Right-wing ideology is strategically coherent even when logically inconsistent.

Evidence

In an important blog post last year, Adam Kotsko discussed this liberal leftist compulsion — rife in social media — to point to superficial contradictions in conservative ideology. “‘They believe in small government… until it comes time to control women’s bodies!’ Zing!” The problem is that these kind of sarcastic dismissals confuse argumentative or philosophical incoherence with strategic incoherence. The stated rationales for right-wing positions may not make much add up philosophically, but seen in terms of strategy, they all make perfect sense. Taken together, they serve to blame the victims, assert that the powerful are powerful for moral reasons, and then claim that the role of government is to endorse and reinforce the morally-discovered power structure rather than futilely try to disrupt it. The arguments might clash on a superficial level, but their effects are perfectly coherent and rational once the goal is granted. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1693

Categorization

• DEFINE: Distinguishes philosophical or argumentative incoherence from strategic incoherence — a key conceptual distinction.
• SEED: The insight that pointing out logical contradictions in adversaries is a liberal trap could anchor an essay on why the left keeps losing debates it wins.
• XREF: connects to: Apparent conservative ideological contradictions are strategically coherent — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1693; Ideological coherence is experienced, not logically necessary; Philosophical inconsistency can generate richer intellectual movements than rigid logical consistency. — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 2085

Broader Connections

• Apparent conservative ideological contradictions are strategically coherent #corroborates (1.00) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1693
• Ideological coherence is experienced, not logically necessary #expands (0.82)
• Philosophical inconsistency can generate richer intellectual movements than rigid logical consistency. #expands (0.72) — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 2085