A slew of conservative titles have hit the bookstores in the past several decades, but how do you wade through them to choose the most insightful or influential? Start with these six titles—books essential for any modern conservative’s library.
Conservatives come in many varieties, bearing labels like neocon, libertarian, communitarian, social conservative, and fiscal conservative. They take great pleasure in writing books that denounce liberals, but they also occasionally level their swords at each other. Despite their diversity of thought, or perhaps because of it, conservatives share a common love for logical discussion and debate. It is this love that spurs conservative readers to grapple with books they might not entirely agree with. A slew of conservative titles have hit the bookstores in the past several decades, but how do you wade through them to choose the most insightful or influential? Start with these six titles—books essential for any modern conservative’s library.
America's Right Turn: How Conservatives Used New and Alternative Media to Take Power
by Richard A. Viguerie & David Franke (Published 2004, ISBN 1-56625-252-0)
This book, though written from a conservative perspective, is more moderate in tone than most conservative political books. It may be of interest to liberals as well as to conservatives because it chronicles both the left's and the right's use of alternative media, including direct mail, the radio, the internet, and cable television. For someone of my generation, it is difficult to recall a time when the major networks and newspapers had a monopoly over the news, and this book reminded me that sources of information were not always as diverse as they are now.
America's Right Turn is a political history and not a political diatribe. It offers intriguing insights into the reasons for the rise of alternative media, as well as for the reasons why conservatives have generally made better use of these alternatives than have liberals. Here you will learn interesting factoids, such as the interesting statistic that self-identified conservatives consume far more news (both mainstream/liberal and conservative/alternative) than do self-identified liberals. The book also makes the reader aware of how much the government is capable of stifling conservative expression--how it did so in the past, how it is doing so now with campaign finance reform (which also affects liberal expression), and how it may seek to do so in the future.
The Death of Right and Wrong: Exposing the Left's Assault on Our Culture and Values
by Tammy Bruce (Published 2003, ISBN 0761516638)
Former president of the Los Angeles chapter of NOW Tammy Bruce takes on leftists elites in The Death of Right and Wrong. As a feminist and gay activist, Bruce experienced first hand the methods and motives of those on the far left, people whom she believes have a vested interest in misrepresenting and compounding the misfortunes of those they claim to help. These leftist elites, she argues, are also advancing a dangerous philosophy of moral relativism, which prohibits people from making even the most basic value judgments. This moral relativism is then forced upon society through an education system devoted to indoctrination and a media that labels all impulses of decency as bigotry, oppression, or Puritanism.
Bruce's work is an easy read, and she make some powerful points in a concise manner. Bruce is not herself a "conservative" in the traditional sense, and this makes her work seem somewhat fresh. The book contains scattered vignettes of note: without Tammy Bruce, you might never have known that your tax dollars funded performance art that involved a woman shoving yams into her posterior and then defecating them into a bowl before offering them to the audience to eat.
Hollywood Vs. America: Popular Culture and the War On Traditional Values
by Michael Medved (Published 1993, ISBN 0060924357)
Talk show host and self-proclaimed "cultural crusader" Michael Medved has been regarded as some as a “renegade film critic.” In Hollywood vs. America, he exposes what he perceives to be Hollywood’s singular drive to bash America, attack religion, and affront the sensibilities of average Americans, not in order to make money but in order to pursue its ideological goals and to fulfill its own narrow, warped definition of high-art.
These attacks on God, family, and country are not, argues Medved, some sort of conspiracy; rather, they are the natural result of an insulated society of actors, producers, writers, and directors who feed off the praises of one another and who are rarely, if ever, exposed to the views, thoughts, and feelings of "mainstream America." At a time when a religious revival was moving through America, and conservative Christians and Jews were gaining converts, "Hollywood ignored religion altogether, or else attacked it with unprecedented ferocity." At a time when ordinary Americans were rejoicing over the military’s victory in the Persian Gulf, "movies and television shows displayed a critical new perspective of…the armed services and America’s role in the world." And, at a time when marriage rates were increasing and divorce rates declining, "the movie business focused almost entirely on single characters and began portraying the nuclear family as an outmoded, nightmarish institution."
Medved anticipates counterarguments. If it is true that the values of mainstream America are so different from those portrayed by Hollywood, how can Hollywood be said to have negatively influenced America? Medved answers this question by discussing the "slow but steady" influence of a media that, through its very ubiquitousness, has the power to "redefine what constitutes normal behavior in this society." Others might note that Hollywood is just making money by giving people what they want. To counter this, Medved points out that only one of the top 10 hits in the 1980’s was rated R, and yet R films accounted for over 60 percent of all movies released. And, finally, to those who say, “If you don’t like it, turn it off,” Medved responds, "The popular culture is now as unavoidable as any airborne pollutant. To say that if you don’t like it you should just tune it out makes as much sense as saying that if you don’t like smog, stop breathing."
And what is the answer to the problem of an out-of-touch entertainment industry? Certainly not censorship, says Medved, which only fuels "Hollywood’s us-vs.-them mentality." What about resurrecting the voluntary code the film industry once imposed upon itself? It would never work, says the author. But what might work to "help to open their eyes" is "[s]ustained public and private pressure." Watchdog groups and boycotts may have some salutary effects. Encouraging young religious people to pursue careers in the media may also help to improve matters from the inside, as will expanding alternatives.
The Return of the Primitive
by Ayn Rand (Published 1999, ISBN 0452011841)
This collection of essays, an expanded edition of The New Left, was compiled by Ayn Rand's disciple Peter Schwartz, founding editor of The Intellectual Activist magazine. In addition to Rand's 12 essays, Schwartz has added three of his own to tackle modern issues from an Objectivist world-view: "Gender Tribalism," "The Philosophy of Privation," and "Multicultural Nihilism." These works approach the issues much as I suspect Ayn Rand would have done, and they are interesting additions to the book.
"Collectivism," writes Rand, "has lost the battle for men's minds; its advocates know it; their last chance consists of the fact that no one else knows it." The essays in this collection are part of Rand's effort to make it known. She assures us that "a social movement that began with the ponderous, brain-cracking, dialectical constructs of Hegel and Marx, and ends up with a horde of morally unwashed children, each stamping his foot and shrieking: 'I want it now!'--is through."
Although many conservatives will find Rand's Objectivist philosophy excessively severe and will object to its atheistic message, they will likely appreciate her criticisms of the "new left." The struggle between the forces of individualism and collectivism (in Rand's view, between rationality and irrationality) is perhaps not quite the epic battle she depicts, but it is a serious contest, and if the individualists lose, that loss will have lasting negative effects on human freedom and progress.
Ayn Rand is too often dismissed in the world of academia; her arguments are not confronted: they are scoffed at and waved away. She is rarely treated as a legitimate philosopher or political theorist. Yet her works show her to be a deep thinker, and it is clear that she has (consciously or not) influenced virtually every conservative and libertarian thinker of the past three decades, even those who may vehemently disagree with her on certain issues.
The young conservative will be most influenced by Rand, and her writings may provide some solace in an educational environment where diversity of thinking is not much tolerated. Most individualist thinkers, says Rand, "endure their college years with the teeth-clenched determination of serving out a jail sentence. The psychological scars they acquire in the process are incalculable. But they struggle as best they can to preserve their capacity to think, sensing dimly that the essence of the torture is an assault on their minds."
Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism
by Ann Coulter (Published 2004, ISBN 1400050324)
Treason is a bit vitriolic at times and does not infrequently descend into mere name-calling. Nevertheless, it is a well-researched volume presenting a great deal of under-publicized information and a number of convincing arguments. This is no passing, emotional editorial comment; it contains 36 pages of meticulously recorded notes and an index.
Ann Coulter points out what few would dare to: that McCarthy, whatever you may say of his methods, was at least ultimately correct about the number of Soviet agents infesting the United States government. She also argues, much to the chagrin of many, that the validity of a politician's patriotism ought to be fair game in the political debate, that liberal politicians have in the past coddled and misjudged tyrants while ignoring threats to America's national security, that many leaders of the left tend to treat minorities as infants incapable of supporting themselves, and that many leftists have been seething with anti-American sentiment for some time now, viewing ordinary, patriotic Americans as the backward, ignorant masses.
Coulter provides a viewpoint as well as a series of facts that will be unfamiliar to a great many Americans, because the press has generally presented the news in accordance with its own prejudices, under-reporting important facts and events and over-emphasizing others.
Coulter is a new kind of conservative writer, employing a kind of acerbic wit and emotionalism usually absent from conservative writings.
Where the Right Went Wrong: How Neoconservatives Subverted the Reagan Revolution and Hijacked the Bush Presidency
by Patrick J. Buchanan (Published 2004, ISBN 0312341156)
Buchanan lambastes the Bush administration and the Republican party, which he believes has abandoned its conservative roots in favor of expanding empire and increasing spending in order to buy votes. He advocates a rejection of the "neoconservative" philosophy of free trade, open borders, and American hegemony in favor of a return to the Republican principles of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and, to a lesser degree, the policies of Ronald Reagan. He relates how the neoconservatives have taken over the think tanks and are now influencing a once conservative party. He proposes his own solutions to what he perceives to be the biggest problems facing America:
Restrict illegal immigration, rather than offering amnesty
Restore American sovereignty by retreating from economic and political globalism; cease trying to be a policeman of the world
Stop inciting the hatred of the Arab world by ceasing to provide strong support to the current regime in Israel and by withdrawing all troops from bases in the Middle East where they are not wanted and where we do not have a vital, immediate national interest
Continue to hunt down and destroy Al Qaeda, but no more fight an abstract war on "terrorism" than on "blitzkrieg"
Insist that Congress reclaim its central, constitutional role as the primary lawmaking body, a role that it has abdicated to federal courts and the bureaucracy. This would require passing laws (or if necessary, an amendment) that would remove laws passed by Congress from court review. It would require downsizing the bureaucracy and returning these lawmaking powers to state legislatures and Congress.
Return to the projectionist policies of the old Republican party, using tariffs to encourage the production and consumption of American made goods. While Buchanan acknowledges that this would increase the price of consumption, he thinks this is a price worth paying in order to wean Americans off of dependence on foreign nations, restore self-sufficiency, and reduce the trade deficit that threatens the value of the dollar. He believes the free trade mantra, now adopted and recited by both parties, is inherently flawed, because America is at a disadvantage when competing with third world countries unhampered by environmental controls or minimum wage laws.
While many conservatives will disagree with Buchanan's assessments and opinions, and most particularly with his rejection of free trade, they will at least find his arguments to be well written and occasionally persuasive.
Stock Your Shelves
Whether you’re a protectionist, a free trader, an anti-Communist, an isolationist, a neocon, or a communitarian, you’ll want to expand your mind by reading the varied opinions of other conservative thinkers. There are numerous books that will enable you to build your knowledge base, so don’t stop with these six titles.