Why Bad Books Matter: Past and Future Directions for Understanding Reactionary Ideology

Abstract

A useful tool for learning more about the ways in which the hard Right communicates and integrates is the reactionary diatribe. This is significant in a political context where the hard Right not only is experiencing success, but the default categories of interpretation and criticism can lack bite. A fresh direction for research would link present politics back to historical practice but channel contemporary methods for rhetorical study, picking out reactionary writings as a stable object for inquiry. Therefore, this article (1) revives the category of reaction by re-picturing it as a 'second-order' ideology encompassing all those right-wingers professing to stand on the 'wrong side of History'; (2) draws lessons from some defects of 'populism' theories; (3) places a methodological proposal in relation to earlier theories of reaction, which are confounded most of all by reactionary contradictoriness a feature that rhetorical analysis is far better able to accommodate, inasmuch as messy, chaotic, sometimes ugly communication is grist to its mill. Lastly, (4) the diatribe model itself is described (key properties being digression, repetition and point-dwelling), and then laid out as groundwork for further, indepth inquiry. In the meantime, an important truth surfaces: bad books matter.

Book Review: Richard Shorten, The Ideology of Political Reactionaries

“…Theories of reactionary ideology are few and far between (Lilla, 2016). Even fewer such theories can be mobilized specifically to better interpret the new forces on the political Right on the grounds that they have taken ‘abortive units’ of analysis ‘for reactionary ideology, respectively: dispositions; social interests; and concepts’ (Shorten, 2019: 407). Given the interpretive deficiencies of the extant theories, a niche for re-formulating reaction should be identified at the forefront of modern political ideology study.…”

“…As a recent addition to Routledge’s innovations in political theory, the book offers a distinctive lens on the beliefs reactionaries articulate and communicate at different times and places. Drawing on diversified disciplines, it is dedicated to uncovering what reactionary ideology is and how it functions in political discourse by integrating rhetorical analysis to reaction, which ‘affords communication special priority’ to ‘enrich the study of ideology’ (Shorten, 2019: 411). At the heart of the book is the comparative discourse analysis of a broad range of pamphlets from various spatiotemporal settings, through which ‘political reactionaries standardly choose to communicate’ (p. 21), with a focus on examining recurrent performances of rhetorical appeals – logos, ethos, and pathos.…”