List making can be infectious. The Observer Music Monthly has made a list the top 10 right-wing rockers. It’s a rather motley crew and the definition of “right-wing” is somewhat elastic. Eric Clapton is on the list for drunkenly yelling out “Throw the wogs out! Keep Britain white!” Ted Nugent is quoted as saying about the war in Iraq, “Our failure has been not to Nagasaki them.” These sentiments seem to me as less right-wing and more pure and simple neanderthalism.
Still, if we accept a broad definition of right-wing, it’s an interesting list: 1. Elvis Presley 2. Tony Hadley 3. Ted Nugent 4. Eric Clapton 5. 50 Cent 6. Geri Halliwell 7. Kid Rock 8. Johnny Ramone 9. Phil Collins 10. Ian Curtis.
Any number of variations can be played on this list. Here are a few:
Top ten right-wing novelists (highbrow): 1. Fyodor Dostoevsky 2. Vladimir Nabokov 3. William Faulkner 4. Wyndham Lewis 5. Yukio Mishima 6. Ernst Jünger 7. Louis-Ferdinand Céline 8. James Gould Cozzens 9. V.S. Naipaul 10. Evelyn Waugh.
Top ten right-wing novelist (popular fiction): 1. Ayn Rand 2. Agatha Christie 3. J.R.R. Tolkien 4. Robert Heinlein 5. Tom Clancy 6. Robert E. Howard 7. Jeffrey Archer 8. P.D. James 9. Michael Crichton 10. Barbara Cartland.
Top ten right-wing poets who wrote primarily in English: 1. T.S. Eliot 2. Ezra Pound 3. W.B. Yeats 4. Robert Frost 5. Wallace Stevens 6. Philip Larkin 7. Marianne Moore 8. Rudyard Kipling 9. Basil Bunting 10. Allen Tate.
Top ten right-wing philosophers: 1. Martin Heidegger 2. Carl Schmitt 3. Leo Strauss 4. Willard Van Orman Quine 5. Hans-Georg Gadamer 6. Eric Voegelin 7. Michael Oakeshott 8. Willmoore Kendall 9. Richard M. Weaver 10. George Grant.
Top ten right-wing cartoonists (these names won’t be familiar to everyone so I’ve put in some identifying titles): 1. Charles Schulz (Peanuts) 2. Harold Gray (Little Orphan Annie) 3. Chester Brown (Louis Riel, I Never Liked You) 4. Chester Gould (Dick Tracy) 5. Peter Bagge (Hate) 6. Percy Crosby (Skippy) 7. Steve Ditko (Spider-man, Dr. Strange, Mr. A) 8. Carl Barks (Uncle Scrooge) 9. Herge (Tintin) 10. Dave Sim (Cerebus).
Top ten right-wing film makers (includes influential actors as well as directors and producers): 1. Leni Riefenstahl 2. Ronald Reagan 3. John Ford 4. Walt Disney 5. John Wayne 6. Arnold Schwarzenegger 7. John Milius 8. Mel Gibson 9. Whit Stillman 10. Jimmy Stewart.
As with all lists, these are open to all sorts of criticism. Some will bridle at the inclusion of national socialists and fascists but I do think there is a continuum of attitudes and ideas that links them to more respectable rightists (as can be seen by the intellectual exchanges that Ezra Pound and Carl Schmitt had with some conservatives).
And of course, all these choices can be tweaked or challenged. Was Nabokov, for example, really a right-winger? Wouldn’t it be more accurate to say he was a nineteenth century liberal with an aristocratic attitude born of his elite Russian heritage? I’m willing to strike him from the list and replace him with D.H. Lawrence. And it’s possible that Hayek should be on the list of philosophers, although he’s better known as an economist and he resisted being called a conservative. I’ve only included English language poets because I don’t think it’s fair to judge poetry in translation. I’ve tried to be as international as I can, but language is a real barrier.
But all quibbling and provisos aside, I’ll stand by these lists as fair approximations. If we taking them as a starting point, some interesting patterns begin to emerge.
First of all, right-wingers are unexpectedly strong in poetry. The list of the top ten right-wing poets is very close to the list of the top ten 20th century English-language poets period. By contrast, in every other category the right includes distinguished names but wouldn’t necessarily be a list of nearly all the top achievers.
Secondly, women are strongest in the category of popular fiction but otherwise marginal.
Thirdly, the highbrow artists listed here include quite a few that tended to lean towards national socialism and fascism. By contrast, the popular artists tended to be populists or libertarians. To put it another way, Ayn Rand might have been a nut job but at least she wasn’t an Ezra Pound or a Céline.
In effect, what these lists reveal is that popular artists can’t be too extreme in taking up explicitly elitist or authoritarian political philosophies. In order to keep in touch with the wide swath of their audience, their ideas have to be more inclusive or broadly pitched. That’s a reassuring thought.
Hayek’s economics were of such a philosophical sort, I’d put him with the philosophers. I would also put Alasdair MacIntyre in the philosophy top ten.
Right-wingers have also thrived in the journalism category. What might their top-ten list be? I came up with the following:
1. H. L. Menken (for sheer verbal facility)
2. Walter Lippmann (he founded The New Republic, and his 1922 book on public opinion book is still in print)
3. Tom Wolfe (for his New Journalism)
4. William F. Buckley (for sheer influence)
5. Joan Didion (for her literary and political essays of the 60s and 70s)
6. Renata Adler (ditto)
7. Milton Friedman (for his columns in Newsweek)
8. Philip Marchand (for his supurb biography of Marshall McLuhan and his literary journalism)
9. Andrew Coyne (for his newspaper columns)
10. Jospeph Epstein (for his familiar essays in Commentary and elsewhere)
I don’t read U.K. journalism so there are no Brits on my list, even though there perhaps should be. Marchand and Coyne may only be familiar to Canadian readers. But these things are always a little bit biased.
Hayek’s economics were of such a philosophical sort, I’d put him with the philosophers. I would also put Alasdair MacIntyre in the philosophy top ten.
Right-wingers have also thrived in the journalism category. What might their top-ten list be? I came up with the following:
1. H. L. Menken (for sheer verbal facility)
2. Walter Lippmann (he founded The New Republic, and his 1922 book on public opinion book is still in print)
3. Tom Wolfe (for his New Journalism)
4. William F. Buckley (for sheer influence)
5. Joan Didion (for her literary and political essays of the 60s and 70s)
6. Renata Adler (ditto)
7. Milton Friedman (for his columns in Newsweek)
8. Philip Marchand (for his supurb biography of Marshall McLuhan and his literary journalism)
9. Andrew Coyne (for his newspaper columns)
10. Joseph Epstein (for his familiar essays in Commentary and elsewhere)
I don’t read U.K. journalism so there are no Brits on my list, even though there perhaps should be. Marchand and Coyne may only be familiar to Canadian readers. But these things are always a little bit biased.
Okay, I’m willing to take out Richard Weaver and George Grant from the philosophers and put in Hayek and Alasdair MacIntyre.
The journalism list is good. I wonder though if either Marchand or Adler would consider themselves conservatives (or for that matter Joan Didion after around 1966). I think Adler describes herself as a centrist.
I’d put in some long-forgotten names that were very influential in their day: Westbrook Pegler and Albert Jay Nock. Also Malcolm Muggeridge and Peregrine Worsthorne, for the Brits. Worsthorne should be honoured simply for having the best and most appropriate name ever given to Tory journalist. It sounds like something invented by Dickens or Evelyn Waugh.
I know what you mean about Adler and Didion. I’m going a bit by reputation there. Marchand’s conservatism is subtle but still detectable, I’d say.
I’d forgotten about Muggeridge. Peregrine Wosthorne is awesome.
Wait! Let me try! Let’s see: top-ten right-wing cartoon characters:
1. Malificent (Cheney-ite through and through)
2. Elmer Fudd (bourgeouis traditionalist)
3. Bugs Bunny (libertarian wing)
4. Tweety Bird (Victorian prude)
5. Fred Flintstone (Reagan democrat)
6. Mufasa (monarchist)
7. Scar (Franco-ist)
8. Jock (retired militarist)
9. The Selfish Giant (obviously)
10. Foghorn Leghorn (old Dixie patrician)
Go read PAULO FREIRE and get over with that right-wing philosophy crap.
Philosophy was ‘born’ in Greece in a period where right-wing ideology was non-existent so it’s an OXYMORON to say right-wing people have their own philosophical intelligentsia. On the other hand, Hegel took his theory from Aristotle and Plato, Marx was influenced by Hegel and Aristotle, Horkheimer was infuenced by Marx and Hegel, and Freire was influenced by ALL of them.
Since philosophy starts from Greece I find it very difficult to take seriously any person that calls himself a philosopher and does not embrace Greek philosophy.
BTW Heidegger? (LOL!)Look at The Frankfurt School and Max’s Critical Theory if you want to read something useful…
Another thing, did ALL these people you mention on this blog affiliate themselves with any right-wing ‘groups’ or parties?Or is it something you people infer by looking @ the way they lived? You know Engels was filthy rich…He actually supported Marx economically for quite a long time.
Hi there.
Keep in mind that literary/cultural criticism tends to be dominated by hardline leftists who prefer to ignore the politics of major authors who do not toe the line. Except in cases where an artist was particularly outspoken about his views, like Pound, Céline, and Waugh were, the right-leaning politics of an artist will often go unmentioned. How many Ethnic Studies professors do you think will confess to their students that Zora Neale Hurston was a hardcore Republican?
Limiting ourselves to the twentienth-century, major writers who held or sympathized with right-wing or conservative views include: Joseph Conrad, Jorge Luis Borges, Edith Wharton, Gertrude Stein, Anthony Powell, Henry Green, Knut Hamsun, Gabriele D’Annunzio, Paul Valéry, Stefan George, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, John Betjeman, John Crowe Ransom, Guy Davenport, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Luigi Pirandello, Zora Neale Hurston, Robinson Jeffers, Jean Giraudoux, Anthony Burgess, Jean Anouilh, Geoffrey Hill, Tom Stoppard, and Cormac McCarthy.
And then there are also the Catholic conservatives: Sigrid Undset, Francois Mauriac, Paul Claudel, G.K. Chesterton, Hilare Belloc, Flannery O’Connor, Walker Percy, Charles Péguy, Roy Campbell, Georges Bernanos, Grazia Deledda, and Flann O’Brien.
Non-Catholic religious conservatives include Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Willa Cather, and Miguel de Unamuno.
And if we’re including authors who shifted heavily to the right after flirting with left-wing politics, there’s also Saul Bellow, E.E. Cummings, Mario Vargas Llosa, Kingsley Amis, Eugene Ionesco, and John Dos Passos.
As you can see, until the last few decades, the left/right divide in the arts was not so wide as often assumed. Also consider that many big names (Joyce, Proust, Kafka, Beckett, to name several)shunned politics for most of their lives; they might have opposed the Nazis, but opposing the Nazis hardly bespeaks left-wing politics since many conservatives (Churchill, de Gaulle) also led the opposition.
Willie,
Thanks for the thoughtful comments. One proviso: I think both Joyce and Beckett were more sympathetic to the left than your account makes clear. Although they were largely apolitical, the few comments on politics they made were definately on the left, and not just because they were anti-Nazi. Richard Ellman talks about this a little in one of his essay collections, Ulysses on the Liffey.
Make sure to scroll down to read the comments as well:
http://mallproject.blogspot.com/2009/11/where-are-right-wing-writers.html
The great thing about the internet is that it allows us to destroy 50+ years of left-wing propaganda without even publishing a book.
Raymond Abellio
Guillaume Apollinaire
Philippe Ariès
Marc Augier
Marcel Aymé
Jacques Bainville
Pierre-Simon Ballanche
Honoré de Balzac
Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly
Maurice Bardèche
Maurice Barrès
Charles Baudelaire
René Benjamin
Alain de Benoist
Jacques Benoist-Méchin
Henri Béraud
Georges Bernanos
Antoine Blanc de Saint-Bonnet
Antoine Blondin
Léon Bloy
Louis de Bonald
Abel Bonnard
Paul Bourget
Pierre Boutang
Robert Brasillach
Renaud Camus
Jean Cau
Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Jacques Chardonne
François-René de Chateaubriand
Alphonse de Châteaubriant
Paul Claudel
Jean Cocteau
Léon Daudet
Marcel De Corte
Michel Déon
Paul Déroulède
Louis Dimier
Pierre Drieu La Rochelle
Georges Dumézil
Jean de Fabrègues
André Fraigneau
Julien Freund
Denis Fustel de Coulanges
Pierre Gaxotte
Jean Giono
Raoul Girardet
Jean Giraudoux
Arthur de Gobineau
Pierre Gripari
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Kléber Haedens
Daniel Halévy
Ernest Hello
Michel Houellebecq
Joris-Karl Huysmans
Max Jacob
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Bertrand de Jouvenel
Émile Keller
Jacques de Lacretelle
Pierre Lasserre
René de La Tour du Pin
Jacques Laurent
Jean de La Varende
Gustave Le Bon
Jules Lemaître
Frédéric Le Play
Jean Mabire
Joseph de Maistre
Félicien Marceau
Jacques Maritain
Henri Massis
Thierry Maulnier
François Mauriac
Charles Maurras
Jean-Pierre Maxence
Michel-Georges Micberth
Frédéric Mistral
Jules Monnerot
Henry de Montherlant
Paul Morand
Michel Mourlet
Albert de Mun
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Jean d’Ormesson
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Jean Raspail
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Hugues Rebell
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François Richard
Antoine de Rivarol
Louis Rougier
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Paul Sérant
Jean Sévillia
Alain-Gérard Slama
Hippolyte Taine
Gustave Thibon
Denis Tillinac
Alexis de Tocqueville
Georges Vacher de Lapouge
Paul Valéry
Jean des Vallières
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Pol Vandromme
Dominique Venner
Jules Verne
Louis Veuillot
Alfred de Vigny
Auguste Villiers de L’Isle-Adam
Vladimir Volkoff
Brooks Adams
Henry Adams
Max Beerbohm
Hilaire Belloc
Peter L. Berger
John Betjeman
Elizabeth Bowen
Orestes Brownson
Anthony Burgess
Edmund Burke
Thomas Carlyle
Lewis Carroll
Raymond Chandler
John Clare
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Joseph Conrad
Noel Coward
E. E. Cummings
Guy Davenport
Robertson Davies
Benjamin Disraeli
Lawrence Durrell
T. S. Eliot
Ford Madox Ford
Robert Frost
George Gissing
Henry Green
Geoffrey Hill
Gerard Manley Hopkins
A. E. Housman
T. E. Hulme
Henry James
David Jones
Rudyard Kipling
Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
Philip Larkin
D. H. Lawrence
Saunders Lewis
Wyndham Lewis
Anthony Ludovici
W. H. Mallock
Marshall McLuhan
H. L. Mencken
Thomas Molnar
Marianne Moore
Vladimir Nabokov
V. S. Naipaul
John Henry Newman
Robert Nisbet
Albert Jay Nock
Michael Oakeshott
Flannery O’Connor
John O’Hara
Edgar Allan Poe
Ezra Pound
Anthony Powell
Thomas de Quincey
John Crowe Ransom
Simon Raven
Philip Rieff
John Ruskin
Saki
George Santayana
Sir Walter Scott
Roger Scruton
Gertrude Stein
Wallace Stevens
Robert Louis Stevenson
Tom Stoppard
Allen Tate
John Updike
Evelyn Waugh
Edith Wharton
W. B. Yeats
Franz Xaver von Baader
Gottfried Benn
Ernst Bertram
Max Hildebert Boehm
Hans Bogner
Rudolf Borchardt
Jacob Burckhardt
Houston Stewart Chamberlain
Heimito von Doderer
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Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff
Gustav Falke
Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué
Hans Freyer
Arnold Gehlen
Friedrich von Gentz
Stefan George
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Jeremias Gotthelf
Franz Grillparzer
Karl Ludwig von Haller
Martin Heidegger
Friedrich Hielscher
Hugo von Hofmannsthal
C. G. Jung
Edgar Julius Jung
Ernst Jünger
Friedrich Georg Jünger
Gerd-Klaus Kaltenbrunner
Ludwig Klages
Gertrud von Le Fort
Paul Lensch
Alexander Lernet-Holenia
Detlev von Liliencron
Günter Maschke
Robert Michels
Arthur Moeller van den Bruck
Armin Mohler
Eduard Mörike
Martin Mosebach
Justus Möser
Adam Müller
Gerhard Nebel
Ernst Niekisch
Friedrich Nietzsche
Novalis
Georg Quabbe
Josef Pieper
Leopold von Ranke
Hermann Rauschning
August Wilhelm Rehberg
Rainer Maria Rilke
Günter Rohrmoser
Joseph Roth
Ernst von Salomon
Friedrich Carl von Savigny
Max Scheler
Helmut Schelsky
Friedrich von Schlegel
Carl Schmitt
Arthur Schopenhauer
Werner Sombart
Martin Spahn
Othmar Spann
Oswald Spengler
Friedrich Julius Stahl
Christoph Steding
Adalbert Stifter
Botho Strauß
Heinrich von Treitschke
Karl Freiherr von Vogelsang
Josef Weinheber
Karlheinz Weißmann
Ernst Wiechert
August Winnig
Hans Zehrer
Nimio de Anquin
Antonio Aparisi Guijarro
Azorín
Jaime Balmes
Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer
Jacinto Benavente
Jorge Luis Borges
Antonio Burgos
Ramón de Campoamor
Leonardo Castellani
Camilo José Cela
Álvaro Cunqueiro
Miguel Delibes
Gerardo Diego
Juan Donoso Cortés
Joan Estelrich
Gonzalo Fernández de la Mora
Agustín de Foxá
Manuel Gálvez
Ángel Ganivet
Enrique Gil y Robles
Ernesto Giménez Caballero
Nicolás Gómez Dávila
Ramón Gómez de la Serna
Carlos Ibarguren
Rodolfo Irazusta
Pedro Laín Entralgo
Ramiro Ledesma Ramos
Ricardo León y Román
Leopoldo Lugones
Manuel Machado
Ramiro de Maeztu
Joan Maragall
José Antonio Maravall
Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo
Eugenio Montes
Francisco Navarro Villoslada
Eugenio d’Ors
José Ortega y Gasset
Leopoldo Panero
José María Pemán
José María de Pereda
Josep Pla
Onésimo Redondo
Dionisio Ridruejo
Vicente Risco
Luis Rosales
Pedro Sainz Rodríguez
Rafael Sánchez Mazas
Manuel Tamayo y Baus
Gonzalo Torrente Ballester
Antonio Tovar
Miguel de Unamuno
Guillermo Valencia
Mario Vargas Llosa
Juan Vázquez de Mella
Lorenzo Villalonga
Hugo Wast
José Zorrilla
Giovanni Boine
Massimo Bontempelli
Giuseppe Bottai
Pietrangelo Buttafuoco
Luigi Capuana
Giosuè Carducci
Enrico Corradini
Carlo Costamagna
Benedetto Croce
Gabriele D’Annunzio
Augusto Del Noce
Salvatore Di Giacomo
Andrea Emo
Julius Evola
Giovanni Gentile
Balbino Giuliano
Tommaso Landolfi
Agostino Lanzillo
Curzio Malaparte
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
Mario Morasso
Gaetano Mosca
A. O. Olivetti
Alfredo Oriani
Giovanni Papini
Sergio Panunzio
Vilfredo Pareto
Camillo Pellizzi
Luigi Pirandello
Giuseppe Prezzolini
Berto Ricci
Alfredo Rocco
Ardengo Soffici
Ugo Spirito
Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
Federigo Tozzi
Guiseppe Ungaretti
Giovanni Verga
Gioacchino Volpe
Stefano Zecchi
Lúcio Cardoso
Octavio de Faria
Alberto Monsaraz
Fernando Pessoa
Nelson Rodrigues
Ivan Aksakov
Nikolai Berdyaev
Mikhail Bulgakov
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Nikolai Gogol
Ivan Goncharov
Apollon Grigoriev
Nikolai Gumilev
Ivan Ilyin
Nikolai Karamzin
Konstantin Leontiev
Dmitry Merezhkovsky
Konstantin Pobedonostsev
Vasily Rozanov
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Nikolai Strahkov
Lev Tikhomirov
Fyodor Tyutchev
Ion Luca Caragiale
Mateiu Caragiale
Petre P. Carp
Panait Cerna
Emil M. Cioran
George Coșbuc
Nichifor Crainic
Ion Creangă
Mircea Eliade
Mihai Eminescu
Ioan C. Filitti
Radu Gyr
Vintilă Horia
Nae Ionescu
Nicolae Iorga
Eugen Lovinescu
Titu Maiorescu
Constantin Noica
Vasile Pogor
Ioan Slavici
Petre Tuțea
George Uscătescu
Alexandru Vlahuță
Mircea Vulcănescu
Alexandru D. Xenopol
Duiliu Zamfirescu
Knut Hamsun
Verner von Heidenstam
Rolf Jacobsen
Søren Kierkegaard
Sigrid Undset
I’m sure you could fit Kingsley Amis into your list of conservative novelists, at least ahead of Barbara Cartland!
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