What do you think?
Rate this book
Angry Right: Why Conservatives Keep Getting It Wrong
Since 1968, Republican presidents have occupied the White House far longer than Democratic presidents, and recently Republicans have controlled both houses of Congress as well. In spite of these electoral triumphs, leading spokespersons on the right continue to depict conservatives as an embattled minority. Lashing out at their liberal opponents, sharp-tongued partisan advocates like Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and Sean Hannity never tire of issuing jeremiads against what they perceive as the inexorable tide of liberal abuses that threatens to overwhelm the Republic.
But if Republicans have won the battle at the voting booths, why is the right so angry?
As S. T. Joshi reveals in this incisive profile of twelve leading conservatives, the rage at the heart of the right is fueled by a gnawing sense that conservatives long ago lost the hearts and minds of the American people. Since the F.D.R. administration, conservatives have unsuccessfully opposed legislative and judicial reforms that today are considered so mainstream as to be, well, "conservative." In effect, yesterday’s liberalism is today’s conservatism, and this has been the direction of social and political change since the age of the Model T.
Examining the writings of such conservative icons as Russell Kirk, William F. Buckley Jr, Phyllis Schlafly, and nine others, Joshi uncovers statements that most people today would consider not just radical but
In the 1950s, Russell Kirk opposed Social Security because he said it was "un-Christian."
In the same decade, William F. Buckley Jr. argued against the desegregation of public schools on the grounds that it would be an infringement of states’ rights (an argument also used a century earlier to defend slavery).
In the 1970s, Phyllis Schlafly declared that women’s liberation is a "disease" and a "homewrecker."
Knowing that these positions are today indefensible, conservative spokespersons have little recourse but to engage in passionate invective that attempts to portray their opponents as extremists. Joshi characterizes the aggrieved lament of conservatives as the last gasp of those who know their ideas will be confined to the dustbin of history.
But if Republicans have won the battle at the voting booths, why is the right so angry?
As S. T. Joshi reveals in this incisive profile of twelve leading conservatives, the rage at the heart of the right is fueled by a gnawing sense that conservatives long ago lost the hearts and minds of the American people. Since the F.D.R. administration, conservatives have unsuccessfully opposed legislative and judicial reforms that today are considered so mainstream as to be, well, "conservative." In effect, yesterday’s liberalism is today’s conservatism, and this has been the direction of social and political change since the age of the Model T.
Examining the writings of such conservative icons as Russell Kirk, William F. Buckley Jr, Phyllis Schlafly, and nine others, Joshi uncovers statements that most people today would consider not just radical but
In the 1950s, Russell Kirk opposed Social Security because he said it was "un-Christian."
In the same decade, William F. Buckley Jr. argued against the desegregation of public schools on the grounds that it would be an infringement of states’ rights (an argument also used a century earlier to defend slavery).
In the 1970s, Phyllis Schlafly declared that women’s liberation is a "disease" and a "homewrecker."
Knowing that these positions are today indefensible, conservative spokespersons have little recourse but to engage in passionate invective that attempts to portray their opponents as extremists. Joshi characterizes the aggrieved lament of conservatives as the last gasp of those who know their ideas will be confined to the dustbin of history.
311 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
2 people are currently reading
23 people want to read
About the author
S.T. Joshi
797 books457 followersSunand Tryambak Joshi is an Indian American literary scholar, and a leading figure in the study of Howard Phillips Lovecraft and other authors. Besides what some critics consider to be the definitive biography of Lovecraft (H. P. Lovecraft: A Life, 1996), Joshi has written about Ambrose Bierce, H. L. Mencken, Lord Dunsany, and M.R. James, and has edited collections of their works.
His literary criticism is notable for its emphases upon readability and the dominant worldviews of the authors in question; his The Weird Tale looks at six acknowledged masters of horror and fantasy (namely Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Dunsany, M. R. James, Bierce and Lovecraft), and discusses their respective worldviews in depth and with authority. A follow-up volume, The Modern Weird Tale, examines the work of modern writers, including Shirley Jackson, Ramsey Campbell, Stephen King, Robert Aickman, Thomas Ligotti, T. E. D. Klein and others, from a similar philosophically oriented viewpoint. The Evolution of the Weird Tale (2004) includes essays on Dennis Etchison, L. P. Hartley, Les Daniels, E. F. Benson, Rudyard Kipling, David J. Schow, Robert Bloch, L. P. Davies, Edward Lucas White, Rod Serling, Poppy Z. Brite and others.
Joshi is the editor of the small-press literary journals Lovecraft Studies and Studies in Weird Fiction, published by Necronomicon Press. He is also the editor of Lovecraft Annual and co-editor of Dead Reckonings, both small-press journals published by Hippocampus Press.
In addition to literary criticism, Joshi has also edited books on atheism and social relations, including Documents of American Prejudice (1999), an annotated collection of American racist writings; In Her Place (2006), which collects written examples of prejudice against women; and Atheism: A Reader (2000), which collects atheistic writings by such people as Antony Flew, George Eliot, Bertrand Russell, Emma Goldman, Gore Vidal and Carl Sagan, among others. An Agnostic Reader, collecting pieces by such writers as Isaac Asimov, John William Draper, Albert Einstein, Frederic Harrison, Thomas Henry Huxley, Robert Ingersoll, Corliss Lamont, Arthur Schopenhauer and Edward Westermarck, was published in 2007.
Joshi is also the author of God's Defenders: What They Believe and Why They Are Wrong (2003), an anti-religious polemic against various writers including C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, T. S. Eliot, William F. Buckley, Jr., William James, Stephen L. Carter, Annie Dillard, Reynolds Price, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Guenter Lewy, Neale Donald Walsch and Jerry Falwell, which is dedicated to theologian and fellow Lovecraft critic Robert M. Price.
In 2006 he published The Angry Right: Why Conservatives Keep Getting It Wrong, which criticised the political writings of such commentators as William F. Buckley, Jr., Russell Kirk, David and Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Phyllis Schlafly, William Bennett, Gertrude Himmelfarb and Irving and William Kristol, arguing that, despite the efforts of right-wing polemicists, the values of the American people have become steadily more liberal over time.
Joshi, who lives with his wife in Moravia, New York, has stated on his website that his most noteworthy achievements thus far have been his biography of Lovecraft, H. P. Lovecraft: A Life and The Weird Tale.
His literary criticism is notable for its emphases upon readability and the dominant worldviews of the authors in question; his The Weird Tale looks at six acknowledged masters of horror and fantasy (namely Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Dunsany, M. R. James, Bierce and Lovecraft), and discusses their respective worldviews in depth and with authority. A follow-up volume, The Modern Weird Tale, examines the work of modern writers, including Shirley Jackson, Ramsey Campbell, Stephen King, Robert Aickman, Thomas Ligotti, T. E. D. Klein and others, from a similar philosophically oriented viewpoint. The Evolution of the Weird Tale (2004) includes essays on Dennis Etchison, L. P. Hartley, Les Daniels, E. F. Benson, Rudyard Kipling, David J. Schow, Robert Bloch, L. P. Davies, Edward Lucas White, Rod Serling, Poppy Z. Brite and others.
Joshi is the editor of the small-press literary journals Lovecraft Studies and Studies in Weird Fiction, published by Necronomicon Press. He is also the editor of Lovecraft Annual and co-editor of Dead Reckonings, both small-press journals published by Hippocampus Press.
In addition to literary criticism, Joshi has also edited books on atheism and social relations, including Documents of American Prejudice (1999), an annotated collection of American racist writings; In Her Place (2006), which collects written examples of prejudice against women; and Atheism: A Reader (2000), which collects atheistic writings by such people as Antony Flew, George Eliot, Bertrand Russell, Emma Goldman, Gore Vidal and Carl Sagan, among others. An Agnostic Reader, collecting pieces by such writers as Isaac Asimov, John William Draper, Albert Einstein, Frederic Harrison, Thomas Henry Huxley, Robert Ingersoll, Corliss Lamont, Arthur Schopenhauer and Edward Westermarck, was published in 2007.
Joshi is also the author of God's Defenders: What They Believe and Why They Are Wrong (2003), an anti-religious polemic against various writers including C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, T. S. Eliot, William F. Buckley, Jr., William James, Stephen L. Carter, Annie Dillard, Reynolds Price, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Guenter Lewy, Neale Donald Walsch and Jerry Falwell, which is dedicated to theologian and fellow Lovecraft critic Robert M. Price.
In 2006 he published The Angry Right: Why Conservatives Keep Getting It Wrong, which criticised the political writings of such commentators as William F. Buckley, Jr., Russell Kirk, David and Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Phyllis Schlafly, William Bennett, Gertrude Himmelfarb and Irving and William Kristol, arguing that, despite the efforts of right-wing polemicists, the values of the American people have become steadily more liberal over time.
Joshi, who lives with his wife in Moravia, New York, has stated on his website that his most noteworthy achievements thus far have been his biography of Lovecraft, H. P. Lovecraft: A Life and The Weird Tale.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 3, 2013
Joshi posits that while conservatives can win elections, they look around and see a stalled agenda. Phyllis Schaffley was not able to convince women that they did not want equal pay for equal work, and William F. Buckley has not seen the end of the USA with the dawn of integrated schools. Schaffley has to suffer seeing the now ubiquitous title "Ms." which she had ridiculed, belittled and condemned. Contemporary conservatives, who's faces grace the book's cover, are a lot more shrill than their predecessors ever were. Joshi posits that this is because they see an America that is not like the one THEY have determined that it "should" be.
Joshi spends most of the text demonstrating "why conservatives keep getting it wrong." By quoting the writings of conservatives, he shows the missing logic of their positions. As contemporary conservative book titles suggest ("How to talk to a liberal if you must"; "Liberalism is a disease"), their program has little to do with policy and more to do with being against liberals. The need to shout and smear, he suggests, results from frustration in seeing the institutionalization and cultural acceptance of the liberal causes they fought against (civil rights, availability of abortion, environmental protection laws, to name a few) and an inability to articulate a logical argument.
He deals with a neglected (I think) issue, as to why, in public debate, "morals" are always about sex. Greed, corruption, etc., are never linked to immorality in the public discourse. Joshi discusses reasons why.
As I finished this book, I started the John Dean book, "Conservatives without Conscience", which adds more perspective.
Joshi spends most of the text demonstrating "why conservatives keep getting it wrong." By quoting the writings of conservatives, he shows the missing logic of their positions. As contemporary conservative book titles suggest ("How to talk to a liberal if you must"; "Liberalism is a disease"), their program has little to do with policy and more to do with being against liberals. The need to shout and smear, he suggests, results from frustration in seeing the institutionalization and cultural acceptance of the liberal causes they fought against (civil rights, availability of abortion, environmental protection laws, to name a few) and an inability to articulate a logical argument.
He deals with a neglected (I think) issue, as to why, in public debate, "morals" are always about sex. Greed, corruption, etc., are never linked to immorality in the public discourse. Joshi discusses reasons why.
As I finished this book, I started the John Dean book, "Conservatives without Conscience", which adds more perspective.
Read
July 7, 2022I've gone back and forth on this one and it's a pretty solid political treatise. Much of his criticisms are apt for figures like Limbaugh, Hannity, and Coulter. He's a bit harder on Buckley than I'd be, but much of his critiques of the Republican Party is pretty air-tight for the most part, though I would chide him for not going into the nuances of Buckley's views and opinions. But 90 percent of the time he's right on the money.
Overall, a pretty solid book if you're interested in politics and don't like Republicans...which I just so happen to be party of.
March 12, 2024
Disclaimer: I am a moderate or a centrist. I think people on the far right or left are nuts and since I am in the middle, that makes me a dick. I read this because I like to read opposing viewpoints. If I read about gun control, I want to hear the pro & the con. And now for the review:
This book is so lame I forgot I read it in three days and accidentally picked it up again until. D D D! I realized I read it.
Some amusing stuff. But mostly comfort food for lefties. Conservatives are hypocrites? NO WAY!! They pick and choose truths? Say it ain't so! They deny science and "facts" as fake? Same yesterday, as it is today, as it will be tomorrow.
It is 2022 16 years after this book was published. "The symbolic significance of revoking Roe v. Wade could unleash a backlash against Republicans that they may be banished from power for a generation" & "be careful what you wish for". Well the mid terms have just completed and it did backfire, but not a whole lot.
What I did like was the realization the conservative agenda always loses with time, and that YESTERDAYS LIBERALISM IS TOMORROWs CONSERVATISM, and it's so true. Who would argue for segregation these days? Or vote to ban gay marriage? Not only that but all the platforms of fear that Republicans gave us have been with time, proven to be wrong! War on drugs? WRONG! Get tough on crime? WRONG!
Unfortunately, 16 years ago is a long time. I wonder how the woke movement and all the insane left ideologies would have changed this book.
Post Script: 3-12-24 I have been trying to do the whole "Both Sides" thing. I can't even find half decent arguments, debates, questions, from the right. Borrow -Ship of Fools- by Tucker Carlson. Flip to the back. Not one source, not one. No Bibliography, no nothing. If you know of a book where the right honestly tries to do something other than rant, please please LMK. I have been missing on many "Right" side arguments. I can't find any like "Responding to the Right: Brief Replies to 25 Conservative Arguments - Robinson, Nathan J.
I think some of his arguments are easily refuted and some are just dumb but at least he tries, at least he make an argument. Aloha Joe B.
This book is so lame I forgot I read it in three days and accidentally picked it up again until. D D D! I realized I read it.
Some amusing stuff. But mostly comfort food for lefties. Conservatives are hypocrites? NO WAY!! They pick and choose truths? Say it ain't so! They deny science and "facts" as fake? Same yesterday, as it is today, as it will be tomorrow.
It is 2022 16 years after this book was published. "The symbolic significance of revoking Roe v. Wade could unleash a backlash against Republicans that they may be banished from power for a generation" & "be careful what you wish for". Well the mid terms have just completed and it did backfire, but not a whole lot.
What I did like was the realization the conservative agenda always loses with time, and that YESTERDAYS LIBERALISM IS TOMORROWs CONSERVATISM, and it's so true. Who would argue for segregation these days? Or vote to ban gay marriage? Not only that but all the platforms of fear that Republicans gave us have been with time, proven to be wrong! War on drugs? WRONG! Get tough on crime? WRONG!
Unfortunately, 16 years ago is a long time. I wonder how the woke movement and all the insane left ideologies would have changed this book.
Post Script: 3-12-24 I have been trying to do the whole "Both Sides" thing. I can't even find half decent arguments, debates, questions, from the right. Borrow -Ship of Fools- by Tucker Carlson. Flip to the back. Not one source, not one. No Bibliography, no nothing. If you know of a book where the right honestly tries to do something other than rant, please please LMK. I have been missing on many "Right" side arguments. I can't find any like "Responding to the Right: Brief Replies to 25 Conservative Arguments - Robinson, Nathan J.
I think some of his arguments are easily refuted and some are just dumb but at least he tries, at least he make an argument. Aloha Joe B.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews