Strains of modern conservatism
Damon Linker teases out the various strains of conservatism existing today in the media/blogosphere. Perhaps most interesting is his run-down of younger conservative writers:
And that leaves a final group of conservative writers–most of them younger and more intellectually interesting and eclectic, and for that reason much less politically consequent…. Meanwhile, the more radical ones (Larison, Deneen) are downright anti-modern in outlook. Delighted by Christopher Lasch’s indictment of the free market, enamored of Wendell Berry’s poetic agrarianism, romantically drawn toward “localism,” titillated by Alasdair MacIntyre’s praise of monasticism as an option for those seeking refuge from the moral impurities of modernity, open to radical environmentalism, hostile toward an idealistic foreign policy, disgusted at the overall tone of life in America since sexual revolution–these writers are interesting in the way all reactionaries are interesting: as a provocation to deep thinking, and as a warning about the (political and intellectual) dangers of indeterminate negation.
-John
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