The Shallowness of the Intellectual Dark Web

“Edmund Burke’s arguments against the French Revolutionaries resonate because he understood the revolutionaries’ position quite well.”

Introduction

Nate Hochman recently produced an interesting op-ed for the conservative National Review entitled “The Intellectual Dark Web’s Quiet Revolution.” Hochman makes the interesting argument that conservatives may be overestimating the extent to which college campuses are engendering a new generation of young leftists. He points out that many students tire of the “intersectional narrative that is the foundation of the progressive belief system” and have a “knee jerk” reaction that there must be something wrong with it. This leads them to eventually embrace new forms of conservatism—in this case, the Intellectual Dark Web. Although the members of the Dark Web may not be uniformly conservative, Hochman argues that their criticisms of the contemporary intersectional Left resonate with many students and lead them towards conservative politics.

“…This new class of intellectuals serves for many as the new gatekeeper to the Right. Through them, many college students—myself included—have found their way to Edmund Burke. And to the convert whose access to the conservative tradition came through this cohort of thinkers, it is no coincidence that, despite the variety of political beliefs espoused by individual members of the IDW, they often lead many of their followers to a more traditionalist conservatism,” he writes.

Interestingly, Hochman goes beyond these anecdotal but interesting social observations and connects it to the broader history of conservatism. He maintains that the “path to conservatism” for many begins with a feeling that whatever leftists are proposing at the time “must be wrong.” Oftentimes, conservatives are unwilling to express why in an intellectually cogent manner. Hochman goes a step further. He argues that it is precisely this gut level reaction against the Left is, “in itself, an ideology.” He then approvingly cites Michael Oakeshott’s characterization of conservatism as less a rational philosophy and more of a “disposition,” an opinion shared at points by luminaries like Russell Kirk (a fact which Frank Meyer criticized him for). Thinkers like the members of the Intellectual Dark Web then provide a more systematic justification for this “knee jerk” disposition against Leftist projects. In effect, the Left creates its own opposition through “unwittingly” creating new generations of conservatives who feel it is going too far. Some of these conservatives may even consist of former Leftists dissatisfied with their former allies.