A topic I want to addresses again is why there is typically more infighting among the ‘right’ than the ‘left.’ If you go to almost any popular right-wing blog (such as UNZ Review), Chan, or sub-Reddit, there is almost always infighting in the comments, and it can get pretty hostile and personal quickly, with some commenters even questioning the loyalty and integrity of their intellectual compatriots despite the tacit agreement that the ‘left’ is bad and the ‘right’ is good–such common agreement is not always sufficient to ensuring civility. So why is this.
As discussed in There is No Such Thing as the ‘Intellectual Left, right-wing intellectual thought is many magnitudes more complicated than left-wing thought, with many more divisions. Left-wing ideology is centered around the oppressor/oppressed narrative: one’s success is due to oppression (intentional or not; societal or individualistic) against some sort of victim or group. There are two main intellectual strains among the ‘left’: classical liberals, who reject the oppressed/oppressor narrative, and welfare/social liberals, who promulgate this narrative. And, online, social democrats sometimes lock horns with democratic socialists.
However, they both tend to agree on certain social issues even if they disagree on economic ones. They both support ‘positive rights’–be it gay rights, abortion rights, environmental regulation etc. So this helps limit the infighting to some degree. Then there is also the division between white feminists vs. POC, related to intersectionality and how white feminists cannot understand and or are deaf to the problems of POC. This is a division within the welfare/social left, which can get heated on Twitter but is otherwise small.
Then you have the ‘right’, which in terms of intellectual richness and diversity is analogous to the 256-Crayola box compared to the left’s 8-color box. Conservatism (and also related, libertarianism) is about the complicated interplay between individual freedom/autonomy vs. government/centralization, which is a much more difficult issue than merely oppressor vs. oppressed–but also about consequentialism vs. utilitarianism vs. deontology. Conservatism is not really about conserving, but more about striking a balance between these two opposing forces (the individual vs. the state). Conservatives understand that human nature is complicated, and that trade-offs are necessary for a functioning government and society. There is no one-size-fits-all utopian ideal or single narrative that explains society. It’s just so much more involved. For example, the debate over social media censorship of right-wing users: should the government pass legislation that forbids censorship, or does this violate freedom of association as stipulated by the 1st Amendment? Free market purists may argue that such legislation is antithetical to freedom. I only focused on politics and government, but then there is also the divide between Protestantism vs. Catholicism, that you sometimes see among the religious right.