Crunchy Conservatism

[UnrepentantSinner]

I'm cross posting a couple of posts and threads referencing a new book by an editorial writer from my home town newspaper The Dallas Morning News. I think everyone on the political spectrum will find Rod Dreher's ideas worthy of contemplation, if not necessarily adoption. Let me know what you think.
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(my post to another forum)
Current Dallas Morning News and former National Review editor Rod Dreher has written a generally well reviewed book entitled Cruncy Cons which he hopes will lead to the start of a paradigm shift within conservatism.

Basically his position is for family values, against crass consumerism and mixes in some environmental protection advocacy. Even if you disagree with his positions, he is a good writer (from what I've seen in his editorials and blog entries) so Crunch Cons might make worthy addition to your reading list if you have room.
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(blog at NationalReview.com)
http://crunchycon.nationalreview.com/
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A Wall Street Journal review of the book.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/la/?id=110007996
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[Dcdrac]

i have watched Anne Coulter a lot on discussion shows and read a few of her books, she is a fanantic and very ranty.

 

[Ladewig]

From the WSJ piece:

Too often, [Dreher] says, "the Democrats act like the Party of Lust."

Other than President Clinton getting his hoo-hah touched by an intern, can anyone give me examples (in the past ten years) of this accusation?

But Mr. Dreher is also ... a proponent of the New Urbanism, an anti-sprawl movement aimed at making residential neighborhoods more like pre-suburban small towns

I don't like pre-suburban small towns and don't believe that we need more of them. I have travelled to a fair amount of them in my last job and I missed independent book stores and movie theaters, good ethnic restaurants, good radio stations, and diversity of opinion.

In Mr. Dreher's view, consumer-crazed capitalism makes a fetish of individual choice and, if left unchecked, "tends to pull families and communities apart." Thus consumerism and conservatism are, for him, incompatible, a fact that mainstream conservatives, he says, simply do not grasp. He warns that capitalism must be reined in by "the moral and spiritual energies of the people." It is not politics and economics that will save us, he declares. It is adherence to the "eternal moral norms" known as the Permanent Things.

If Mr. Dreher is preaching the gospel of personal responsibility (don't buy things you can't afford), then I get get behind him and shout, "testify, brother." If however, this "reining in by moral and spiritual energies of the people" requires government intervention, then I am going to end up siding with the "freepers," which is not a position I necessarily like - it's just that I dislike other positions more.

 

[Cleon]

"Crunchy Conservatism."

I dunno...I prefer my conservatism soft and fluffy. Unfortunately, that's harder to find since Rush went on that diet.

 

[Tony]

I don't like pre-suburban small towns and don't believe that we need more of them. I have travelled to a fair amount of them in my last job and I missed independent book stores and movie theaters, good ethnic restaurants, good radio stations, and diversity of opinion.

I don't see how a pre-suburb small town necessarily lends itself to not having those things you mention.

If Mr. Dreher is preaching the gospel of personal responsibility (don't buy things you can't afford), then I get get behind him and shout, "testify, brother." If however, this "reining in by moral and spiritual energies of the people" requires government intervention, then I am going to end up siding with the "freepers," which is not a position I necessarily like - it's just that I dislike other positions more.

For me, I guess it depends on the kind of government intervention. If it infringes on individual rights and personal choice, I'm against it.

 

[Ladewig]

I don't see how a pre-suburb small town necessarily lends itself to not having those things you mention.

I had assumed that these smaller towns don't have a large enough customer base to support those things. I am prepared to admit that my assumption is invalid if you can show me pre-suburb small towns that have those things.

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

Ladewig posted:

I don't like pre-suburban small towns and don't believe that we need more of them. I have travelled to a fair amount of them in my last job and I missed independent book stores and movie theaters, good ethnic restaurants, good radio stations, and diversity of opinion.

To clarify, Dreher wasn't suggesting "small towns," per se, he was suggesting that residential areas of cities big, medium and small have a pre-Suburban small town "feel." He's not suggesting a sort of cultural Luddism for urbanites, he's suggesting we get back to having "neighborhoods," not mere edifices to consumption where we sleep at night.

On that point I agree with him.

Again, let me point out that I disagree with a lot of Dreher's social conservatism, but I think he's on to something with is points about "societal" conservatism. I happened to catch a segement about his book on the 700 Club and it showed him at the Dallas Farmers Market, a downtown bastion of agrarianism in the shadow of oil and finance built skyscrapers. I'd liken his position not to the Luddism of the Amish, but to one of a position that allows for a small town feel in where we live, diversity of consumer options (i.e. a McDonalds and a Thai resturaunt), an embrace of the old and the new (small farms and the Internet) and a rejection of crass consumerism over mindful (and conservative) austerity.

That I can agree with him on as well.

 

[shecky]

Sounds like Thomas Kinkaide conservtism. I just don't see it happening. "Family values" is ridiculous enough, but environmentalist and against crass consumerism as well? I suppose these Repubs really do want to make Democrats extinct.

 

[Cain]

I think read a cover story awhile ago in _National Review_ on so-called crunchy cons. Of course I didn't find it all that compelling, but it is an improvement upon the dominant conservativism of today. More and more Christians, it seems, are adopting an enlightened position on the environment. Marginally positive trends, but nothing to get excited about intellectually.

 

[Tony]

I had assumed that these smaller towns don't have a large enough customer base to support those things. I am prepared to admit that my assumption is invalid if you can show me pre-suburb small towns that have those things.

I think we need to back up a second. What exactly is a "pre-suburb small town"?

 

[Ladewig]

To clarify, Dreher wasn't suggesting "small towns," per se, he was suggesting that residential areas of cities big, medium and small have a pre-Suburban small town "feel." He's not suggesting a sort of cultural Luddism for urbanites, he's suggesting we get back to having "neighborhoods," not mere edifices to consumption where we sleep at night.

On that point I agree with him.

Again, let me point out that I disagree with a lot of Dreher's social conservatism, but I think he's on to something with is points about "societal" conservatism. I happened to catch a segement about his book on the 700 Club and it showed him at the Dallas Farmers Market, a downtown bastion of agrarianism in the shadow of oil and finance built skyscrapers. I'd liken his position not to the Luddism of the Amish, but to one of a position that allows for a small town feel in where we live, diversity of consumer options (i.e. a McDonalds and a Thai resturaunt), an embrace of the old and the new (small farms and the Internet) and a rejection of crass consumerism over mindful (and conservative) austerity.

That I can agree with him on as well.

If that is what he and his neighbors want, then let them show it by shopping at the local brick and mortar shops that provide that atmosphere, let him and his neighbors trek to the local farmers' market, and so forth. If a small community wants to have a particular flavor, then let them have it, it is not the federal or state government's business to prevent or advocate such neighborhoods. As for rejecting crass consumerism over the mindful austerity of a conservative stripe, again that is no business of the government how he and his cohorts spend their money.

I, however, don't want a small-town flavor. I live in a big city because I like big cities. If I could afford Manhattan or London, I'd live there.

 

[Ladewig]

I think we need to back up a second. What exactly is a "pre-suburb small town"?

I pulled the phrase directly from the link. I assumed (perhaps incorrectly) that it referred to towns too small to have their own suburbs.

 

[Zbu]

I would believe that the term 'pre-suburb small town' is what small towns are in the process of becoming suburbs (hence making more sense since the talk of urban sprawl was brought up). And since I live in one currently, there is a definite lack of new ideas and bookstores and the smaller towns around me that have yet to be affected by sprawl.