Rod Dreher has written a book. Get a load of the title:
Crunchy Cons: How
Birkenstocked Burkeans, gun-loving organic gardeners, evangelical free-range
farmers, hip homeschooling mamas, right-wing nature lovers, and their diverse
tribe of counterculture conservatives plan to save America (or at least the Republican Party)
No doubt about it. This book will pass for the longest titled American-published book this year. At least I'd be very surprised to see any title longer. Publisher's Weekly offers the following introduction:
" What do you call people who vote for Bush but shop at Whole Foods? Crunchy cons. And according to Dreher, an editor at the Dallas Morning News, they're forming a thriving counterculture within the contemporary conservative movement. United by a "cultural sensibility, not an ideology," crunchy conservatives, he says, have some habits and beliefs often identified with cultural liberals, like shopping at agriculture co-ops and rejecting suburban sprawl. Yet crunchy cons stand apart from both the Republican "Party of Greed" and the Democratic "Party of Lust," he says, by focusing on living according to conservative values, what the author calls "sacramental" living."
That's not a bad description, I suppose, and though I haven't read the book yet (I definitely would like to peruse it in a bookstore), Dreher offered a preview of the book in a fascinating -- in fact, utterly splendid -- article published in National Review magazine back in September 30, 2002 and republished in May 1, 2005. The quotes below don't do justice to the article. It needs to be read in its entirety.
* There are four basic areas that are touchstones for crunchy conservatives: Religion, the Natural World, Beauty, and Family.
* The crunchy cons, religious or not, share a belief that something has gone seriously wrong in contemporary mass society, and are grasping for "authenticity" (a word you hear often from this group) amid a raging flood of media-driven consumer culture.
* A view of the material world as fundamentally flawed but fundamentally good, and therefore to be revered, embraced, and celebrated within limits, is a key crunchy-right concept.
* Take the environment. Crunchy cons tend to look at the world through the eyes of Tolkien's Sam Gamgee, returned from the war to his beloved shire, only to find the land despoiled by industrial "progress." While they reject the anti-scientific utopianism of hysterical mainstream environmentalism, crunchy cons are skeptical that the Republican party can be trusted as stewards of the natural world.
* In the crunchy-con view, right-wing indifference to natural beauty extends to the man-made world. Today's conservatives don't say enough about the importance of aesthetic standards.
* We agree with Russell Kirk, who observed, "The best way to rear up a new generation of friends of the Permanent Things is to beget children, and read to them o' evenings, and teach them what is worthy of praise: the wise parent is the conservator of ancient truths. As Edmund Burke put it, 'We learn to love the little platoon we belong to in society.' The institution most essential to conserve is the family."
UPDATE: 2/17/06 Here's an even-handed appreciative review.