Congratulations Freya on First Things and another very well-written essay. Living in New York City as I do, I'm all too familiar with the biased slop that New York magazine calls "editorial." Thank you for again taking up the cause of balance and reason.
This one was a miss for me. The problem is "New Right" /= "Conservative." I absolutely believe that many women are finding a home in some sort of "conservatism." I've seen it just in the publishing world and I'm delighted by it. Your work on this stuff in particular has been excellent, as has Louise Perry's. But the "new right" is a very different beast from "conservatism." The new right is in many ways antithetical to any traditional understanding of "conservatism," I think, and is probably better understood as "progressive right wing."
The right wing progressives / new right are far more likely to be into techno transhumanist stuff (which is often tacitly deeply demeaning to human bodies and to most human persons) and also tend to be very into domination politics, which plays out in very predictable ways when it comes to gender.
I actually agree, I just think a lot of the time women aren’t leaving the “new right” for old school conservatism but abandoning all of it (and encouraged to!) The NY Magazine piece implies that all conservative men are like this deep down, and the New Right are just being open about it. Becomes harder to have an honest conversation about real problems this way.
Yes, totally agree there. I just couldn't help noticing the slippery back and forth in the piece b/w "conservative" and "new right" and so wanted to register that concern. I think one way to undercut Adler-Bell's claim is for actual conservatives to be the ones policing the madness happening with the new right. But that can only be done if it is recognized that those are two separate things.
Grateful for your work. We have a review essay on your book and one other coming soon, btw.
The leftist narrative that tells women, "it's not you choosing to be conservative; it's the patriarchy working through you," is deeply disrespectful. It presumes that women are incapable of making decisions that affect their own lives, that they are mere stooges for somebody else's agenda.
It's 2026 for goodness sake. Can we stop acting like women are incapable of agency and free will? Maybe she just doesn't agree with you. Deal with it.
The New York magazine article you're responding to sounds like just another tired exercise in what C.S. Lewis called "Bulverism": the refusal to consider someone's ideas on the merits, and simply assuming they are wrong and proceeding to psychoanalyze why they are wrong.
It's just bad-faith propaganda to keep up the morale of the kind of people who read (and write for) New York magazine.
I read a hit piece on your book recently. It seemed suspiciously hard on it, almost as if the critic hadn’t really read your book. I wondered if the person writing it was in some way affiliated with some of the social media giants you bring attention to. It seemed oddly OTT.
the "left" believes the state is the highest form of morality, rationality and safety. The "right" believes nature must be honored. A female(or male), as an object, fights for and is ruled by the state. A woman(or man), as a living being, is at home in nature. As original people of Australia have said -- a woman is made by nature, a man is made by culture. State agents who cannot see beyond the state (liberals, communists, marxists, jews) want to make a place for women in the state. States will always be infinitely less than Nature.
Congratulations Freya on First Things and another very well-written essay. Living in New York City as I do, I'm all too familiar with the biased slop that New York magazine calls "editorial." Thank you for again taking up the cause of balance and reason.
This one was a miss for me. The problem is "New Right" /= "Conservative." I absolutely believe that many women are finding a home in some sort of "conservatism." I've seen it just in the publishing world and I'm delighted by it. Your work on this stuff in particular has been excellent, as has Louise Perry's. But the "new right" is a very different beast from "conservatism." The new right is in many ways antithetical to any traditional understanding of "conservatism," I think, and is probably better understood as "progressive right wing."
The right wing progressives / new right are far more likely to be into techno transhumanist stuff (which is often tacitly deeply demeaning to human bodies and to most human persons) and also tend to be very into domination politics, which plays out in very predictable ways when it comes to gender.
I actually agree, I just think a lot of the time women aren’t leaving the “new right” for old school conservatism but abandoning all of it (and encouraged to!) The NY Magazine piece implies that all conservative men are like this deep down, and the New Right are just being open about it. Becomes harder to have an honest conversation about real problems this way.
Yes, totally agree there. I just couldn't help noticing the slippery back and forth in the piece b/w "conservative" and "new right" and so wanted to register that concern. I think one way to undercut Adler-Bell's claim is for actual conservatives to be the ones policing the madness happening with the new right. But that can only be done if it is recognized that those are two separate things.
Grateful for your work. We have a review essay on your book and one other coming soon, btw.
The leftist narrative that tells women, "it's not you choosing to be conservative; it's the patriarchy working through you," is deeply disrespectful. It presumes that women are incapable of making decisions that affect their own lives, that they are mere stooges for somebody else's agenda.
It's 2026 for goodness sake. Can we stop acting like women are incapable of agency and free will? Maybe she just doesn't agree with you. Deal with it.
The New York magazine article you're responding to sounds like just another tired exercise in what C.S. Lewis called "Bulverism": the refusal to consider someone's ideas on the merits, and simply assuming they are wrong and proceeding to psychoanalyze why they are wrong.
It's just bad-faith propaganda to keep up the morale of the kind of people who read (and write for) New York magazine.
I'd not heard the term Bulverism before, but I've certainly seen it in action.
I read a hit piece on your book recently. It seemed suspiciously hard on it, almost as if the critic hadn’t really read your book. I wondered if the person writing it was in some way affiliated with some of the social media giants you bring attention to. It seemed oddly OTT.
the "left" believes the state is the highest form of morality, rationality and safety. The "right" believes nature must be honored. A female(or male), as an object, fights for and is ruled by the state. A woman(or man), as a living being, is at home in nature. As original people of Australia have said -- a woman is made by nature, a man is made by culture. State agents who cannot see beyond the state (liberals, communists, marxists, jews) want to make a place for women in the state. States will always be infinitely less than Nature.
Good think-piece. I think it's possible to have ethics which combine conservative social values with a sense of social justice.
Actually, come to think of it, that's probably Christianity I'm describing.
Thank you for this article Freya. Your words are making a difference, keep writing!