A Beginners Guide to the Dissident Right
Overview of core ideas, individuals, essays, books, media, and publications for normies.
I know there are many ‘mainstream’ (normie) British right-wingers who are confused when I use particular terms, and reference particular authors, from the Dissident Right online ecosystem.
I understand why it can seem daunting, as it was not too long ago that I was also new to these ideas.
So, I have compiled a guide of essays, books, videos, individuals, and publications that you may want to have a look at to become ‘based’ and ‘red-pilled’. I will post both works I consider to be part of the ‘canon’, as well as my personal picks for a beginner to be introduced to Dissident Right thinking.
The intended audience for this guide is the milquetoast anti-Woke liberal who might watch GB News or podcasts like Triggernometry, but who is interested in getting a more sophisticated, radical analysis of our modern dilemmas, beyond simply ‘woke is so annoying man, we need free speech man, world’s gone crazy bro’.
I won’t discuss ways to get free PDFs or bypass paywalls, as I want this work to be financially supported, and too many people getting the pay-for literature for free will mean a loss of revenue for our side. However, I will quietly direct the reader to go to r/Piracy on Reddit if they are in too much financial difficulty to support the authors and publications, though I would encourage them to contribute financially when possible.
My Selected Introductory Articles for the Anti-Woke Liberal
These are aimed at the anti-Woke liberal, as challenges to their worldview and opening them up to a more sophisticated analysis of cultural politics.
Auron MacIntyre, The Blaze (2022) - How the Left Codes the Culture War as Low-Class
Auron MacIntyre, The Blaze (2023) - Cultural Neutrality is a Dangerous Lie, and It Never Existed
Auron MacIntyre, The Blaze (2023) - How the Neocon Cycle Inevitably Moves Conservatism to the Left
Auron MacIntyre, The Blaze (2023) - The Left Never Cared About Free Speech
Freddie Deboer (2023) - You Can't Just Say "Oh, That Doesn't Matter" About Every Single Political Question
Matthew Schmitz, First Things (2023) - How Gay Marriage Changed America
N.S Lyons, The Upheaval (2022) - No, the Revolution Isn’t Over
Nick Timothy, The Telegraph (2023) - Britain’s Passive Surrender to a Woke Minority Risks Everything We Cherish
Patrick Deneen, UnHerd (2023) - J.S Mill and the Despotism of Progress
Sebastian Milbank, The Critic (2023) - Rethinking ‘Free Speech’
Wokal Distance (2023) - How to Play Games With Words - Best definition of ‘Woke’ I’ve come across.
What’s the Difference Between the Dissident Right and the (Third) New Right?
Third New Right
The word ‘New Right’ has been used to describe a multitude of different movements, which makes the term confusing and imprecise.
The first Anglo-Saxon ‘New Right’ was the Fusionism of the American magazine National Review and its editor William F. Buckley in the 1950s, which informed Reaganism, but also Thatcherism in Britain in the subsequent decades. However, the French New Right is extremely different, emerging in the country during the 1970s and being much more radical and race-focused, and so it is distinguished from the Anglosphere uses of the term by using the French translation ‘Nouvelle Droite’.
In the Anglo-Saxon world, the current usage of the term ‘New Right’ is actually the ‘Third New Right’. As mentioned, the First was based around the National Review magazine and figures like William F. Buckley, Russell Kirk, William A. Rusher, Frank Meyer, Brent Bozell, and James Burnham in the 1950s and 1960s, and the Second was based around the ‘Moral Majority’ movement and figures like Jerry Falwell, Pyllis Shlaffy, and Pat Buchanan in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.
The ‘Third New Right’ (TNR), referred to by most today simply as the ‘New Right’, is a broader umbrella term describing a more populist, anti-Woke style of right-wing politics compared to the globalist and culturally left-wing conservative mainstream.
The uniting belief of the TNR is that the neoliberal fusionist paradigm of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan allowed Woke ideology to march through the institutions and society unchecked, and that aggressive state power is needed to halt and reverse this.
Sometimes people on the Dissident Right will describe themselves as ‘New Right’. However, the TNR are distinguished from the DR in that they usually don’t wish to overturn the formal mechanisms of liberal democracy, only wishing for reforms akin to those undertaken in Hungary by Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Some of the chief theorists are even conservative politicians themselves, like Danny Kruger in Britain and J.D Vance in the United States. They also all use real names and not pseudonyms.
Some examples of notable TNR figures in the United States would be: Chris Rufo, Josh Hawley, J.D Vance, Tucker Carlson, Patrick Deneen, Sohrab Ahmari, Yoram Hazony, Michael Lind, Oren Cass, Josh Hammer, and Julius Krein.
Some examples of notable TNR figures in Britain would be: Matthew Goodwin, Paul Embery, Miriam Cates, Danny Kruger, William Clouston, Eric Kaufmann (Canadian), Steve Edginton, Sebastian Millbank, Aris Roussinos, Ed West, and Poppy Coburn.
Dissident Right
The distinctions between the TNR and the Dissident Right (DR) are often made intentionally blurry, and there is a large degree of overlap.
The DR shares the TNR’s hatred of mainstream conservatism and neoliberalism, but tends to be more radical. It is much more openly suspicious of democracy and egalitarianism at a fundamental level, with much of its work inspired by the Neoreactionary thinking of Curtis Yarvin (Mencius Moldbug), that I shall post links to. Many explicitly support a return to Monarchy or a formal theocratic state.
However, the DR does not have one unified vision. It is only defined by its being outside of the mainstream, terminally online, and being more radical than the TNR.
Some examples of notable DR figures in the United States would be: Curtis Yarvin, Auron MacIntyre, Dave ‘The Distributist’ Greene, Bronze Age Pervert (Costin Alamariu), Zero HP Lovecraft, The Prudentalist, Charles Haywood and N.S Lyons.
Some examples of notable DR figures in Britain would be: Academic Agent (Neema Parvini) and Morgoth.
Good Beginner Summaries of the Dissident/New Right
From our dearest enemies…
Ironically, it is often our enemies that give the best analysis of our key ideas and various divisions for those who have never come across them before.
One can imagine them ‘coping and seething’ when they find out that their articles, that were intended simply to inform their liberal readers of how evil we are, are in fact recommended by us, as beginner introductions for our ideology. They have inadvertently helped spread ‘Bigotry and Hate Speech’.
Matt MacManus, In These Times (2023) - National Conservatives, Postliberals and the Nietzschean Right: Meet Today’s Terrifying GOP
Videos
Published in 2022, Keith Woods (a member of the Dissident Right) explains the factions of the more specific ‘Dissident Right’.
The Canon
Here I post the books and essays that are considered to form the ‘Canon’ of the ‘Third New Right’ and Dissident Right.
Curtis Yarvin, Unqualified Reservations - A blog detailing Yarvin/Moldbug’s core ideas, and the ideas of Neoreaction (NRx). He does tend to ramble a lot, as that is his writing style. The shorter works I would recommend are ‘A Formalist Manifesto’ (2007) and ‘Patchwork: A Political System for the 21st Century’ (2008). If you want an even shorter broad overview, the polcompball page for Neoreaction is rather informative. Yarvin originated terms like ‘the Cathedral’, which are standard in the movement.
Patrick Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed (2018) - The foundational text of the Postliberal faction. Many other factions can take something away from it, even if in my personal view it focuses too much on the ‘individualist’ and not enough on the ‘egalitarian’ nature of liberalism. For a shorter overview, I would recommend Charles Haywood’s review.
Bronze Age Pervert/Costin Alamariu, Bronze Age Mindset (2018) - The foundational text of the ‘Vitalists’, and origin of canon concepts like the ‘Longhouse’. A little misogynistic and cryptic at times but it does make some excellent points. To get an understanding of what the Vitalist faction is all about, it is a must-read. Charles Haywood’s review of the book is also good.
Eric Kaufmann, Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration and the Future of White Majorities (2018) - The best book analysing the crisis of mass immigration and demographic change, and what the future of Western countries may look like. A fairly long book but absolutely worth it, and gives you a fairly impartial look at the situation packed with data analysis.
Christopher Caldwell, The Age of Entitlement (2020) - Talks about how the 1964 Civil Rights Act created a ‘second constitution’ for America that de-facto replaced the one of 1789, mandating Wokeism across society. Very informative and detailed, and does not defend the Jim Crow South. For a brief introduction, Auron MacIntyre discusses the book on his YouTube channel.
Neema Parvini (Academic Agent), The Populist Delusion (2022) - This a guide to the thinkers that influenced the Neoreactionary movement: Gaetano Mosca, Vilfredo Pareto, Robert Michels, Carl Schmitt, Bertrand de Jouvenel, James Burnham, Sam Francis, and Paul Gottfried. Academic Agent also talks about why the populist moment of 2016 failed, and what the right can learn from that defeat. Charles Haywood’s review here.
Mary Harrington, Feminism Against Progress (2023) - The intellectual link between TERFism and the Dissident Right, giving a very in-depth look at the ‘Women Question’.
Harrington discusses how before the industrial revolution in Europe, men and women were in practice relatively equal, due to extensive interdependence on one another. However, the industrial revolution upset this balance in favour of men, and feminism is a backlash to this.
Harrington supports biological reality and opposes transhumanism, calling transgender ideology ‘meat lego gnosticism’ and transhumanism ‘cyborg theocracy’. She emphasises that the interdependence between men and women needs to be restored, to end the political gender divide and establish a new complementarian covenant between the sexes.
Charles Haywood’s review at IM1776 here.
Chris Rufo, America’s Cultural Revolution (2023) - Discusses four key Woke thinkers: Herbert Marcuse, Angela Davis, Paulo Friere, and Derrick Bell, and how their ideas managed to take hold of the education system and indoctrinate society.
Richard Hanania, The Origins of Woke (2023) - Talks in rich analytical detail about how numerous acts of legislation and court rulings, like Griggs vs Duke Power Company (1971) and the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987, mandated Wokeness as law before it became culturally dominant. Check out my review here.
These two books were often compared and presented as a pair, with some interesting analysis from various people. These included Sasha Ivanov at Aporia, Eric Kauffmann writing a review of both in Law and Liberty, and Nathan Cofnas reviewing both books whilst giving his own explanation.
Auron MacIntyre, The Total State (2024) - A comprehensive analysis of Auron MacIntyre’s thought and how formally liberal democratic regimes end up becoming tyrannical, with the system intended to create ‘checks and balances’ ending up becoming a leviathan parroting out the same worldview and having the same fundamental interests.
Books that aren’t as well known, but I think should be part of the Canon
Darel E. Paul, From Tolerance to Equality: How Elites Brought America to Same-Sex Marriage (2018) - An absolutely amazing book, packaged with comprehensive sociological research to demonstrate that same-sex marriage was imposed on America through textbook ‘manufactured consent’. The Machiavellian, vindictive nature of the LGBT activists is highlighted in sorrowing detail, disproving the cries from anti-Woke liberals that it is only ‘T’ that ruined it all and that ‘LGB’ is blameless.
This book proves that the bullying and insufferable smugness that defines LGBT activists today, was a feature of the movement from the start. The fact that the LGBT activists were able to overturn 32 state referendums and were ultimately rewarded for it, with little backlash and in fact increased support, shows how elites control public opinion and the ‘will of the people’ is meaningless, which Paul acutely demonstrates through hard data.
It unfortunately doesn’t seem to be widely known outside Christian circles, although the book is highly accessible and relatable to a secular audience. American Reformer wrote a good review.
More Book Recommendations
Patrick Deneen, Regime Change: Towards a Postliberal Future (2023) - An attempt by Deneen to provide a political programme for his political ideology. Charles Haywood has a rather negative review of it, as he feels it is too accommodating to liberal views on race, though his review is useful as an abridged summary of the book.
Mark Woolhouse, The Year the World Went Mad (2022) - To me the single best book about the Covid pandemic. Measured and informative, criticising the lockdowns and mandates at a fundamental level without descending into crankery and conspiracism. Here is a review from The Guardian.
Marc Sidwell, The Long March: How the Left Won the Culture War and What To Do About It (2020) - This book basically is the British version of Chris Rufo’s ‘America’s Cultural Revolution’, talking about how Wokeism conquered Britain. It is short and an interesting read.
Ed West, Small Men on the Wrong Side of History/Tory Boy (2019) - Don’t read this if you need hope. It is a bleak, depressing read about how the cultural left has totally weaponized social status signalling and my generation (Gen Z), and women, are on their side.
Still, we should not be in the dark as to where we are, and fall into the populist copium that the majority of people are with us. Only by understanding the truth can we begin the process of fixing it. Unlike Peter Hitchens’ books, West is not completely hopeless.
I read this during the first lockdown, when I still had hope in Boris Johnson and Red Wall Populism, and it went some way to pushing me rightwards. The more radical tendencies have since been vindicated.
Roger Scruton, Fools, Frauds, and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left (1985/2015) - For those leftists who say the right has no equivalent of the ‘Know Your Enemy’ podcast, this proves them wrong. Scruton gives a comprehensive overview and critique of fourteen post-war ‘New Left’ philosophers: E.P Thompson, Ronald Dworkin, Michael Foucault, R.D Laing, Raymond Williams, Rudolf Bahro, Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Immanuel Wallerstein, Jurgen Habermas, John Kenneth Galbriath, and Jean-Paul Sartre.
Matthew Goodwin, Values, Voice, and Virtue: The New British Politics (2021) - A short book giving you an introduction to the political divides in Britain today. My only criticism with Goodwin is actually that he is overly optimistic that the people are with us, and doesn’t focus enough on how young people are not.
Maurice Glasman, Blue Labour: The Politics of the Common Good (2022) - Despite the best intentions of the ‘Blue Labour’ tendency, Labour is a thoroughly Woke party and the cause of returning it to its working-class, communitarian roots is an utterly lost one. ‘Old Left’ types are better off joining the SDP, or even uniting with the more populist Tories like Miriam Cates and Danny Kruger.
Still, I recommend this book because Glasman makes some interesting points about the history and trajectory of Labour and advocates some interesting policies like corporatist sectoral representation in a House of Lords replacement.
Paul Embery, Despised: Why the Modern Left Loathes the Working-Class (2020) - Another ‘Old Left’ condemnation of Wokeism. The Old Left certainly had a proud, romantic ,and noble tradition in many ways, but as a former-Old Left type, I recognize that leftism is irreversibly lost to the Woke and its egalitarianism was always going to lead to Wokeism. Still, it’s a worthy read.
Michael Lind, The New Class War: Saving Democracy from the Managerial Elite (2020) - This in many ways is similar to Matthew Goodwin’s book but takes a broader look at the West, particularly the Anglosphere, and advocates protectionist statism from a conservative angle. Criticises both free trade, mass migration, and decline in trade union power, and champions the old-school working class.
Doesn’t talk much about the culture war itself as much as the material conditions that led to Wokeism, a familiar Economic Leftist trope, though Lind is a statist conservative.
Peachey Keenan, Domestic Extremist: A Practical Guide to Winning the Culture War (2023) - Another Dissident Right book aimed at women, presenting the female case for traditional values, motherhood, and opposition to feminism. Read Charles Haywood’s review here.
Claes G. Ryn, The Failure of American Conservatism, and the Road Not Taken (2022) - Talks about the history of the American conservative movement, and the toxic influence of the Neoconservatives and their fundamentally leftist interpretation of the American Founding led to it being unable to resist the onslaught of cultural leftism. Short synopsis from nationalconservative.org here.
Danny Kruger, Covenant: The New Politics of Home, Neighbourhood, and Nation (2023) - A ‘Red Tory’ counterpart to Glasman’s ‘Blue Labour’. Attempts to apply the Postliberal tradition of America, from thinkers like Deneen and Sohrab Ahmari, to British conditions.
R.R Reno, Return of the Strong Gods (2019) - An interesting book about how society has overcorrected from 1945, and how we are now utterly lacking in values like masculinity and patriotism, leading to the current populist moment. Read Charles Haywood’s review here.
Arthur Milkh (Editor) - Up from Conservatism, Revitalizing the Right after a Generation of Decay (2023) - A collection of essays, all very good. I would particularly recommend the ‘Failure of Legal Conservatism’ chapter by Jesse Merriam, and this other essay of his, A Sheep in Wolves Clothing (2022)
George Hawley, Right-Wing Critics of American Conservatism (2016) - Although predating the Trump years, this book is a really interesting read to understand a wide range of dissident thinkers on the American Right.
Sam Francis, Leviathan and It’s Enemies (2005/2016) - Posthumously published after Francis’ death, it has become a hugely influential work on the Dissident Right, with people like Auron MacIntyre parroting his ideas.
Jonathan Bowden, Why I Am Not a Liberal (2009/2020) - Jonathan Bowden has become something of a ‘British Sam Francis’ in recent years. You will hardly hear anything about him from establishment sources, other than being a ‘far-right white supremacist’. But he had some very interesting things to say, and this book, taken from an interview in 2009 and republished posthumously in 2020, is a great start to understanding his worldview.
Selected Articles About Britain
Academic Agent, The Forbidden Texts (2023) - The Paradox of Tony Blair: The Schmittian Liberalism of Divine Right
Aris Roussinos, UnHerd (2021) - Conservatives Need a Culture War Blitzkrieg
Aris Roussinos, UnHerd (2021) - The Tories Can Learn From the American Right
Aris Roussinos, UnHerd (2022) - Boris Johnson’s Squandered Chance
Aris Roussinos, UnHerd (2023) - David Cameron Destroyed the Tories
Ben Sixsmith, The Critic (2023) - The Tories are Worse Than Weak
Graham Cunningham, Slouching Towards Bethlehem (2023) - Mrs Thatcher and The Good Life
Harrison Pitt, European Conservative (2023) - Britain’s Deep State: Bulldozing the ‘Blob’
Jake Scott, The Critic (2022) - A Church Too Broad Cannot Convert
J'Accuse (2024) - What Does 'Building Institutions' Actually Look Like?
Kieran Everson, The Critic (2022) - Towards a Right-Wing Blob
Miriam Cates, The Telegraph (2024) - Tony Blair is Still Ruining Britain
Morgoth's Review (2023) - Tyralibs, A Taxonomy Of Cancel Culture
Poppy Coburn, The Conservative Reader (2023) - What is the Point of Community?
Sam Dumitriu, The Spectator (2022) - Why Britain Can’t Build Infrastructure
More Selected Articles
Understanding Woke
Auron MacIntyre, The Blaze (2024) - Civil Rights Laws Killed the Constitution
Carl R. Trueman, Heritage Foundation (2021) - How Expressive Individualism Threatens Civil Society
Christopher Caldwell, First Things (2023) - The Fateful Nineties
Christopher Joliffe, Arktos Journal (2023) - Liberalism with Marxist Characteristics
N.S Lyons, Quadrant (2023) - The Woke Revolution is Far from Over
Richard Hanania (2022) - Women’s Tears Win the Marketplace of Ideas
Sebastian Milbank, The Critic (2023) - The Truth About Cancel Culture
Ideological Debates Amongst Anti-Woke
Paul Gottfried, Chronicles Magazine (2023) - Inherited Traditions Are More Credible Than Natural Rights
Paul Gottfried, Chronicles Magazine (2023) - Is 18th Century Liberalism to Blame for All Our Problems?
Theophilus Chilton, Neo-Ciceronian Times (2023) - Four Reasons Why Classical Liberalism Ultimately Fails
Fighting Back (Political)
Fighting Back (Cultural)
Economics Debates - Pro-Economic Leftism
Albert Bikaj, European Conservative (2022) - Not Everything is for Sale: A Critique of Neoliberalism
Tomislav Kardum, European Conservative (2022) - The Return of a Right-Wing That Is Skeptical of Capitalism
Economics Debates - Anti-Economic Leftism
Michael Watson, The Hill (2023) - Unions’ Anti-Israel Posturing Exposes the Illusion of a Right-Labor Alliance
Political Systems
Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus, Neo-Ciceronian Times (2017) - Prosperity Requires Stable Government, Not Political Liberty
Policy Reading
Phillip Linderman, The American Conservative (2023) - Berlin Balances Budgets while Washington Drowns in Debt
Preston Cooper and Anne Bowers, Washington Examiner (2023) - How States Can Lead on Higher Education Reform
Sven R. Larson, European Conservative (2023) - Fiscal Forecast America: Farewell to State Independence
Covid Pandemic and Scientific Institutions
Monika Gabriela Bartozewicz, Postcards from Barsoom (2023) - Monopoly on Knowledge, The Era of Epistemic Security
William M. Briggs, Science is Not the Answer (2023) - Refereeing Models Which Ask Us To “Follow The Science”
Videos, Livestreams, and Podcasts
Academic Agent (2020) - Deconstructing Boomer Truth, Pt. 1-9
Alex Kaschuta and Auron MacIntyre (2023) - Another Day in the Total State
Alex Kaschuta and Auron MacIntyre (2023) - No Such Thing as a Secular Society
Alex Kaschuta and Carl Benjamin (2023) - Liberalism: an Autopsy
Auron MacIntyre (2023) - Bill Maher is Wrong About Liberalism and Wokeness
Auron MacIntyre and Carl Benjamin (2023) - Does Liberalism Dissolve Societies?
Auron MacIntyre and Charlemagne (2021) - What Moldbug Gets Wrong
Auron MacIntyre and Charles Haywood (2022) - What Victory Looks Like
Auron MacIntyre and Dave ‘The Distributist’ Greene (2022) - Identifying Friends and Gatekeepers
Auron MacInyre and Inez Stepman (2023) - Is America Over Pride?
Carl Benjamin and Connor Tomlinson (2024) - Communism, Liberalism, and Wokeism
Chris Rufo (2023) - How the Anti-Woke Movement Can Take the Moral and Linguistic High Ground
Chris Rufo (2023) - How the Left Hijacked America’s Institutions and Installed a New Bureaucratic Morality
Dave ‘The Distributist’ Greene (2019) - Democracy: A Considered Critique
Dave ‘The Distributist’ Greene (2019) - In search of an Edwardian Archetype, or How Elizabeth Ruined Bioshock Infinite
Dave ‘The Distributist’ Greene (2023) - Monarchy and the Mind of the Matriarch
Dave ‘The Distributist’ Greene and Carl Benjamin (2022) - Discussing Western Cultural Decline with Carl Benjamin
Dave ‘The Distributist’ Greene and Carl Benjamin (2023) - Examining New Political Prospects with Carl Benjamin
J’Burden and Alex Kaschuta (2023) - The J’Burden Show - Alex Kaschuta
J’Burden and Auron MacIntyre (2023) - The J’Burden Show - Auron MacIntyre
Kaiserbauch (2023) - The Long March Through the Institutions
Keith Woods (2023) - The Idea That Shaped The Modern World: Soros, Popper, and the Open Society
Keith Woods (2023) - The Philosophy of Ted Kaczynski: Was Kaczynski Wrong About Industrial Society?
Lauren Chen and Carl Benjamin (2024) - Liberalism: The Downfall of the West
Louise Perry/Maiden Mother Matriarch and Poppy Coburn (2023) - The Zoomer Right
Uberboyo (2023) - What if Christianity was Rome's Woke Movement?
People Worth Following
British Individuals:
Carl Benjamin (Formerly Sargon of Akkad): Lotus Eaters, Wikipedia, X
Kunley Drukpa: X
Steve Edington: X
William Clouston: Wikipedia (SDP), X, YouTube (SDP)
American and International Individuals:
American Imperium: X
Charlemagne: Substack
Charles Haywood: The Worthy House, X
Curtis Yarvin:, Muck Rack, Substack, Unqualified Reservations, Wikipedia
Darel E. Paul: X
Inez Stepman: X
John Carter: Substack
N.S Lyons: Substack
Oren Cass: American Compass Website, Muck Rack, Wikipedia, X
Phillip Pilkington: X
Theophilus Chilton: Substack
Article Link Pages
nationalconservatism.org - The de-facto homepage of the ‘Third New Right’. More mainstream conservative and Christian-oriented, but frequently updates and has a great article and book list, most of which those on the Dissident Right would agree with. It also occasionally posts articles from more Dissident-oriented individuals.
New Right Poast - Gives frequent and humorous updates on what is going on in the Dissident Right online sphere, withlinks to longform articles as well as X threads. Published around once per week.
Praxarchy - Reposts notable articles from the DR space, mostly from Substack.
Good Publications and Think-Tanks
British
European
American
A very strange mixture of those who are worse than enemies, a few friends, and many of little consequence. I'm glad the dissident right doesn't exist, especially as presented here.
I didn't make the list :(