Everyone is probably familiar with holliness spirals, which is the tendency of the social-justice left to one-up each other in performative acts of solidity, especially on social media, with the winner being whoever occupies the inner-most circle of intersectionality and virtue.
Dissident conservatives however have their own spirals, so-called truth spirals, in which conservatives are constantly seeking the one true source of knowledgeable and expertise, and one-up each other for who can lay claim to being closest to some idealization of truth and correctness. This is why over the past 5 or so years, many dissents exhibit a sort of itinerant pattern of information consumption. They may bounce from Dr. Jordan Peterson, to Milo, to Vox day, Ben Shapiro, Alex Jones, Roosh, Stefan Molenux, Richard Spencer, etc. in the hope that one of these people will be ‘more right’ than everyone else. We want an ideology, belief, or leader that is didactic (offers a way to live your life, such as Dr. Peterson’s book, 10 Rules for Life and his videos on self-improvement) , is explanatory (such as how the world really, works who is really pulling the strings, etc.) , and offers some sort of shared group identity.
We’re all looking for that ‘grand unified theory’ that unites politics, culture, society, and human behavior; for example, that ‘humans seek status and are motivated by self-interest.’ But such a person, theory, or ideology that fills all three criteria likely does not exist. Even if it did exist, you would inevitably find someone else whose explanation falls into even a smaller circle of the spiral, as being even closer to the truth, ad infinitum.
Truth spirals exist because conservatives , and the dissent-right in general, tends to be more discriminating, skeptical, and knowledgeable, overall, than the social-justice left. This is not just an unfounded assumption, but conservatism, as an ideology, is much more complicated and nuanced than liberalism, the former which many more intellectual facets and divisions within it compared to liberalism. The wiki entry on conservatism is much longer than the one about liberalism. Liberals accept that progress and individualism are ‘good’ and that the state exists to advance such causes; conservatism is about the tug of war between individual vs. state vs. community interests. Conservatism is not so much about advancing a cause or advancing society–it’s not even about conserving, –but about compromise and reconciliation of contradictions and competing interests that arise due to the complicated interplay of the forces of human nature, society, governments, and individuals. By acknowledging the existence of such complexity, is the first step in embarking on conservatism.
You see this contradiction in how many on the dissent-right are critical of Trump’s policies , such as the recent bailout, and Washington in general, yet insist we support him anyway. But why do we have to support anyone who is a tool of an inherently irredeemable system? I dunno what the answer is sometimes. You see the intellectual divide also in the right between those who support state intervention in containing the virus, as opposed to those who think governments are overreacting. Meanwhile, the left is united in believing that more must be done, and that business should close, and that everyone should quarantine.