Leo Strauss is interesting if you're more interested in philosophy, 'Liberalism Ancient and Modern', and also The City and Man.

yesiamapersonplease8 months ago

echo the "conservative thought isn't really precise enough of a concept to be useful here" sentiment but Peter Witonski made a big anthology in the 70s called "The Wisdom of Conservativism" which seems to select from a lot of high brow educated sorts. Might be a good starting place

This is an interesting question--what kind of conservatives are you thinking of? I feel like there are so many different subgroups that are prominent today. That said, William F. Buckley Jr. was a prominent conservative and a newspaper columnist, so reading his columns could be a good starting point.

bawnjourno8 months ago(edited)

I'll check out these novels that have been recommended but I'm moreso looking for non-fiction. I guess someone who is considered a "conservative philosopher" in the same way there are many liberal/leftist philosophers, if that kind of philosopher even exists. Preferably someone who has lived in a recent century or two and not some ancient philosopher that modern conservatives claim as their own.

1Reply

I can recommend the Fountainhead by Ayn Rand if you want to read a novel flavoured by anti-left, pro-individual sentiment. It is a long and perhaps overly dramatic exposition of her ideal Ubermensch. Many leftists love to shit on her, but I bet you they haven't read her work. She makes some good points...

You'll have no trouble finding any number of reactionary novelists that are also sexy and avant-garde, but when it comes to nonfiction, it's pretty slim pickings, but here's what I can glean. Economics: Friedman and Hayek were decent as writers, and their ideas are referenced often enough by the right that anyone should read them just for basic familiarity. Schumpeter was a conservative, but can appeal to anyone across the political spectrum. Or just pick up the Economist or the Financial Times, they're often great reads. Culture: Honestly even classics of culturally conservative thought (Allan Bloom, Tom Wolfe's takedowns of modern art and architecture) are really just culture war slop from another era. H.L. Mencken, though, is genuinely fun to read. I've heard good things about Michael Oakeshott (haven't gotten around to him yet), and I might even bite the bullet and read that Norman Podhoretz memoir that got a NYRB reprint.

Can't say I'm an expert on conservative literature, but I recommend The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia by Neil Gorsuch as a conservative perspective on one specific debate. Reviewed it last year: https://www.lit.salon/reviews/OL13667436W/bJ89qo0DmzDo3XsKRPK9/A-comfort-read-for-the-holiday-season. His other book, Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law, isn't quite up to that level (meant more for a mainstream audience than a legal one), but I think I'd recommend it too, at least as a primer on some of the arguments for a weaker federal government and fewer regulatory bodies.

Edmund Burke's "Reflections on the Revolution in France" (1790) is a classic that I enjoyed. Definitely would be in the idealized conservative's library. Keep in mind that it was written before the Terror. I've heard also good things about Allan Bloom's "The Closing of the American Mind" but personally have not read.

Abolition of Britain by Peter Hitchens for a UK perspective on society from 1950s to the present day Hayek's essay 'The use of Knowledge in Society' is a very good read on the thinking around organising economies around the price system Straw Dogs by John Gray - some strong little arguments against the assumed good that progress brings The Leopard by Lampedusa is a fiction about the end of the Neapolitan aristocracy and the rise of the bourgeois - it's from a reactionary perspective and has a more sensitive view on supporting an aristocracy The Glass Bees by Ernst Junger is a fiction that has some convincing conservative views on rationalisation/mechanisation of society These are some of the stronger conservative perspectives I've come across that aren't just chauvinist nonsense

apos8 months ago

The Leopard is so good, and responses and secondary literature are also fascinating. Like you said, Lampedusa is obviously a conservative aristocrat himself and it's clear where the novel's sympathies lie. Some Italian Marxists predictably dismissed it as sentimental and reactionary, but others praised it as an honest depiction of social transition. Visconti was himself a Marxist (if a bit of a strange one) and he directed the excellent film adaptation. All this to say to the OP hell yeah, read the book, I think it's excellent and fits what you're looking for, but it's also unique for its often enthusiastic reception by those you'd expect to hate it.

1Reply