From Ben Shapiro to Stefan Molyneux: How the Right “Uses” Philosophy

“For the many activists and intellectuals on the Right, who identify with the ambiguously defined “Western civilization,” a nostalgic and selective association with Western civilization’s philosophical grandeur can be extremely appealing.”

Introduction

In a piece for Merion West several months ago, I discussed the various uses and misuses of philosophy. In this piece from this past September, I hinted that some ways are better than others when it comes to employing philosophical concepts and argumentation. Heated arguments about what philosophy is (and what philosophers should do) go back as far as the trial and execution of Socrates for corrupting the youth of Athens. This often assumes a very political dimension. For instance, the political left has often had a love-hate relationship with philosophy. In his “Theses on Feuerbach,” Marx famously chastised the philosophers and theorists for merely trying to interpret the world, when the point was to change it. This, of course, did not keep the erudite Prussian radical from devoting the rest of his life to writing dense theoretical works trying to interpret the world in all its dialectical complexities. These tensions carry on until today, with Current Affairs recently producing a scathing article lacerating Slavoj Žižek for—among other sins—obscurantism. At the same time, Youtube channels such as Philosophy Tube and books like Give Them An Argument: Logic for the Left by philosophy professor Ben Burgis are generating much discussion.

One of the more interesting phenomena is that this ambivalence towards philosophy is not shared by the political right (and especially the far-right), which has frequently tried to gloss up its intellectual credentials by appealing to philosophical tropes and icons. Ben Shapiro was christened the “cool kid’s philosopher“ by the New York Times and recently published a work of theory trying to live up to that honorific (spoiler: the book has serious problems. I review it here). Dave Rubin has had a large number of Objectivist and nationalist philosophers on The Rubin Report. The far-right is no different than these commentators when it comes to a desire to invoke philosophical tropes. Much has been made of the far and alt-right’s interest in philosophical luminaries like Nietzsche.  Some of the major figures of the far-right—including Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux—have gone a step further and attempted to give their own readings of the history and uses of philosophy. Southern, famous for hawking conspiracy theories about the evils of Islam and the “great replacement,” has written a book about how “tenured hippies” have undermined the great Western intellectual tradition going back to the Greeks. In her words, we have traded Plato for bell hooks. Molyneux, who recently declared himself the “most influential modern philosopher” has even written a book called Essential Philosophy: How To Know What on Earth Is Going On.

Why is the Far-Right Interested in Philosophy

Now none of this is to say that these invocations of philosophy are especially rigorous or thoughtful. Generalizing broadly, the standards tend to get lower the more reactionary the figure in question. Sometimes they are actually very confusing. To give just one example, take Molyneux’s book. In Essential Philosophy, he offers a few definitions of the subject. In the space of a short book, he calls philosophy “the study of truth,” the “methodology that helps you determine the difference between subjective experiences and facts” then goes on to say, “the heart of philosophy…is morality.” He also claims, “the purpose of philosophy is to get you to change your moral habits.” He asserts that the, “very essence of philosophy is to differentiate between various states, to point to the best preferred.” He says, “philosophy is the rational hypothesis of empirical action,” and he calls philosophy the, “largest circle of mental disciplines.” He suggests that, “all philosophy is founded on hostility to authority,” as well as that, “the practice of philosophy is the creation of arguments.” And he also writes, “philosophy is like exercise.” The same confusions pertain when he tries to define ethics. He defines ethics as “the study of virtue,” when listing it with the four other branches of philosophy (he lists metaphysics, epistemology, politics, and ethics but seems to miss logic and aesthetics). He calls it a theory of “universal preferable behavior,” as well as a “discipline” which needs to be taught. He considers it also to be a “a moral framework” within which there are “specific ethical theories” which must be based on “moral arguments,” which are “rational.” He describes ethics as a “system” and as a “theory,” as well as, “generally dealing with deeds, not words.” He says that ethics is “generally deal[ing] with actions, not thoughts” and that it is “generally statements or preferred actions that are binding on others,” as well as a set of “rational ethical propositions,” and as a “relationship rather than a commandment.” How and whether all these definitions of philosophy as a whole and ethics in particular are simultaneously tenable is a question I will leave to more patient readers. Certainly Molyneux is not providing many answers.