The Right Lacks Institutions To Nurture Its Thought Leaders

The right is facing a serious problem about how to handle its intellectuals

The left has the university where it can assign smart people good paying high status jobs where they can explore and cultivate ideas

The right has no similar institutions, so rightwing intellectuals end up in thinktanks or content production

This creates the “public intellectual” who comes onto the scene with a burst of insight

Content production is a grind, even if you’re saying intelligent things eventually the need to say something about everything leaves you little time to think deeply about anything

Academics are also not really equipped to be public figures, they are not built to do battle with a hostile public on a regular basis

I think this is a lot of what has happened with guys like Jordan Peterson, he should be given the time to reflect on an issue and put out something every few months, instead the content churn and social medial battles make it difficult for him to say anything new or interesting

With no time to reflect on and cultivate new ideas the public intellectual has less and less to say and more and more demand for saying something

Not trying to make Peterson a victim here but the right need a better plan to cultivate its serious thinkers, throwing them into the content mill is not a sustainable plan.