The Jolly Heretic, Anti-Intellectualism, and the Decline of the Right-Wing
Edward Dutton is a YouTuber, self-described academic, and relatively popular right-wing figure. As one of the only intellectuals in his space, he’s a darling of the far-right. Dutton mainly rose to fame with his long-form YouTube blogs. In these blogs, he covered science topics, often linking them to human evolution, the study of genius, and politics. Often, the conclusions derived from his videos seemed to support right-wing ideologies. Among these, the biggest ones were the support for in-group sentiments, opposition to immigration and cultural diversity, criticism of leftists and supposed leftist power structures, and criticism of intellectualism in general.
I must admit I used to enjoy watching his content years back. I’d watch his YouTube videos in my leisure as he’d cover topics that I found interesting. I thought he was merely a right-leaning academic and didn’t examine him or his views too closely. It was only after seeing his content become increasingly incendiary that I started researching more about him. Not only that, but I also started researching intellectual right-wing in general. I’ve always tried my best to be an ideologically impartial person, but this has become impossible in recent times. My research into self-claimed right-wing intellectuals only served to expose the ideological dishonesty, misuse of science, and grifting of most right-wing figures; it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. It killed any of my illusions that there were still intellectually honest people in the current right wing.
Dutton is the quintessential example of this: the more you scrutinize his sources, academic claims, credentials, and really any facet of his intellectual work, the more you begin seeing the cracks. I’ll quickly explore some of Dutton’s work to elucidate this. But first, the obvious:
Up until recently, Dutton promoted himself as a professor. His bios on his main social media sites described him as a professor of evolutionary biology and anthropology at the University of Oulu. The problem with this description was that he never taught evolutionary biology, and his title at Oulu was the equivalent of an adjunct professor. Further, he hasn’t been employed by Oulu since he was investigated and found guilty of plagiarizing a student’s paper, but Finnish laws prohibited Oulu from removing his title. While he has rebranded himself as more of an independent figure, his dishonest claims helped him amass an audience who saw him as an honest and credentialed academic.
Dutton has also published work in various journals and publications. If the aforementioned facts about his credentials don’t automatically make his work suspicious, perhaps his online persona should. His video sketches are often eccentric — some I would even call bizarre — and he likes to dress up as characters related to his videos. These could be drag queens and blue-haired feminists, but they could also be famous writers and historical figures. His talking points often make his right-wing views very clear, which would not be an issue on its own if he didn’t spout talking points about race, eugenics, and other far-right ideas. He attempts to back these up with scientific evidence, the majority of which comes from his own publications, yet on closer inspection many of these are low quality or straight up pseudo scientific. Perhaps his most — and only — influential paper is filled with dubious sources, from Yahoo Answers to Bible passages. Dutton and Madison justified this by claiming it was more “interesting” and “engaging” to use these. Apparently, this “novel” way of analyzing this topic, as they put it, brings scientific rigor to the table. Various sites have also covered the types of people and organizations he hangs around, which further puts into question his academic integrity.
Dutton claims that left-wingers tend to be higher in mental instability, leading them to be more anxious and neurotic in the world. He explains that these traits encourage them to forever be trying to attain power, as that would help them feel more in control in a world they feel unsafe in. He also claims that leftists tend to be more power-hungry and Machiavellian, and that’s why leftism is overrepresented in elites. Assuming his claim about leftist mental instability (whatever that means) is true, which is far from settled, linking that to power dynamics seems like a bit of a stretch. Just logically speaking, this is a causation argument that doesn’t leave room for the countless other confounding variables that could be at play.
He conveniently glosses over the alternative explanation related to intelligence and education. Leftists are more educated and have a higher intelligence than right-wing counterparts. This explains why academics and elites would be more likely to be leftists, as education and intelligence are correlated with higher achievement. This presents a possible connection to “mental instability”. It shouldn’t be surprising that having more knowledge/awareness of the world’s complexities would expose people to negative mental states. Some research has indeed shown that intelligent people are more prone to mental illness. While he does acknowledge these things here and there, he never places particular focus on them. Yet even if we assume his conclusions are true, they don’t hold up logically either. Mental illness, or as he calls it “instability”, comes in many different shapes and forms. For example, Dutton completely ignores intelligent, educated people with conditions such as melancholic depression. This is the type of depression that most people think of, where people lack the motivation to do the simplest things. This type of person is very unlikely to be motivated enough to accrue power, let alone get out of bed.
Dutton also bases a great number of his claims on evolutionary theories related to group selection. Broadly, he believes that groups that prioritize the in-group and keep out outsiders will be more likely to survive. These ideas rely on concepts such as genetic similarity and social epistasis. Most literature finds genetic similarity to be of minimal effect compared to social altruism and reciprocity theories, at least as it pertains to society as a whole and not just one’s immediate family. In the case of social epistasis, it’s a hypothesis derived from non-human beings that’s never been observed in humans at all. Group selection theories are decades old, and have been expanded upon by many evolutionary biologists ever since, but Dutton and colleagues seem to be stuck in the past. The very fact that Dutton and his colleagues base his theories upon social epistasis, something only found in non-human species such as ants, should immediately set off alarms. But even if you ignore them, you’ll quickly come to realize Dutton often mischaracterized evolutionary biology and science when appealing to his more extreme audiences. Furthermore, no expert currently believes that group selection theories are sufficient to explain everything about group dynamics. But Dutton clings hard to it since it serves his right-wing agenda.
Dutton is a perfect example of the typical right-wing academic process: they form a hypothesis based on their preconceived beliefs and try to find academic evidence that proves them right. This is the opposite of proper science — it’s an ideologically guided contortion of it.
As Dutton himself often mentions: less intelligent people act impulsively and are guided more by their instincts than rationality. Dutton admits conservatives have lower IQs than liberals, but he turns this around to try to justify their virtue. He believes that these evolutionary instincts are infallible and all-good, and since liberals tend to divert from them liberalism must be maladaptive. He doesn’t seem to realize rationality has been the main force turning the wheels of history, especially when it comes to contributions from geniuses (who he so venerates) and intellectuals. Furthermore, he completely ignores how instinctual thinking can hurt people and be counter-productive. This is ironic since Dutton is fascinated with the phenomenon of genius, which he defines as outlier high intelligence coupled with intuitive thinking. But this is nonsensical. It seems Dutton needs to apply Occam’s Razor to his ideas; either intellectualism and genius propel society in an adaptive direction, or they don’t. Given the vast technological and scientific advancements made in recent times, I’d wager the former is true. It should be clear by now that, by attempting to reconcile science with his ideological assumptions, Dutton has created a contradictory ideology.
Scientifically speaking, practically none of his work has been recognized or peer-reviewed by respectable journals. He uses outdated and limited evidence to support his far-right, racialist theories. And yet he’s very obviously part of the far-right’s intellectual elite, being invited to talk to prominent figures such as Richard Spencer and being an editor at the notorious Mankind Quarterly. He’s one of the most important so-called intellectuals in these circles, even if he dishonestly claims he doesn’t associate with them. Rather than an exception, people like Dutton are the rule in these — usually white supremacist, pseudo-scientific, and alt-right — circles. It shouldn’t be a surprise that people who try to appear more moderate when compared to Spencer types gravitate to someone like him. Even conservatives who aren’t far-right distrust science, especially when it’s used as evidence for social changes they don’t agree with. That is, mainstream science. Right-wingers are all on board with science when it comes from people like Dutton, Peterson, or the Heritage Foundation. This is because they might not simply be incapable of thinking scientifically, but unwilling. Conservatives and right-wingers aren’t any less capable of doing science than anyone else. Rather, they’ve been found to display more motivated reasoning. This means that people who identify with the right-wing tend to, just like Dutton, use reasoning to support their already-held beliefs. Put simply, a right-wing value is to readily throw away the truth if it doesn’t align with its ideological beliefs. This is part of a larger trend of conservatism heavily relying on rhetoric and anti-intellectualism. Virtually all conservative intellectualism relies on a priori assumptions. These assumptions have questionable origins, as I will show.
Right-wingers’ lower intelligence is due to their thinking patterns and brain structure. They tend to not be reflective and tend to have smaller brain areas associated with problem-solving and error detection. In other words, they rarely consider their beliefs might be wrong, so they never analyze them. Given this, we can expect them to fall victim to more base human tendencies. Conservatives have been found to have a higher disgust reaction, an example of being more in touch with their instincts. But our instincts also lead us to hold mental fallacies. Right-wingers love to call the left out for being ideological, yet demonstrate again and again that they’re especially guided by ideology. Leftists are usually intellectual, cerebral, and preoccupied with finding the truth in an overly complicated world. Right-wingers, on the other hand, generally want easy answers. The type of answers people like Donald Trump give them. They criticize complicated concepts by simplifying them and making a mockery out of them. Critical Race Theory is not a complex field of study about the interplay between race, ethnicity, biases, and other factors embedded in institutional and legal systems; it’s just a class that teaches you white people are evil oppressors. Reforming the police is not an issue of dismantling corrupt systems that lead to discrimination and are interlinked with the prison-industrial complex; it’s a nonissue that can be resolved by simply having more cops on the street (who will make the problem even worse by detaining more black people — the irony is lost on them.) There are plenty of other examples, from economics to religion to ethics. Yet right-wingers will use these same criticisms — mostly in conspiratorial ways — to attempt to criticize the left. To them, all of academia is an ideological indoctrination machine. So are the majority of elites, scientific organizations, and almost everyone with professional/intellectual credibility. The right wing’s insistence on the ideological left taking over every facet of society could be seen as a clear case of mass projection.
And who should be surprised by this? If you’ve seen enough right-wing content you will have noticed it’s anything but rigorous. Some researchers are exploring the idea that conservatism beliefs might be a coping mechanism for coping with the world. The reductionism, the appeal to emotions, the biases, and especially the fearmongering showcase this. Right-wingers like to call leftists snowflakes, pointing out their supposed sensitivity, but their brains are in fact the most susceptible to fear. This is why Trump’s bread-and-butter technique is to harness the fear of the outsider. Right-wing talking points are mostly reliant on the most primitive and less rational of mental strategies. The type of strategy Daniel Kahneman refers to as Type 1 Thinking; intuitive and using heuristics to solve problems while exerting the least amount of effort. Cognitive biases are plentiful and commonly used by it. Conservatism bias is a very obvious one, as conservatives will appeal to whatever they think came before the current thing — never mind that foundational values they live by such as democracy and liberalism came from intellectuals who would’ve been considered revolutionary in their time. Salience bias is also very common, as conservatives will often point to sensational and loaded ‘evidence’ to form their beliefs. Very often this will be partial truths, misinformation, or straight-up fake news. Surprisingly, appeal to authority is very often seen in right-wingers. Unfortunately, it only applies to cult leaders and conspiracy theorists such as Trump or anyone pretending to be a rebel, not widely-respected institutions.
That last example is what’s fascinating about the current times: conservatives have entered into an era of cognitive dissonance due to the influence of the far-right. This change is extremely clear when you look back at 2016 and compare it to now. When Trump announced his candidacy, a great number of conservatives disavowed him. These conservatives were much more respectable and intellectually honest than conservatives nowadays. Eight years later, the Republican Party, as well as the right wing in general, has unified around Trump. Sure, there are exceptions here and there, but compared to 2016 there is much less resistance to Trump and his shenanigans. It’s especially shocking to see how Trump gathered religious fundamentalist support. He’s probably the least suitable role model for this demographic, both with his upbringing in a liberal city and his tumultuous personal life. And yet the party he leads hosts both these groups. It makes it worse that Trump’s rhetoric has also gone downhill. Trump has ceased even attempting to convince people to support him. He doesn’t need to elaborate on his policies or anything he offers further than saying he has “concepts of a plan” because he knows his base has become a cult. Nothing shows this better than his infamous comment: “I Could … Shoot Somebody, And I Wouldn’t Lose Any Voters.” He’s so confident of the right wing’s unconditional support that he makes these insane statements.
But Trump didn’t create the conditions for his cult. The conditions were already there. All he did was give the people who the Republican base hadn’t properly satisfied all they wanted. He gives them simple, low-hanging fruit explanations to understand the world. He harnesses all the prejudices, fears, and base tendencies of the average low-intelligence person to paint himself as the only one who’s finally on their side. As much as this is a failure of democracy and the power it gives to people like these, it’s also a failure of conservatism and its values. One of the main uniting factors present in the current right-wing is the support of intellectual incompetence. Be it due to laziness or intellectual inability, right-wingers are mentally unequipped to understand the world without using fallacious and simplistic thinking. As I previously mentioned, conservatives are higher in general fear. A prominent conservative fear is the fear of death, which could explain why conservatism goes hand-in-hand with religiousness. Religiousness, anti-science, over-simplification of the real world, focus on rhetoric, fear; all of these are things conservatives can hide behind to avoid understanding the world in all its complexity. Conservatism gives its believers a shield that protects them from having to face the uncomfortable realities of the world; realities such as impending death, inequality, discrimination… In other words, right-wing ideology can be used by conservatives as rose-colored glasses that shield them from having to face reality. This is why anti-science is so common. It’s why fundamentalism is so common. It’s why populism mainly presents itself in the right wing. While these also exist on the left, they are infinitely less common, and the ones that exist always run into push-back from more intellectually savvy leftists.
Ironically, intellectuals such as John McCain, as conservative as they might be with some topics, belong more in the left camp. Not for their ideology, but for the intellectual honesty and rationality they display in comparison to people like Trump and his accolades. Just look at how John Mccain used to handle the types of people who’d be die-hard Trumpers today:
And this might be the trend conservatism has always followed. From the monarchy, to slavery, to Trumpism, conservatism always seems to eventually implode. Once the current of history starts leaving it behind, the right wing eventually becomes so off-putting to normal people that it reaches a critical point. I suspect this is what’s happening with the wave of Trumpism. The American right wing has become so extreme and deranged that it will eventually collapse, paving the way for progress and a better tomorrow.
