Talal Hangari reviews ‘The Political Right and Equality: Turning Back the Tide of Egalitarian Modernity’ by Matthew McManus (New York: Routledge, 2023).

Smelling Out a Rat; or the Atheistical-Revolutionist Disturbed in His Midnight “Calculations”. France, 1790.

Introduction

This slim volume, though only 250 pages, offers a critical intellectual history of the political Right that is sophisticated and penetrating in equal measure. McManus has earned a reputation as a careful reader of Right-wing texts: he has written on postmodern conservatism, critiqued the famed Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson, and reviewed popular conservative literature by such luminaries as Dave Rubin, Ben Shapiro, and Christopher Rufo, proving most of it to be intellectual rubbish. In this book, however, McManus confronts more formidable opponents; Edmund Burke, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Martin Heidegger are among the writers discussed and criticized.

Some Leftists presume that intellectual engagement with the Right is a waste of time; that the Left, illuminated by reason and animated by justice, possesses truth exclusively; and that to respond to the Right is to sully oneself to no avail, because the Right is immune to argument. Others take this presumption to an even farther extreme, and hold that engagement with the Right is a form of tacit approval of its ideas, ideas that should instead be suppressed so that feeble minds are not contaminated.

I strongly disagree with these assertions. To refuse to engage with the Right on the ground that it is mistaken is to assume the truth of your opinions without subjecting them to scrutiny: it is a choice, therefore, motivated by prejudice. We can only be confident of our opinions when we are capable of answering objections to them. Even if our unexamined opinions happen to be true, we will not fully comprehend their truthfulness, or hold them with genuine conviction, unless we appreciate their superiority to other opinions. This can only come from engaging with one’s opponents. “He who knows only his own side of the case,” said J. S. Mill, “knows little of that.” The view that the Right is immune to argument is disproven by the experience of countless people who have made the journey from Right to Left; and though many Rightists are unpersuadable, this is true of many members of every political tradition.

As for those who condemn all efforts to understand and refute the Right as a betrayal, it is hard to imagine a more self-defeating principle. Debate and discussion neither entail nor imply approval, tacit or otherwise, of the opinions of one’s interlocutors. The implication is the exact opposite: those who participate in debate are much more likely to feel genuine disapproval for the opinions of their opponents, than those who do not: to debate ideas intelligently is a serious commitment, and testifies to the depth of a person’s convictions. Those Leftists who condemn their comrades for refuting the Right, treat Rightist ideology not as a set of beliefs susceptible to proof and disproof, but as a pathogen that spreads by human contact. They reason that the diseased should be quarantined and neither touched nor spoken to. They must, therefore, believe either that Rightist ideology is so powerful as to be irrefutable—that is, incurable—or that the public mind is so grossly ignorant and deplorable that it can never resist the Right, no matter how bad its arguments are. Both these notions are too preposterous to merit a reply. For those who want the ideas of the Left to prevail, engagement with the Right is a duty. We should be thankful that McManus has taken up the task.

The first problem that presents itself to a critical historian of the Right is how to define a long and diverse political tradition. What principle, or principles, are most fundamental in distinguishing the Right from the Left? The answer, says McManus, is that the Right is committed to the idea that people are unequal, and therefore believes that hierarchies of authority should be defended. This commitment to human inequality defies “the moral project of modernity: that society consists of moral equals who should be free to pursue their interests within participatory political institutions.”¹ The Right affirms that society does not consist of equals, and that the acceptance of inequality and hierarchy foster a better way of life: “it is the right’s [sic] insistence that political respect and power isn’t owed to all individuals equally that is at the root of its dispute with both liberalism and socialism.”² The main difference between the moderate Right and far-Right is the degree of their commitment to inequality. The far-Right casts inequality “in more essentialized or enduring terms,”³ whether these are terms of religion, heroism, or simple racism. McManus proves convincingly that most of the Right’s arguments can be traced to the need to defend inequality and hierarchy. In this review, however, we will focus on the mainstream of the Right rather than its most radical strains.

Burke and Inequality

McManus dates the origin of the modern Right to the eighteenth century, though he considers Aristotle and medieval scholasticism to be its antecedents in some respects. A crucial figure in this account is Burke, and it is with Burke that we will begin. McManus says that “Burke’s core conservative project is the aestheticization of rank by describing it in beatific or sublime terms. In so doing, Burke inaugurates an entire school of conservative romanticism—a politically correct word for irrationalism—which persists to this day.”⁴ This is one strategy for the legitimation of inequality: to sublimate it, to transform it into an object of admiration or worship rather than criticism. Burke’s aesthetic theory is vital to his critique of the French Revolution; much of his argument is repetition of the claim that submission to authority is beautiful: “all the pleasing illusions which made power gentle and obedience liberal, which harmonized the different shades of life, and which by a blend of assimilation incorporated into politics the sentiments which beautify and soften private society, are to be dissolved by this new conquering empire of light and reason.” Religion takes the role of supporting secular authority, “to operate with a wholesome awe upon free citizens.”⁵

This appeal to the sublime deserves further consideration given its importance to the Right’s thought. To call inequality “sublime” may have rhetorical effect, but cannot be considered a strong argument. First, there is the question of ends; namely, what is the purpose of society and government? Let us suppose, with Burke, that a sublime social order must be an unequal one. Is the end of society to maximize the sublime? Why should a “sublime” order, which reduces millions to voicelessness and toil—as was the case in eighteenth-century Britain and France—be preferred to an egalitarian order in which the great majority of lives are pleasant and fulfilling? If the sublime is an end in itself, and can indeed justify inequality even to the level of a hereditary aristocracy, it is an end that is evidently compatible with widespread misery. I suppose nobody holds that society and government exist to enforce widespread misery. The sublime, therefore, is not an appropriate end for society to aim at; certainly not according to Burke’s view that a sublime society entails inequality. If the sublime is not an end in itself, but a means to an end—say, human happiness and flourishing—then we may well choose different means to that end than those that arise from Burke’s aristocratic aesthetics.

Second, it is evident that what Burke considers to be sublime, another person considers to be wretched. To Burke, inequality is harmonious, pleasing, beautiful. To someone else, equality has these same properties. Without a shared aesthetic standard, this disagreement is impossible to resolve. One suspects that the majority of people in every age, barred from power and enjoyment by dominant classes, would detest Burke’s conception of the sublime. And being nothing more than a preference, this conception is not susceptible of rational refutation; all that can be done is to demonstrate the harmful consequences that follow from it. To understand those consequences, imagine a world in which hereditary aristocracies and powerful monarchies, instead of being overthrown, continued to dominate Europe.

McManus points out that another common strategy of the Right is to “naturalize” inequality. If inequality is simply the expression of natural difference, it is perverse, and ultimately impossible, to try to overcome it. Burke, an avid defender of property, wrote that “[i]n all societies, consisting of various descriptions of citizens, some description must be uppermost. The levellers therefore only change and pervert the natural order of things.”⁶ Contemporary defenders of laissez-faire treat wealth inequality in a similar way: inequality is considered the expression of differences in skill and work ethic, and it is therefore “natural” that wealth should be unequally-distributed.

The first weakness of this argument is that it usually assumes that whatever is “natural” is therefore good. This is simple nonsense. Nature refers to the world as it is; it tells us nothing of how it should be. What is natural, therefore, cannot be assumed good: it must be proven to be good. Many things that are called natural are the causes of great evils. On the other hand, things widely recognized to be artificial, the products of human invention, have caused great good: agriculture, modern industry, modern medicine—in a word, civilization. I do not mean that all natural things are evil, and that all artificial things are good. I mean that utility should be the measure of right and wrong, not meaningless phrases about nature or the sublime.

Second, the naturalization of inequality undervalues the influence of chance, or fortune, in shaping human life. The Right must de-emphasize the influence of fortune, because if social hierarchies are in large part random, and might as well be determined by the rolling of dice or the flipping of coins, then they are illegitimate—they are not justified by utility. Here, the Right’s veneration for our ancestors tends to work against it. In the ancient world, the influence of fortune on life was an indisputable fact. The accident of birth was the difference between freedom and slavery; war was frequent, and indifferent to the social status of its victims; and many infants did not live long enough to reach adulthood. Solon, the Athenian statesman, is reported to have said: “the first thing you should appreciate is that human affairs are on a wheel, and that as the wheel turns around it does not permit the same people always to prosper.” Scientific progress, and the increasing sense of control it has given to humanity, has caused us to overestimate the influence of our choices. Even if it is conceded that some of our fate is really in our power, much of it is not. Even in modern society, unchosen circumstances, among them nationality, sex, health, religion, and class, must have a profound effect on a person’s character, decisions, and status. If we imagine the possibility that we could have been born in the worst circumstances, we will immediately find it absurd to believe that we live under natural hierarchies of skill and work ethic. Many ignorant and incompetent persons are at the top of the hierarchy, and many intelligent and competent persons are near the bottom. I readily admit that a person’s position in a hierarchy can change by their efforts. But I deny that these changes correspond so closely to hard work and skill that such hierarchies can be called natural.

It should also be remembered that before the free market became a part of the Right’s creed, ascending the hierarchy was not seen as a worthy or important pursuit for ordinary people. On the contrary, aspiration beyond one’s rank was dangerous. The advice given by wise clergymen and prudent moralists was to accept one’s role and to play it well: the lives of farmers and temperate laborers were accordingly romanticized, and fortune was not so much ignored as tolerated. Whatever pains might be suffered in this life, it was said, would be amply compensated in Heaven. Thus, even the Right, for much of its history, had no difficulty acknowledging the importance of chance in human life. It is only recently that the Right’s preoccupation with markets has caused it to treat inequality as the just outcome of social competition.

But even if society was organized according to a genuine hierarchy of prudence and industriousness, it would still be very far from just. The weakest individuals would be condemned to misery, with little hope of improving their condition, while the strong would monopolize the joys and comforts of life. Conversely, the best social arrangements would prevent the weak from being exposed to such needless pain, and would allocate resources so that everyone could enjoy a reasonably happy existence.

Both of these justifications of inequality and hierarchy—to call it natural, or sublime, or both—have been buttressed by religion. God is placed at the top of the hierarchy and used as an instrument to sanction whatever spiritual and secular powers exist at the time. This line of reasoning was perfected by the medieval scholastics. There are also later examples: Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha in the seventeenth century, famously answered by Locke in his Two Treatises; and the belief of some evangelical Christians, developed in the early nineteenth century, when political economy started to become an established science, that the invisible hand of the market was the hand of Providence. I do not intend to disprove these religious arguments, but I will venture to remark that the religious defense of hierarchy depends on so many propositions, each of which is so fiercely contestable, that there must be a strong presumption against the truth of any such defense.

McManus’s answer to Christian defenses of hierarchy is sometimes to pose his own interpretation of Christ’s teaching as an egalitarian and loving creed.⁷ This is useful as evidence of the variety of religious belief, and the need for the Christian Right to address Christian objections; but it is ultimately a fruitless proceeding, because disagreements about the interpretation of Divine scripture—supposing that it is indeed Divine—cannot be satisfactorily resolved. Our understanding of human language is the result of accumulated experience, which serves as a reliable guide to what human beings usually intend to convey by their utterances and writings. But we have no accumulated experience of the use of language by Divine beings, without which it is impossible to reliably interpret the meaning of revelation; and since all our knowledge of Divine beings comes from the utterances of those same beings, it would be circular to decide how to interpret revelation from what we presume to know about God. I should add that I am not aware of any example of a revelation so explicit and clear that there were not countless differences in its interpretation. For these reasons, it seems that disagreements of religious interpretation are necessarily insoluble.

McManus discusses the history of the Right’s arguments about inequality and hierarchy in detail. I have attempted here to offer some criticisms of the Right’s position. There remains the difficult question, however, of whether human beings are truly equal in some transcendent or metaphysical sense. I admit I have no answer; yet I agree with the Leftist view that society consists of moral equals. I agree with it, not because we are born free, or endowed with natural rights by God, but because we are equal in our capacity to experience pleasure and pain. Everyone is capable of happiness; happiness should be maximized; therefore, everyone should have the political rights required to secure the greatest happiness. This implies a thoroughly democratic society, because the only way to ensure that the interest of those in authority coincides with the interest of the community is to make those in authority accountable to the community. It also implies a cosmopolitan approach to politics, because the happiness of one community is not intrinsically more valuable than the happiness of another.

Before moving on to the other themes of the Right’s thought, I will elaborate on some of my disagreements with McManus. By focusing on these points, I do not mean to suggest that I substantially disagree with him. But the book contains such a breadth and depth of research that I cannot hope to cover it adequately; and as I must settle on a few points of discussion, I shall settle on those that will be most interesting.

Some Disagreements

McManus’ interpretation of Burke suffers from the same flaw as many accounts in which he is portrayed as a founder of the Right; that is, it does not pay close-enough attention to the first part of his Reflections on the Revolution in France, where he defends the English revolution of 1688. In that year King James II was replaced after a Dutch invasion supported by prominent Englishmen: the supremacy of Parliament over the Crown was afterwards set on a firm legal footing. Burke does not condemn revolution in principle; he defends revolution, and condemns the French for having done it wrong. The following passage should feature in much more commentary on Burke:

The Revolution of 1688 was obtained by a just war, in the only case in which any war, and much more a civil war, can be just … The question of dethroning, or, if these gentlemen, like the phrase better, ‘cashiering kings,’ will always be, as it has always been, an extraordinary question of state, and wholly out of the law: a question (like all other questions of state) of dispositions, and of means, and of probable consequences, rather than of positive rights. As it was not made for common abuses, so it is not to be agitated by common minds. The speculative line of demarcation, where obedience ought to end and resistance must begin, is faint, obscure, and not easily definable. It is not a single act or a single event which determines it. Governments must be abused and deranged indeed, before it can be thought of; and the prospect of the future must be as bad as the experience of the past. When things are in that lamentable condition, the nature of the disease is to indicate the remedy to those whom Nature has qualified to administer in extremities this critical, ambiguous, bitter potion to a distempered state. Times and occasions and provocations will teach their own lessons. The wise will determine from the gravity of the case; the irritable, from sensibility to oppression; the high-minded, from disdain and indignation at abusive power in unworthy hands; the brave and bold, from the love of honorable danger in a generous cause: but, with or without right, a revolution will be the very last resource of the thinking and the good.⁸

This passage is a guide to the conditions that Burke thinks justify revolution. The conditions are, first, that the government must be dreadful; second, that there is little or no prospect of improvement; third, that the best-qualified members of the community should make the decision; and fourth, that it is a last resort. It is quite possible to argue, against Burke, that the French Revolution met all these conditions. Instead of treating Burke simply as a reactionary conservative, we ought to pay attention to these nuances, which have important implications for his thought. His conciliatory attitude toward the American revolution, his critique of the East India Company, and his fears about the growing power of the Crown, should also be given their due.

It is unnecessary to discuss the revolution of 1688 in any detail to understand that, if revolution against James II was just, in an age long before governments had the power to destroy all prospects for civilized human life, it follows that governments which today pursue policies that increase the risk of climate catastrophe, or nuclear war, are equally or more just targets for revolution, provided Burke’s other conditions are met. Modern conservatives who think of themselves as belonging to the Burkean tradition, yet endorse the ecocidal U.S. Republicans, or British Tories, should be challenged on these grounds. Is it not true that these parties have formed “abused and deranged” governments? Is it not true that the prospect of the future is dreadful with them in power? Is it not true that many distinguished members of the community see them as threats to civilization? And is it not, therefore, true that as a last resort, revolution against such governments would, or at least plausibly could, be justified by Burkean reasoning? David Hume, too, was a defender of the right of resistance against governments although, like Burke, he considered it to be just only in extreme cases, and thought that the line between legitimate and illegitimate resistance was obscure. Such was the importance of 1688 to British political thought in the eighteenth century.

As a further illustration of the neglected side of Burke’s politics, consider his pamphlet, written many years before the French Revolution, titled Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents. There, he dismissed legal proposals for improving the English government. Instead, he suggested that the English people intervene directly:

Indeed, in the situation in which we stand, with an immense revenue, an enormous debt, mighty establishments, Government itself a great banker and a great merchant, I see no other way for the preservation of a decent attention to public interest in the Representatives, but the interposition of the body of the people itself, whenever it shall appear, by some flagrant and notorious act, by some capital innovation, that these Representatives are going to over-leap the fences of the law, and to introduce an arbitrary power. This interposition is a most unpleasant remedy. But, if it be a legal remedy, it is intended on some occasion to be used; to be used then only, when it is evident that nothing else can hold the Constitution to its true principles.⁹

Yet, for many on the Right, including those who claim to be students of Burke, nothing is more abhorrent than public disorder—even for a just cause.

How, then, should Burke be understood? In my opinion, given the sum of his views, he is not easy to classify. His Reflections can, indeed, be considered a conservative work; but in light of his whole career, he can equally be considered a forerunner of cautious liberals. His reformist instincts were restrained by his desire to preserve England’s constitutional foundations, and, after 1789, his fear of revolution. Similar restraints continue to shape the behavior of those politicians who promise change but are not committed to its implementation.

Another area where I dissent from McManus is his brief treatment of what is called “the Enlightenment.” The Enlightenment is a well-established term in history, and it is unfair to blame writers who use it. But it is also the sort of self-congratulatory term of which we should be suspicious. The Enlightenment is used to refer to so many varied developments, and with such looseness, that it would better serve scholarly precision to discard it completely.

According to McManus, reactionaries feared the Enlightenment because it

risked permanently discrediting the most enduring philosophical and ideological basis for their positions; one of the reasons Burke accepts certain tenets of political liberalism but rejects Enlightenment for the sublime is his (rather intuitive) understanding of this peril. Even to this day a yearning to undo the Enlightenment is so powerful that plenty of conservative thinkers are unafraid to demand it, even if they are usually unwilling to take on rationalistic and scientific metaphysics in a head-on struggle, let alone argue it should be comprehensively replaced with something else.¹⁰

The Enlightenment, says McManus, undermined the religious and “natural” foundations of the Right’s beloved hierarchies. There is truth in this: consider the French philosophes’ ruthless critiques of religion, Thomas Paine’s attack on the hereditary principle, or the first article of the French Revolution’s 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen: “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good.”

But that was only one side, and the more radical side, of eighteenth-century thought. The majority of European intellectuals of the period, like the majority of intellectuals in every age, willingly accommodated the interests of the powerful. And even those who were, indeed, radical, often restricted their radicalism to specific topics. Voltaire’s political thought is far less impressive than his writings on religion (the same can be said of Hume); Rousseau’s Republicanism is marred by his prejudice against women; the Physiocrats, who were innovators in political economy, did not mind despotism; and similar examples could form the subject of a whole volume. If, then, we are going to be stuck with the label “Enlightenment,” we ought to be cautious about how we use the word.

Varieties of Skepticism

We have now to deal with the other features of the Right’s thought. Skepticism, of several varieties, is recurrent; and, incidentally, it is interesting to reflect on the contrast between the Right’s skepticism in politics, and the religious faith that so often exists alongside it.

One form of skepticism is skepticism of innovation. Michael Oakeshott, an English conservative, is quoted by McManus thus: “To be conservative … is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss.”¹¹ The Right has a tendency to presume that antiquity is proof of utility, and that reform is more likely to do harm than good. But the antiquity of an institution or policy has no bearing on its consequences for human welfare. We know from historical experience that institutions may survive for reasons entirely opposed to human welfare: they may serve the interests of a small, powerful, and oppressive class, which is able to secure them against reform; or they may survive because of ignorance and prejudice. It is exceedingly dangerous, therefore, to assume any connection between antiquity and utility. Instead, one should soberly investigate the relevant institutions and determine their utility on the basis of the evidence.

The Right may object that, even if what is established is not wholly good—not good by the standards of visionaries—it is the best that can realistically be hoped for. But many Rightists, unless they are prepared to defend Aristotle’s doctrines of natural slavery, or the mental inferiority of women, must admit that institutions and hierarchies that were once believed to be necessary, and the best possible, might in fact be contingent and unjust. The domination of master over slave; lord over serf; man over woman; white over Black; all were once believed to be natural and permanent. Today these hierarchies are seen for what they really are: immoral, and dependent on particular historical circumstances.

It is sufficiently evident how these changes of opinion occurred: the way to discover whether an institution or policy is truly the best that can be hoped for, is to outline rational reforms, prepare a fair trial where the reforms are implemented, and to assess the results. If, with experimentation, it is found that the old institutions have done harm, that they can be abandoned, and that the reforms are conducive to human welfare, then it is obvious that society should welcome the change. Yet the Right stubbornly opposes such experiments, often without a pretense of rational objection, and in doing so, has frequently been a remorseless enemy to the progress of humanity. I do not say that reforms are always good. But reforms supported by strong arguments deserve to be tested.

Skepticism of Reason

A second form of Rightist skepticism is skepticism of reason itself. It is sometimes urged that reason must be complemented by faith, or that faith is superior to reason; but these arguments no longer hold much weight. On the other hand, skepticism of “theory” and a corresponding devotion to “practice” remain widespread. Perhaps the most enduring argument of Burke is, that

[t]he science of constructing a commonwealth, or renovating it, or refining it, is, like every other experimental science, not to be taught a priori. Nor is it a short experience that can instruct us in that practical science, because the real effects of moral causes are not always immediate; but that which in the first instance is prejudicial may be excellent in its remoter operation, and its excellence may arise even from the ill effects it produces in the beginning.¹²

This dichotomy between “experience” and “abstract principles,” or “speculative reasoning,” is one of the most common tropes of the Right.

On closer inspection, it will be found that the ideas denoted by “theory” and “practice” are not so distinct as they appear, and are nearly identical. The terms “theory” and “practice,” when applied to political decisions, are considered guides to future action. Those who claim to be “practical” claim to act according to the lessons of past experience. But if the past is to be a guide to action, and not just a collection of facts, it must somehow be connected to the future. And if the past is to be connected to the future, we must use our reason to assign causes and effects, antecedents and consequents; or, in other words, we must construct a general theory from the relevant facts. This must be done even if someone says that they follow “practice” to the exclusion of “theory:” past facts are useless unless their consequences and tendencies can be generalized for future application. Good theories are consistent with the facts, and provide the foundation for good practice; bad theories are inconsistent with the facts, and cannot effectively guide practice. The idea that the past can guide future action, without theory, is absurd.

When the Right deprecates theory, then, it only succeeds in deprecating bad theory, and not good theory, for everyone depends on the latter. Nevertheless, the sweeping attack on all theory serves as an excuse to neglect the hard work of scrutinizing any particular theory, with the benefit that robust criticisms of the existing order, and plans for reform, can be carelessly dismissed. The dichotomy of theory and practice, therefore, is a means of discarding reason.

It is perhaps unsurprising that thinkers associated with the Right have produced express condemnations of reason. Burke makes his case for prejudice thus:

in this enlightened age I am bold enough to confess that we [the English] are generally men of untaught feelings, that, instead of casting away all our old prejudices, we cherish them to a very considerable degree, and, to take more shame to ourselves, we cherish them because they are prejudices; and the longer they have lasted and the more generally they have prevailed, the more we cherish them. We are afraid to put men to live and trade each on his own private stock of reason, because we suspect that this stock in each man is small, and that the individuals would do better to avail themselves of the general bank and capital of nations and of ages. Many of our men of speculation, instead of exploding general prejudices, employ their sagacity to discover the latent wisdom which prevails in them. If they find what they seek, and they seldom fail, they think it more wise to continue the prejudice, with the reason involved, than to cast away the coat of prejudice and to leave nothing but the naked reason; because prejudice, with its reason, has a motive to give action to that reason, and an affection which will give it permanence. Prejudice is of ready application in the emergency; it previously engages the mind in a steady course of wisdom and virtue and does not leave the man hesitating in the moment of decision skeptical, puzzled, and unresolved. Prejudice renders a man’s virtue his habit, and not a series of unconnected acts. Through just prejudice, his duty becomes a part of his nature.¹³

Joseph de Maistre, another of the thinkers discussed by McManus, took the following view of reason:

Human reason reduced to its own resources is perfectly worthless, not only for creating but also for preserving any political or religious association, because it only produces disputes, and, to conduct himself well, man needs not problems but beliefs. His cradle should be surrounded by dogmas, and when his reason is awakened, it should find all his opinions ready-made, at least all those relating to his conduct. Nothing is so important to him as prejudices. Let us not take this word in a bad sense. It does not necessarily mean false ideas, but only, in the strict sense of the word, opinions adopted before any examination. Now these sorts of opinions are man’s greatest need, the true elements of his happiness, and the Palladium of empires. Without them, there can be neither worship, nor morality, nor government. There must be a state religion just as there is a state policy; or, rather, religious and political dogmas must be merged and mingled together to form a complete common or national reason strong enough to repress the aberrations of individual reason, which of its nature is the mortal enemy of any association whatever because it produces only divergent opinions.¹⁴

It will be noticed that the above passages have some common features. The first is their praise of prejudices, and the second is their exaltation of national or historical reason over individual reason. “Prejudice” here means an unwarranted belief, or an opinion held without examination; it is in this sense that we use the term.

The first argument advanced for the usefulness of prejudices is that they usually contain some veiled wisdom. It is safe to presume that if an opinion contains wisdom, it does so because it is true: wisdom is not ascribed to falsehood. But a prejudice, being an opinion held without examination, is only true or false by accident, and not by a process of reasoning. All other things being equal, a prejudice is just as likely to be wrong as it is to be right. The only security for the truth of one’s opinions and, therefore, the only security for their wisdom, is to examine them. By examination, we are no longer compelled to rely on mere luck for the discovery of truth: we have, instead, the most rigorous method available to verify our conclusions—the free exchange of ideas. Wisdom gained by reason is constant and dependable; wisdom gained by prejudice is sporadic and doubtful.

A further defect of prejudices is that when they are mistaken, as they must often be, they are notoriously difficult to dislodge. Since prejudices are held by virtue of some cause other than reasoning, in many cases they cannot be corrected by argument. But mistaken opinions founded on reason, however wrong, are always open to correction. It is evident, therefore, that the quantity of wisdom which may be contained in prejudices is far exceeded by the wisdom to be gained from rational scrutiny of our opinions.

This notion of veiled wisdom is joined to the claim that prejudices are reflective of a sort of reasoning, but on a national and historical scale, which is somehow more reliable and authoritative than the dictates of individual judgment. In the first place, it is absurd to imagine that there can be such a thing as national reason: if this phrase refers to anything determinate, it refers to the reasoning of only a segment of the nation, because no nation is unanimous in its reasoning about any question. The segment of the nation with the best claim to represent national reason, we may suppose, is the segment whose reasoning has produced the most influential opinions. Now it is obvious what opinions are most likely to dominate in any given community: the opinions of the powerful, who are most able to influence the ideas of others. “National reason,” therefore, signifies whatever opinions belong to the powerful. It is a most convenient doctrine that the opinions of the powerful should, without examination, be held by the entire society.

But suppose national reason was truly national, and represented a wide consensus in the community. Does such a consensus preclude the possibility of error? Is a nation, once it reaches agreement, infallible? The answer, of course, is “No;” and to adopt opinions merely on the ground that a large majority of people hold them is to guarantee error on many points. The judgements of individuals, at numerous times in history, have proven to be sounder than the judgements of nations and empires.

The next argument advanced for the usefulness of prejudices is that they are more likely to be acted on than beliefs based solely on reason. We will suppose, for the sake of argument, that a prejudice is true. Such a prejudice is, in fact, no more likely to be acted on than the same opinion held after examination. It is certain that beliefs decide our actions; but beliefs founded on reason have an advantage over prejudices in this regard. As the product of strenuous mental effort, examined beliefs have all the benefits attached to thorough conviction, and it is superfluous to say that conviction is among the strongest motives to action. A prejudice, never having been investigated, is attended by no conviction at all. Prejudices may stimulate actions, but such actions are thoughtless and reflexive, nearer to the behavior of animals than of persons. If what is wanted is action that is determined, resolute, and energetic, prejudice has no advantage over examined belief, and probably has a serious disadvantage.

It may be said that prejudices can be believed with true conviction: they are commonly expressed with certainty, and dissenters are frequently targeted with bitter invective. But this will not seem incongruous once it is acknowledged that vehemence frequently corresponds to the weakness of someone’s belief. When a person lacks evidence to support their ideas; when they do not know the grounds of their opinions; when they are, in fact, uncertain; rage, hostility, and exasperation become instruments to persuade themselves and others of their confidence. Prejudices, therefore, often appear to be beliefs held with conviction, but in reality, never are.

The last argument advanced for the usefulness of prejudices is that they prevent dissension in the community. Yet this only holds true if we assume that a large majority hold the same prejudices. It is fair to say, on this assumption, that dissension will be minimal, but the cost is great: if the prejudices are wrong, then society is mistaken about important questions, with widespread, persistent suffering being the inevitable consequence. It is easy to imagine a community, however, where this assumption does not hold. Suppose, instead, that several groups adopt contradictory prejudices. What is the result? Two prejudiced groups on the opposite sides of a question will fight endlessly, with no possible resolution, until one side destroys the other, or reason intervenes. Prejudice, therefore, guarantees dissensions of a far worse character than rational disputes. And whereas rational disputes, though they cause divisions, lead eventually to the light of truth, disputes between prejudices lead nowhere but darkness.

The real origin of the love of common prejudices felt by parts of the Right is their belief that the swinish multitude is incapable of forming its own opinions without dangerous results. These arguments for prejudice, together, amount to the declaration that the opinions of the many should be chosen for them by the few. The encouragement of careless habits of thought, of disregard for evidence, of conformity, serves to protect all corruption and all oppression.

There is another reason that such thinkers unabashedly celebrate prejudice. Those who defend the existing order are quite conscious that the powerful are their friends. And since power has force at its disposal, the value of persuasion is lessened. Why, then, waste time and effort on philosophical intellectual appeals, when you can consecrate existing beliefs, safe in the knowledge that your opponents can be persecuted and vanquished if necessary

Skepticism of Improvement

The third form of Rightist skepticism is skepticism of the prospect of improvement. This is distinct from skepticism of innovation in that it does not object to any specific proposal for human advancement, but objects to all optimism for human advancement indiscriminately. Humanity, the Right insists, is too selfish, too cruel, too venal, to habituate itself to the sort of egalitarian community to which the Left, or at least the radical Left, aspires. Human nature, in short, is so deplorable that nothing better than the present state of society can possibly be desired. A corollary of this opinion is that even if the reformers or revolutionaries come into power, they will, by necessity, become corrupt and tyrannical: history, says the Right, is our witness.

Human nature is, doubtless, a far more complicated subject than the Right allows. The profoundest thinkers have differed about it, and we are not much closer to resolving the relevant disputes after long and painstaking debate. It is sufficient here to observe the following: no two propositions could be more conflicting than to assert, first, that human beings are essentially scoundrels; and second, that we should be content to live in highly unequal and hierarchical societies. For it conclusively follows from these assertions that the powerful, those at the apex of the hierarchy, will abuse and oppress the poor and the weak, those at the bottom of the hierarchy, to a virtually unlimited extent. If human beings are scoundrels, it is obvious that when they become billionaires, they do not cease to be scoundrels; instead, their power of wronging others rises to incredible heights. The prospect of humanity, according to the Right’s doctrine, is utterly wretched: we are consigned to misery with no hope of escape. If, as the Right contends, it is true that human beings are scoundrels, then the prudent course is to eliminate, as far as possible, the opportunities we have to harm one another. And since the opportunities to do harm to one’s fellow beings are proportional to differences in power, it is necessary to reduce those differences to the utmost. The Right’s skepticism of improvement, therefore, leads either to permanent wretchedness for humanity, or to the belief that inequality must be diminished.

If it is said that inequality is difficult to diminish because we are scoundrels, the attempt must still be made because of the evil of the alternative. If it is said that it is impossible to diminish inequality the Right concedes that, in its view, there is no possibility of civilized life. As for history, it is no less a witness in favor of reform and revolution than it is against them: any impartial student will notice the immense good that reform and revolution have brought.

Particularism and Populism

We should also devote some words to the more recent ideas of the Right. McManus brings to light an interesting feature of the Right’s thought in the twentieth century, namely, moral particularism and relativism. Michael Oakeshott and Patrick Devlin, for example, are conservatives who seem to have abandoned the idea of argument. Moral ideas and social arrangements are not to be debated or compared: they are so groundless and arbitrary that the power of the state, and common public opinion, are the only props that uphold them. And while it must be admitted that this view extricates the Right from the difficulty of having to rationally defend its opinions, it comes at a considerable cost—not least preventing conservatives from braying about the wonderful superiority of Western civilization.

Right populism is effectively summarized by McManus thus:

First, it is parasitically intellectual and rhetorically dependent on many of the same modern epistemologies whose consequences conservatives decry elsewhere where they lead to more egalitarian or liberal solutions. Second, it is willing to break from the conservative tradition in demotically expressing admiration for certain kinds of ordinary people and their values. Typically these belong to the petit bourgeois rung of society, and for the protection of their own if sufficiently galvanized by disgust or fear … Third, and most importantly, conservative populism will ape the tropes of democracy while withdrawing from its substance where they think that will lead to political defeat. Often through claiming that the decisions of non-elected and elitist institutions and personalities are more authentic and dependable expressions of the will of conservative fictions like the ‘reasonable man’ than their counterparts. This can even assume a paradoxical form as when it becomes vital to undermine genuinely majoritarian outcomes to ensure the populists’ ‘real’ people get the outcome they are entitled to.¹⁵

However much Right populism might be susceptible to thoughtful analysis, merely reflecting on the harm it has done, just in recent years, is sufficient to prove its dangers. It corrodes political institutions; it serves the ruling class to the detriment of the majority; it makes scapegoats of some of the weakest and most vulnerable members of society; and the demagogues who emerge as populist leaders demand a loyalty from their followers that approaches cultish derangement. It must be a disgraceful state of affairs that produces this sort of politics, and the rise of men like Donald Trump is one of the most striking indictments of existing institutions.

We have reviewed some themes of the Right’s thought: the sublimation and naturalization of inequality and hierarchy; different forms of skepticism; relativism and particularism; and populism. Much more detail and judicious analysis will be found in McManus’s book. I will now try to answer a question that might puzzle readers: namely, how has the Right endured as a political force, despite the weakness of its intellectual foundations?

Causes of the Right’s Durability

Numerous influences affect the formation of our opinions; but one of the strongest among them is our interest. The Right, as the principal defender of the existing order, has natural friends among everyone interested in the perpetuation of that order. Everyone who profits from depredation, waste, and the corruption of society; everyone who has established themselves in a position of power; these are the Right’s greatest supporters. But since many of us now live in universal suffrage democracies, this small class is no longer able to decide the results of elections on its own. It must persuade a large-enough section of the public that they possess the same interest in the existing order as their rulers; and, with the resources of power at its disposal, this is a simple task. Every selfish interest which can help to block improvement is appealed to. Every sort of fraud is used to conceal the truth, and to flatter prejudices. Every social division that can be exploited to prevent unity around real common interests is sensationally magnified. And in this manner, the Right assures its continued political significance. The strategy of the Right populists is identical, except they claim, falsely, to want to change the existing order.

It may be said that the public, if they were more intelligent and informed, would not be fooled by the Right. But there are reasons for misjudgment besides intelligence: selfish interests, and the prejudices derived from those interests, are more plausible explanations than the presumption of widespread stupidity. An interest is simply a person’s perception of good and evil: and while our genuine, distant interests would guide us if we were prudent, most of us prefer to follow our short-term interests with their associated prejudices, and to make political decisions on those grounds. This narrowness of vision is compounded when every social institution tells us from childhood that radical reform is impossible, and when ideas inconsistent with dominant opinions are suppressed. Is it surprising, in such circumstances, that large numbers of people support politicians who gratify their immediate desires, and honor their prejudices?

If it were merely a question of popular ignorance, education alone would suffice to extinguish the Right. But this is not the case. It is the combination of interest with prejudice that makes the Right formidable: take away the prejudice, and the self-conscious interest would still remain; take away the interest and, even then, the prejudice might still remain. I do not mean to suggest that education is unimportant: most people are too careless of politics, and the spread of knowledge would make the task of reform easier. But the greater challenge, in my opinion, is moral rather than intellectual: to replace the ordinary, narrow, and selfish conception of our interests with a much broader and more comprehensive conception that considers what is best for humanity today and in the future.

How to defeat the Right and build a better world is not the subject of this review. But I agree with the indications given by McManus at the end of his book: the Left must act to realize the principles of liberty and equality, and, in order to do so, it must fight capitalist domination over economic life, and call for the extension of democracy.¹⁶

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Matthew McManus, The Political Right and Equality: Turning Back the Tide of Egalitarian Modernity (Routledge, 2023), p. 2.
McManus, p. 2.
Ibid., p. 10.
Ibid., p. 46.
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790).
Burke, Reflections.
McManus, p. 111, 160.
Burke, Reflections.
Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770)
McManus, p. 37.
Quoted in McManus, p. 6.
Burke, Reflections.
Burke, Reflections.
Joseph de Maistre, Against Rousseau, trans. Richard A. Lebrun (1996), ch. 10.
McManus, p. 141.
Ibid., pp. 248-249.