bubble that inevitably forms around and look at good arguments of the opposing side, if there are any.
Is there anything in there beyond temporarily embarrassed millionaires and fears that trans people will destroy humanity? Is there rational analysis, something closer to academic research, behind modern ideas of laissez-faire capitalism and/or political conservatism?
I’ve tried outlets like PragerU, but they are so basic they seem to target a very uncritical audience.
I’d like to see the world in the eyes of an enlightened right-winger, and see where they possibly fail (or if suddenly they have valid arguments).
Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State and Utopia is a solid philosophical foundation for a lot of right wing thought. If you want to engage further you can follow up with Michael Otsuka’s critique in Self-Ownership and Equality: A Lockean Reconciliation.
Nozick provides an underpinning for what many think of as traditional conservative American values, without basing it in Christianity.
Then of course there’s the Chicago school of economics (Friedman et al), which is just a somewhat naive and more it less completely discredited take on how the economy works. It’s fundamental for understanding American politics the previous half century, but their ideas are not really worth interacting with unless you’re particularly interested in economics. It’s not like the idiot politicians who push it in front of them understand the theories either.
Thsee theories is not far right; there’s no salvaging the far right, and their ideological basis is mostly just bigotry. You could read Ayn Rand to try to understand which hole these idiots crawled from. Or better, don’t waste your time.
I see! Actually, I think I should touch Ayn Rand at some point to get more popular sentiment - in modern times, her books, particularly Atlas Shrugged, seem to be the Bible of common liberals.
Yeah, you’re probably right it’s worth reading if you want to understand the American right. I just don’t think Atlas Shrugged is anywhere near as interesting as Anarchy, State and Utopia from a history of ideas perspective, but that might not be the relevant dimension. :)