I am INDEED a Crunchy Con

I bought Crunchy Cons by Rod Dreher with some of my birthday money, and I finished reading it Thursday night. I did not jump the gun in describing myself as a crunchy con after reading the review in Books and Culture. Following are some excerpts.

(Of course, for me, the “Permanent Things” pertain to God, and “ancient wisdom” to the Bible.)

A Crunchy Con Manifesto

1. We are conservatives who stand outside the contemporary conservative mainstream. We like it here; the view is better, for we can see things that matter more clearly.
2. We believe that modern conservatism has become too focused on material conditions, and insufficiently concerned about the character of society. The point of life if not to become a more satisfied shopper.
3. We affirm the superiority of the free market as an economic organizing principle, but believe the economy must be made to serve humanity’s best interests, not the other way around. Big business deserves as much skepticism as big government.
4. We believe that culture is more important than politics, and that neither American’s wealth no our liberties will long survive a culture that no longser lives by what Russell Kirk identified as “the Permanent Things”—those eternal moral norms necessary to civilized life, and which are taught by all the world’s great wisdom traditions.
5. A conservatism that does not recognize the need for restraint, for limits, and for humility is neither helpful to individuals and society nor, ultimately, conservative. This is particularly true with respect to the natural world.
6. A good rule of thumb: Small and Local and Old and Particular are to be preferred over Big and Global and New and Abstract.
7. Appreciation of aesthetic quality—that it, beauty—is not a luxury, but a key to the good life.
8. The cacophony of contemporary popular culture makes it hard to discern the call of truth and wisdom. There is no area in which practicing asceticism is more important.
9. We share Kirk’s conviction that “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…The institution most essential to conserve is the family.”
10. Politics and economics will not save us. If we are to be saved at all, it will be through living faithfully by the Permanent Things, preserving these ancient truths in the choices we make in everyday life. In this sense, to conserve is to create anew.
    

A Crunch Con political agenda might look like this:

• Abolish or greatly restrict abortion and the death penalty.
• Ban cloning, strictly limit human genetic research, and closely regulate the biotech industry.
• Pass laws making it easier to home school, create alternative schools, or otherwise opt out of public education.
• Make commonsense environmental protection a legislative priority.
• Reform the agricultural, health, and commercial regulations to permit and encourage the flourishing of small farms and producers of local foodstuffs, and in turn repopulate rural America.
• Shape zoning restrictions to favor the preservation of old buildings of historic value, require new development to conform to high aesthetic standards, and provide more public spaces for human interaction.
• Adopt an attitude toward business laws that favors small business over large corporations.
• Strengthen local prohibitions against pornography, and appoint judges who believe in the rights of communities to set their own standards.
• Use government, within limits, to look after the poor and the weak without creating a culture of dependency.
• Reform the tax code to offer extra support to married couples who choose to have larger families.
• Orient government toward encouraging an expansion of the role of civil-society institutions—religious, fraternal, and service organizations—particularly at the local level.
• Discourage “one-size-fits-all” national standards in education and other areas. Devolve control from Washington to states and localities.
• Impose an energy policy designed to sharply reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and to develop alternative sources of energy.
  

As I anticipated, Dreher referred to and quoted Wendell Berry extensively. I will save a discussion of his works for a future post. Here are a few of my favorite passages:

The truth is, liberalism—if liberalism is understood as the setting free of people from all limits—has triumphed. Most of us do not believe in restraining our appetites; our politics merely concern which appetites ought to be restrained. Most conservatives believe that sexual appetites should be held in check, but on evidence, they don’t really believe it, and our side is virtually silent on the matter of our desires to get rich (except for a certain strain of religious conservative, for whom prosperity is next to godliness). Liberals believe that consumer desire and the ardor for wealth should be reined in, but it’s hard to see that they take their own rhetoric seriously. And they are silent about the social and personal destruction wrought by the institutionalization of the sexual revolution.

If crunchy conservatism stands for anything, it’s the questioning of Progress and thoughtful but radical dissent from an ideology that believes that the material universe is ours to manipulate to suit our ends.

The most important thing we can do is toss out the television of commit ourselves to drastically curtailing its use. Putting ourselves and our families on a strict mass-media diet is vital; how can we ever hope to think on the Permanent Things if we fill our minds with nothing but ephemerality?

I really could go on and on. There are some areas wherein my personal convictions are not as strong as Dreher’s, but there was nothing that I thought he was actually WRONG about. If you think you may have some crunchy con leanings, you definitely should read this book. However, I recommend that you wait until it comes out in paperback. I read on Dreher's blog this week that the paperback edition will be revised and updated.

(In the event that some of you are concerned that I may be turning into a “tree hugger,” you will note in the photo of my Birkenstocked feet that my toenails are painted. Also, I might add, that I still wear make up as well as all necessary undergarments.)