Perspective: Conservatives are quietly reforming—and championing—“things that will last”
Image by Wikimedia Commons
In City Journal, Christopher F. Rufo exposits “The Quiet Right” as a growing movement going beyond economic policy and seeking to transform local art, education, literature—even town landscapes. And from all around Silicon Valley, you can see evidence of enthusiasm for a vibrant counterculture that’s knowledgeable, thoughtful, and optimistic about Silicon Valley (and what it could be!).
Though few have noticed, this is already happening. A “Quiet Right” is patiently, and nearly invisibly, building a viable counterculture.
The main locus of this movement is in education … Many have turned to homeschooling, which has seen double-digit growth in recent years. Others have enrolled their children in a fast-growing network of “classical schools,” which have returned to the traditional liberal arts curriculum of logic, rhetoric, grammar, mathematics, Latin, and music. And the small but influential network of traditional, faith-based colleges, such as Hillsdale, Benedictine, Thomas Aquinas, and University of Dallas, have seen record-breaking enrollment.
In the cultural domain, the Quiet Right has broken significant new ground. In the arts, right-wing pseudonymous authors have created new magazines, publishing houses, and literary prizes. More mainstream companies, such as the Daily Wire, have sought to create conservative media institutions at industrial scale. Figurative painting and neo-classical architecture have gained appreciation. At the grassroots level, faith-based and family-oriented social media content have seen rapid growth, with “mom bloggers” revalorizing family and motherhood and a “back-to-the-land” movement appealing to classic Americana imagery and offering an alternative to millennial aesthetics.
The Quiet Right is also reshaping America’s social geography. The past decade has seen a movement to repopulate small towns and create culturally moderate communities that offer an alternative to misgoverned coastal enclaves. Covid-19 accelerated this shift, with many families packing their bags and seeking more ideologically compatible communities. They fled California, Illinois, and New York for Florida and Texas. Even within states, the flight to the suburbs is, in large part, a flight from left-wing culture and policy.
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