Saving Civilization by . . . Finding a Date?

C onferences are boring. The worst part? Every Q&A portion features some insufferable audience member who hogs the microphone for about five minutes to give an incoherent spiel rather than just asking an actual question. But there’s an exception: the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, or ARC, founded by Jordan Peterson in 2023.

Although the three-day conference in London doesn’t explicitly brand itself as “right wing,” it does advertise a commitment to a somewhat Trumpian narrative: “Growth, at least in the West, has stagnated and there is a growing scepticism and anxiety about the sustainability of human development.” The website has all the keywords you’d expect at a conservative event, such as “flourishing,” “virtues,” and “pro-human vision.” The entry ticket — a whopping £1,500, not including travel or lodging — promises the opportunity to engage with “social, economic, philosophical and cultural questions” with the aim to “re-lay the foundations of our civilisation.” Some big names are speaking over the next few days, including Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Bari Weiss, Bishop Barron, Douglas Murray, Konstantin Kisin, Nigel Farage, Peter Thiel, and Vivek Ramaswamy.

I’m attending with a press badge, and honestly, I’m more interested in speaking with the people in the audience. According to a press release from ARC, there are more than 4,000 attendees from 96 countries. I arrived with one question: Why would you spend thousands of dollars on travel, lodging, and a ticket to hear the people you could listen to on YouTube for free?

But the attendees aren’t all here for the speakers. For many in the older crowd, ARC is another strategic “networking” opportunity to meet donors, future board members, and powerful people. Some of the younger folks have similarly arrived with hopes of professional advancement. One recent graduate of a prestigious university tells me that “woke students” tried to ruin his life because he “liked an Instagram post that criticized immigration,” and his department subjected him to a “struggle session” during what was supposed to be an oral defense of his thesis; he is hoping to find a right-wing employer over the next few days.

Yet some of the calculated “networking” has more virtuous intentions: finding a date. “I don’t really like my corporate job, and I am hoping to find a nice right-wing guy here so I can, you know, get married,” this perfectly pleasant woman in her twenties told me. She described herself as a “recovering girlboss” who became disillusioned with the “progressive lifestyle” after finding it “unrewarding,” and now she desires a traditional domestic role. Given the volume of attendees and the fact that she’s conventionally attractive, I think she’ll find more than one “nice right-wing guy.” (And it is pretty easy to digitally approach someone: The conference has an app that lets you message other attendees.)

She isn’t the only one. “I want a wife, and this is the last place in England where I haven’t looked,” a rather dashing British guy told me. Hmmmm. I pointed him toward Recovering Girlboss, who was about 40 feet away, and relayed her comments. He is talking to her as I type this now. Apparently, the matches made at ARC have decent success rates: One man said he met his now-girlfriend at the last ARC conference, and he’s now looking to buy a ring.

Maybe the conference is more of a gathering — a place more for finding fellow conservatives than listening to the speeches. Regardless of what is said during the panels, the ExCel venue has temporarily become a refuge for free speech in Europe, where the attendees who are discouraged by the censorial culture and impassioned about fighting for the West can speak freely without fear of devastating professional consequences. And perhaps the battle to defend civilization starts with fraternity. A man in his late 20s told me that he is lonely because he doesn’t feel free to share his right-wing views, and so he is here “to make a friend.”