For reading later:-
Could an Exclusively Right-Wing Society Ever Be Truly Happy? - VICE
Ok, read it.
Unfortunately there's a lot of really, really estabished tropes and cliches in this article, although maybe that's a sign of the times and I do see it mirrored on the right wing. In fact, I see a lot mirrored on the right wing. I dont believe that much of what is considered alt right or right revivalists or whatever you choose to call them is a sort of bastardisation of modern, niche and special interest liberalism.
This cant simply be a consequence of "bad faith" application of niche liberalisms' tactics either.
In part I think its reflective of reaction, which is the gut instinct or basis of much which is right wing, however, I think its a curious situation because most of the reaction is in response to the niche liberals own version of reaction, ie outrage. I just see a bunch of people being triggered perpetually, complaining about others exhibiting the very thing they are most often guilty of themselves.
Although, that is some how to examine things on the symptomatic level, there are greater trends going on, of which the outrage/reaction/triggered thing is just indicative. A friend of mine a while back who have, unfortunately, been suckered into a lot of the far right thinking (though I think he remains on the fringes) was saying about how he thought most liberals or protest groups were made up of people with mental health issues. I just thought, "yeah, no shit, that was a right wing trope in the nineties, earlier maybe" but also "Isnt everybody?".
What gets me about this article though (yeah, coming back to that), is that its written in a sort of self-congratulatory, conceited way, very sure that it can accurately and completely sum up the right wing, without much in the way of self-examination required as a self-appointed pundit of "the left". I see a lot of that. I see too much of that. Maybe its just that I like reading Orwell so much and he was set on training himself as a sort of "loyal opposition" toward his own socialist ranks, I think Hitchens described it as a "too clever for the conservatism he may have found appealing" or something like that. For instance, much of what the article writes about the actions of conservatives, the creation of exclusive and exclusionary thinking, the questions of what is a "true muslim", "true british", "true conservative", I remember those being the hall marks of many socialists and marxists in the nineties (those things were on a slower wane were I live than elsewhere I have found).
I also think its a little bizarre that the text appears quite conciliatory, sort of "the poor troubled, frightened conservatives" and is then presented alongside pictures of some anti-fascists kicking the shit out of someone. The AFA and the people they fight with in the UK are pretty different to elsewhere in the world, especially the US, I really have to say that, or at least I could have said that when I was in my teens, all sides of that equation were drawn from football hooliganism or similar scenes, ultimately I just think of them as all made for each other, if they want to be at that then among them be it. However, I just found it strange that the article was presented in that fashion.
The thing is that I know my perspectives on politics have been forged over a long, long time, doing an immense amount of reading, in politics, ancient, modern, older and more recent sources, and a lot of thinking long and hard on most topics. Its really unrealistic to expect others to be reaching the same conclusions when its obvious they havent performed the same sort of exercise or have as many miles on the clock. Still. I wind up reading the stuff all the same.