Toward a Newer Right: the

Toward a Newer Right: the Right has always been a response to the Left, an attempt to maintain traditional affirmations in the face of leftist negations. As a result the Right, although essentially positive because it wanted to preserve something, has appeared negative because its main activity has been opposing leftist initiatives.

Today the Left has triumphed to the extent that all authoritative public institutions are leftist. All of them, for example, claim “diversity”—the abolition of all human distinctions not directly necessary for the functioning of bureaucracies and markets—as one of their fundamental commitments.

As a result, the Right can no longer be reactive but must offer a positive vision. At least in the public sphere it can not be conservative but must be radical and restorationist. The point of the radicalism and restoration, of course, will be to provide a more suitable habitat for the beliefs, attitudes and practices that continue to make social life possible. But from the standpoint of official theory it must appear an attack on the best achievements of our civilization.

The Newer Right will therefore be widely condemned. Nonetheless it will be a healthier and happier movement than the old, because its focus will be on positive ideals and hopes for the future, as well as memories of the past and resistance to present evils.

Posted by Jim Kalb at April 27, 2002 10:36 AM | Send