Crunchy Cons

Random House has a page up about Rod Dreher's book, coming in February.

In these pages we meet crunchy cons from all over America: a Texas clan of evangelical Christian free-range livestock farmers, the policy director of Republicans for Environmental Protection, homeschooling moms in New York City, an Orthodox Jew who helped start a kosher organic farm in the Berkshires, and an ex-sixties hippie from Alabama who became a devout Catholic without losing his antiestablishment sensibilities.

Now, whoever could that be?

Comments

[JP]

Amy,
That was a great link. I wonder how many conservatives feel the same way as Rod does?

I know writers like Tolkien and Edmund Burke hated the disappearence of the country village, its farms, gardens and pastures, as well as the way of life that went with it.

I think both writers would be agahst at how much the modern world has destroyed that way of life.

Of course, we should remember that in those bulcolic villages, life was to paraphrase Hobbes, "Mean Nasty,Brutish, and Short."

[Rachel]

I can't wait to read this book. When I first read these musings by Rod (the article in National Review I think) I finally felt, I don't know, Normal. I wrote to Rod and told him as much. Okay, gotta go drink my organic milk.

[Rod Dreher]

Ha! Rachel also was kind enough to give me a lengthy interview for the book, and she's featured prominently in the chapter about houses (in fact, at the end of the chapter, I advise readers to "follow the Way of the Balduccis" -- wait till you read about what a cool thing Rachel and her family have done re: their Catholic community.

And, as Amy guesses, Maclin Horton's also a big part of the book, in the chapter about religion.

[Maria Ashwell]

A book about me?! Okay, my only problem is I can't put it on my Christmas wish list. Perhaps a late gift for the Feast of the Epiphany. All joking aside, I can't wait to read it.

[Fr. Larry Gearhart]

Hey, this guy is all right!

[Charles A.]

I was going to say: whatever happened to Dreher ... he's abstaining big time from the blog commentariat...

[Charles A.]

Am 100% with the manifesto but will forever draw the line at the birkenstocks

[AB]

Rod-

When can we order it?

[Rod Dreher]

Thanks for asking, AB. I appreciate your interest. You can pre-order it via Amazon right now, if you like. The book is really more a work of popular journalism than a theoretical polemic. I interviewed a bunch of folks for it, and had them talk about the way they lived their lives as conservatives that put them outside the mainstream of American (esp Republican) life. What I discovered as I reported the book is that almost all the people who identify as conservatives but who live this countercultural way are religious. It was a trip to be on the phone with an Orthodox Jewish woman from Massachusetts who was going on and on about how much she loves this Pope Benedict, and how the countercultural stands he takes fills her with admiration.

Anyway, the book is organized into eight chapters, each exploring this sensibility as it expresses itself in various aspects of our daily lives. The first chapter defines the phenomenon. Then we get into Consumerism, Food, Home, Education, The Environment, and Religion. The final chapter is called "Waiting for Benedict," a title I got from the final two paragraphs of the Thomist philosopher Alasdair Macintyre's book "After Virtue." Macintyre says that our culture is so fragmented now that recovery in the short term is not really possible, so the only thing for men and women of virtue to do is to create their own communities, like the monks of the fifth century, did to preserve the faith and civilization against the coming of the Dark Ages. Macintyre says the world needs a new St. Benedict to inspire communities of virtue in the same way.

My view is that the only way any of us are going to preserve for ourselves and our families our faith and our values is to live intentionally countercultural lives, and in turn to build up our own communities. I don't advocate neo-Amishness, but I do advocate more or less seceding from the media and the mall, but not in a fearful sense; rather, I find positive joy in the good things we have, and believe that we've got to work to create communities where those things are preserved and affirmed, even celebrated, in our families and communities.

Though I'm essentially a cultural pessimist, this is not a downer of a book. We have so much to celebrate, but we have to know it and claim it. The epigraph I chose for the book is a quote from Balzac: "Hope is memory plus desire." I find hope in remembering what we once had in the past, and desiring to have it again. We can, if we want it bad enough, and are willing to create it again, along with families who share our commitment to Russell Kirk's dictum that "the family is the institution most necessary to conserve."

Anyway, my intent is that the book be accessible to a general audience, and that it encourages people to joyfully reclaim traditions that are our cultural inheritance, and which can live again. This book should appeal to folks who like Tolkien, Kirk, E.F. Schumacher, Wendell Berry and the like. I was tickled to discover how "crunchy-conservative" John Paul II was in his teachings.

[AB]

You can pre-order it via Amazon right now, if you like.

Done,
_

[Maclin Horton]

How hypocritical would it be for one of the crunchy cons who appears in the book to put it on his Amazon wish list?

"anti-establishment sensibilities"?--I ask mysef if that description is really still accurate. I guess so, in fundamental ways. But as far as the way I live is concerned, I'm just another suburbanite. We--my wife and I--never got very far in pursuing an alternative. But then one of the reasons we didn't was that we put family--our non-Catholic extended families--ahead of being alternative, so I guess that qualifies as another sort of alternativity.

Speaking of Wendell Berry, I just finished his most recent novel, Hannah Coulter, and it is a gem, maybe a masterpiece, as much a mystical meditation as a novel. I'm planning to review it, either on one of my web sites or for the local paper.

[Victor Morton]

Wal-Mart rules!!! Pave the rain forest!!! Drywall is the new manna!!! Kyoto is the latest Kellogg-Briand!!! The mall is my Savior, I shall not want.

[Peg]

I was going to say: whatever happened to Dreher ... he's abstaining big time from the blog commentariat...

Charles, me, too. I look forward to getting the book. Would make a good present for Christmas, but for the wait, although by February a good read would be just the right tonic while waiting for spring. Peg in Denver

[Rod Dreher]

I appreciate your interest, Peg -- and your business, AB.

I've pretty much stayed off the blog boards because I don't have anything new to say about this stuff, and I finally lost heart for participating in the all-too-familiar arguments. I have nothing to offer on the usual Catholic fronts except cynicism and despair, which does neither me nor anybody else any good to dwell on in the comboxes. It's a lot healthier, spiritually speaking, for me not to get caught up in this stuff. I said all I had to say, and did the best I could, so it's time to move on.

Victor Morton, by the way, was the main source for the long and exhaustively footnoted chapter on the manifold right-wing glories of the haggis, but we dropped it at my publisher's suggestion because it was barking mad. So he's just bitter. ;-D

[Joe Gloor]

I am not completely enamored with Dreher's little manifesto so I have added my comments below each point.
It's not that I fundamentally disagree with the attitude of it, but I'm just not sure you could find a conservative who would take the other side - that is, who is in the "conservative mainstream", who are "modern conservatives"?
It's really just a set of "dreamy" platitudes.

A Country Con Manifesto

1. We are conservatives who stand outside the conservative mainstream; therefore, we can see things that matter more clearly.

What gives you that idea? Come on now! How does standing outside the conservative mainstream help you see things that matter more clearly? That doesn't make any sense at all and is certainly an un-provable point.

2. Modern conservatism has become too focused on money, power, and the accumulation of stuff, and insufficiently concerned with the content of our individual and social character.
Who, exactly, are you referring to? Rush Limbaugh? Because I think he would deny the charge about himself.

3. Big business deserves as much skepticism as big government.
Thank-you, Captain Obvious!

4. Culture is more important than politics and economics.
I must be dense, but isn't politics and economics a part of our culture?

5. A conservatism that does not practice restraint, humility, and good stewardship—especially of the natural world—is not fundamentally conservative.

What are you trying to tell me? Conservatism is not conservative when it isn't conservative - especially in the natural world.

6. Small, Local, Old, and Particular are almost always better than Big, Global, New, and Abstract.
...Unless it's an ambulance on the way to the hospital, or the hospital.

7. Beauty is more important than efficiency.
I had this same argument with my son regarding the chrome muffler he bought and was trying to install on his motorcycle. My side: "I don't give a **** about chrome."
This also sounds as if it is in opposition to #2 above.
Furthermore, efficiency can be very beautiful.

8. The relentlessness of media-driven pop culture deadens our senses to authentic truth, beauty, and wisdom.
Not if we don't watch it, which, I suppose, is the point. But 'media-driven' pop culture isn't really embraced by anybody who has overcome puberty.

9. We share Russell Kirk’s conviction that “the institution most essential to conserve is the family.”
Who is the conservative that disagrees with this?

Go have a Big-Mac and get it over with. You know you want one.

Joe

[Maureen]

It's always good not to be too wrapped up in things. OTOH, it's also important not to be too wrapped up in things like aesthetics.

It's good to support what's good, true and beautiful, but it's not good to suppose that the only true beauty is the kind of beauty one prefers.

I look forward to reading Rod's book, but I also sympathize with those who have large disagreements with his list of principles.

[John L]

Rod you may well answer this query with 'buy my book' but I couldn't help wondering if any of the crunchy conservatives you describe espouse some form of distributivism. That would be a real difference between them and conservatives who see nothing wrong in an economic structure where most people work for wages paid them by large corporations, which corporations are owned by a small, rich fraction of the population.

[Joe Gloor]

Maureen -

I wouldn't say I have large disagreements with the principles as much as I don't think any conservative would have large disagreements with the principles.

Framing the topic as a "Crunchy" conservatism versus "modern" conservatism is a mistake.

The subject might be better framed as "Real Conservatism" versus whatever "media" or "liberals" claim that conservatism is.

What I find fault with is making an argument against "modern conservatism" by taking the position that what current media says about conservatives is true.
I.E. - "Big-business", "Anti-nature", "Greedy money wasters".

The manifesto has the appearance of saying "We're the good conservatives, not the bad conservatives." It should be saying simply "Conservatives are good" - here's how.

If the subjects written about in this book are "new" or unusal because they are "counter-cultural" and yet still conservative, then the point being made should be "Look, we drink green tea, but we don't think gay marriage is a good idea."
Or "I'm such a tree-hugger that I plant two for every one I cut down!"

That's all,

except, "you want fries with that?"

Joe

[Maclin Horton]

John L,

I strongly espouse distributism--quixotic though that position may be. Click here for a book review which summarizes my views.

[Rod Dreher]

Joe, I'm not going to get into this with you now. I'm about to leave for an overseas trip in a couple of hours, and besides, I'll wait for the book to come out to more fully explain my point of view. I'll be happy to jump into this discussion then. Thanks for your patience.

[Joe Gloor]

I'd be honored.

[Donna]

When I read Rod's initial remarks about "crunchy cons" on NRO, they rang a bell with me. Here's why:

I have voted GOP in national elections since '92. I favor the war in Iraq, the end of affirmative action, welfare reform, and other (not all) Republican stances. I returned to the Church this past year and believe in orthodox Catholicism. I am niether a "Rad Trad" or a left wing, "spirit of V II" Catholic.

But - I am a single woman who lives in a one bedroom apartment in an urban, very liberal area and walks to work. Nobody would consider me wealthy, or even well-to-do. I would like more money so I could travel more (I would love to visit Rome for instance - and the Holy Land), but I am not terribly interested in cars, Ipods, plasma TV's, celebs, or the lastest fashions, I eat more soup and beans and rice for dinner than I do steaks. I like long dangly earrings, long flowing skirts, and thrift store finds more than I do suits and heels. I spend far more money in bookstores than I do in shoe stores. Malls depress me. In short, I vote conservative, but look to all the world like a liberal Democrat. And I have a hard time feeling like I fit in anywhere - I feel out of place among the "justice and peace" types at my parish and I feel out of place among the shiny people in my sister's upper middle class suburb.

The feeling was even more pronounced when I lived in D.C. I felt like I was spiritually, emotionally, and politically 10,000 miles from my ultra-lib Capitol Hill friends and neighbors, but when I was invited to a party of Reaganite Republicans in Alexandria, I didn't feel I had much in common with the BWM and dress-for-success crowd either.

I believe capitalism has raised more people out of poverty than any other system - but sheesh, what jerks capitalists can be. And what dreck they can foist on the public.

Yeah, I think I'm one of Rod's "crunchy cons!"

[Eileen R]

Rod's crunchy con descriptor really *clicked* with me at the time he came up with it, and I see other people here feel the same. I suspect that self-described crunchy-cons *do* feel somewhat ill at ease with the general conservative movement atmosphere gives validity to Rod's analysis automatically. Critics may say he's not pointing to any real difference, but there's at least a psychological difference here.

I'm really looking forward to the book.

[Anne-Marie]

Rod Dreher's original article really clicked with me, too. The big question is whether crunchy cons have different principles, or merely different tastes, than other conservatives. People like Donna and me feel out of place among artsy liberals, even if we fit in aesthetically, because we know that they despise a lot of what we hold most dear. Do we feel out of place among the shiny Republicans just because we have different styles, or because we have substantive disagreements?

Question for Donna: Would you feel equally out of place at a barbecue of people who share your political and religious views and who drive pickups, shop at Wal-Mart, and spit tobacco juice? I would feel more at home there, I think, because I'm instinctively (and somewhat irrationally, I admit) suspiscious of wealth.

This points to what I think is the most promising area for a real, not merely stylistic, difference among conservatives: point 3 of the manifesto, "Big business deserves as much skepticism as big government." However, I'm not sure that this difference lines up neatly with the stylistic difference between crunchy cons and others.

I look forward to the reading the book. Perhaps these questions will be addressed.

[michigancatholic]

Donna,
You sound like thousands of us out here. And me. =)

[(Fr) Septimus]

Can someone explain -- or point me toward a link that explains -- just what "crunchy con" is supposed to mean, and why they're "crunchy"?

[Rachel]

(Fr):
Here is the article I referred to reading, that explains the concept of the book: http://www.nationalreview.com/dreher/dreher071202.asp

[Leo]

Like Donna and others, I don't feel comfortable with any single group with which my life regularly intersects. I am religiously devout (after a period of not being so), yet I feel uncomfortable with people who display excessive public religiosity. I am a strong proponent of free markets and capitalism, but I am an equally strong proponent of environmental conservation. I vote Republican, yet feel a strong unease in doing so. I often feel more comfortable with secular, liberal types, until the talk turns to politics, religion, or social values. I grew up in large cities (which I still enjoy visiting), but love living in a rural community and eating locally-grown food. (And yes, I eat granola, thus qualifying me as crunchy.) I wish so badly that I could find a local cohort of like-minded people, but I am certain that others like me are scattered to the four winds.

[Maclin Horton]

Re Anne-Marie's post above: without hijacking Rod's schema, I'll say that the point about big business is the point of principle upon which I part company with conservatism as it's generally understood. I think the movement has an enormous blind spot there. I'm looking forward to seeing how Rod handles it.

[Troll]

Business.
How big is too big? If I start a business, how many employees am I "allowed" to have before I am too big? An important feature of American capitalism is that, due to relatively low levels of regulation, any bonehead can start a business. And if he isn't too boneheaded, it might succeed.
Where, exactly, does the blind spot exist?
I always cringe when I see that some government entity has made a special tax deal with some business. But then nobody would describe this as conservative, even if many conservatives participate in this practice.
A business of any size is objectionable if it is run in a immoral fashion. I am happy to give my business to a large company if it appears to be run according to sound moral principles (which would include not contributing to Planned Parenthood, etc.).
However, style wise, I'm sure I would agree with many whose comments appear above. It's rare to see advertising that doesn't assume a certain level of stupidity on the part of the intended recipient. Large retailer X seems to take good care of it's customers, which is moral, whatever their other failings might be. Cell phone company Y acts as if most of their customers are pimps, drug dealers, and teenagers, and I've told them so.
But then many of the one-man barbershops in my area don't stick to their published hours if they feel like going hunting or something, so I refuse to give them my business.

[Donna]

Question for Donna: Would you feel equally out of place at a barbecue of people who share your political and religious views and who drive pickups, shop at Wal-Mart, and spit tobacco juice?

Heck, no! I grew up in a blue-collar neighborhood (the favored activity was going to Friday night fish fries at the local parish; sadly, that's something that seems to have fallen out of favor here, although, weirdly, it's been picked up by secular restaurants in Milwaukee, including some rather posh ones).

What puts me at a disadvantage at barbeques and such is not disapproval of pick-ups, tobacco spitting and Walmart clothes but the fact that my interest in sports is pretty limited. I can talk Packers (although this season, I'd rather not), but I can't even fake an interest in basketball, hockey, college football, or stock car racing. And I really stink at Texas Hold 'em.

[Donna]

I wish so badly that I could find a local cohort of like-minded people, but I am certain that others like me are scattered to the four winds.

Well, Leo, isn't it nice that we social misfits at least have a chance to "meet" on Amy's blog? :-)

Anne-Marie wrote:

This points to what I think is the most promising area for a real, not merely stylistic, difference among conservatives: point 3 of the manifesto, "Big business deserves as much skepticism as big government." However, I'm not sure that this difference lines up neatly with the stylistic difference between crunchy cons and others.

That's a really good point. I wonder if the big break isn't "crunchy cons" vs. the rest, but rather libertarians who believe in radical individualism vs. social conservatives. An extreme libertarian sees nothing wrong with a profitable business that happens to be churning out X-rated movies, or fetuses for experimentation - as a Catholic, I'm repelled by the notion that the marketplace, or Wall Street, is God.

I went though a brief period of calling myself a "libertarian" in the '90's. I don't think that was an accurate description, but believe me, as someone raised in a solidly Democratic household, I was quite uncomfortable applying the terms "conservative" or "Republican" to myself for a very long time.

The extremely brutal reaction some libertarians had to the Schaivo case finally drove home the message that I was not one of them, and never really had been.

[Rod Dreher]

Hi everyone, I'm sitting by the seashore in Dubai, of all places, about to go to a media conference. I wanted to chime in and say that the debate between "traditionalist" conservatives, who were more interested in culture and virtue, and "libertarian" conservatives, who were more concerned with economics and reducing state power, goes back to the immediate postwar period. Frank Meyer came up with "fusionism," which basically said, "Why fight? We have a lot in common, and we need not insist on ideological purity to work together to achieve common objectives." It was largely a tactical achievement, and it made so much conservative success in the real world (e.g., the election of Reagan), possible.

So what I'm doing by weighing in on the traditionalist side is renewing an old and useful debate on the Right. I believe American conservatism, and America itself, has given itself over too much to the spirit and principles of libertarianism, and that we should have a conservative corrective (IOW, I'm arguing for John Paul's teachings on personal and social morality). But like I said, I'll be pleased to discuss this in detail when the book comes out.

[Maclin Horton]

Troll,

In a nutshell, the blind spot is the failure to recognize that big business is the enemy of widespread private property and the of the virtues which widespread ownership is thought to foster. See the link in one of my posts above, or just google "distributism" for more.

On the practical level, the delusion that our existing large corporations are, in general, on the side of anything that can reasonably be defined as "conservative" is widespread on both the political right and the political left.

[Jonathan Carpenter]

Mr. Dreher said:

"But like I said, I'll be pleased to discuss this in detail when the book comes out."

Amazing, the only time he has to grace us with his epistles, is when he is hocking his book. I also hope Mr. Dreher spends some time researching the people of Dubai and throughout the Persian Gulf, instead of holding up in the Dubai Hilton with other Apparatchniks. If he did he would definitely be in favor of the Iraq War, instead of making it into the modern Vietnam. That is just my opinion, I could be wrong. Not!

[Susan Young]

The book sounds interesting, but the whole idea of people being "crunchy" makes me feel like I have something stuck in my teeth.

[Victor Morton]

... he is hocking his book.

I think the word the illiterate is trying to spell is "hawking." Mr. Dreher has already "hocked" his book, if it be of that literary/intellectual quality, absent The Haggis Chapter.

... instead of holding up in the Dubai Hilton with other Apparatchniks.

How does one engage in "holding up in" a hotel unless one is robbing the business at gunpoint or delaying some (unmentioned) object in said establishment? I think the writer must mean "holing up," but, having seen through Herr Dreher and divined the charlatan that he is, the writer is far too smart to be that stupid.

Also, there's no "n" in "apparatchiks" (no real reason to capitalize it in English either).

That is just my opinion, I could be wrong. Not!

One word too many there, bud.

[MG]

Social conservative v. libertarian conservative seems a tolerably clear distinction. But it's hard to see how "social" lines up with "crunchy." "Crunchy" sounds like someone who wears sandals, addresses strangers by their first names, and uses a discarded wooden crate for a coffee-table (whimsical! authentic!), whereas a certain kind of non-crunchy social conservative thinks it's important to know when to wear loafers w/ tassels and when to wear loafers w/o tassels, and frowns on certain forms of crunchiness (wearing sandals to church!) as indicative of decadence.

If the real distinction is social vs. libertarian, perhaps "crunchy" is turning out to be a bit of a misnomer. Going back to Anne-Marie's earlier point, perhaps social vs. libertarian is the substantive difference, and crunchy is a particular way of embodying social conservativism, a way that is a combination of style preferences and substantive points over which crunchy cons disagree with other social conservatives.

[Patti]

Victor -- priceless!

[Anne-Marie]

Donna wrote:
"I wonder if the big break isn't "crunchy cons" vs. the rest, but rather libertarians who believe in radical individualism vs. social conservatives."

I think this can be broken down even more. People can be either libertarians or authoritarians (for lack of a better word--and I realize it's actually a spectrum, not just two categories) on both social issues and economic issues, and your position on one doesn't necessarily predict your position on the other. This gives four groups: the libertarians on both social and economic issues; social libertarians and economic authoritarians, the stereotype liberals; social authoritarians and economic libertarians, who are the stereotype conservatives; and finally social and economic authoritarians, where the crunchy cons fit.

I suppose you could make this more complicated by adding more classes of issues (environment, guns, foreign policy), but these seem to me the defining ones.

I'm still not happy, though, with the "crunchy" aspect of crunchy conservatism. I know plenty of people who are in the social and economic authoritarian camp but who aren't crunchy in style, because they're more "shiny" or because they're more plebeian. If we all agree that there should be limits on both abortion and corporate activity, does it matter whether we shop at the thrift store, Brooks Brothers, or Wal-Mart?

[Anne-Marie]

Mr. Horton,

Beautifully put. Thank you.

[Leo]

To buttress the thread from Maclin Horton and Anne-Marie, Milton Friedman long ago maintained that business enterprises (presumably big business, because only they have the clout to effect such policies) can reliably be counted on to undermine free markets in an attempt to protective their own turf. Such special pleading leads to protective tariffs, targeted provisions in the tax code, subsidies, and other anti-competitive practices. Of course, for this to work, there must be a partner (big government) with the power to confer such advantages. Prof. Friedman originated this idea years before the Supreme Court ruling in Kelo et al. vs. City of New London et al., which is leading to an ever increasing violation of property rights . And so, the beat goes on.

Given all of this, point no. 3 posted above by Joe Gloor cannot reasonably be disputed. And what I have written does not even begin to address the cultural pollution that is undertaken in the name of economic striving.

[Patti]

Jonathan, I apologize for chuckling at Victor's statement at your expense during your attack on Rod.

[JenB]

Rod-
I'm at work and don't have time to read through all of the comments, but I did check out the Random House site and read through the Manifesto and wonder if you'd agree with this:

As a Catholic I find myself agreeing with the GOP on certain issues, particularly pro-life issues, but then find it hard to defend them in, say the capital punishment decisions, and then find myself sorta fence sitting, uncomfortably between our two-party system.

Our faith calls us to certain norms that neither party espouses heartily, but one can find parts within each party to support.

At any rate, I liked the manifesto and look foward to the read.