More Crunchy Talk

More clearing up things I meant to post before now.


Rod Dreher, probably as a sort of lead-up to his forthcoming book, recently had a piece in the Times on crunchy conservatisim. It was mostly about crunchy conservatives' reactions to our consumeristic, materialistic society. Here's a quote:

"A society built on consumerism will break down eventually for the same reason socialism did: because even though it is infinitely better than socialism at meeting our physical needs, it also treats human beings as mere materialists.

It cannot, over time, serve the deepest needs of the human person for stability, spiritual idealism and authentic community. We should not be surprised that all our freedoms have led to a society in which too many people see, as the London stage play had it, "shopping and f******" as the highest ideal to which we should aspire. "


Although I use the term myself, I actually tend to agree with Jonah Goldberg that the attitudes Dreher attributes to crunchy-granola conservatism are really just conservative. I wrote about this before but couldn't find Jonah's piece to link to. Here it is and a quote:


"...if you read closely, about 90 percent of the attitudes [Dreher] attributed to crunchy cons point to their hostility toward the Republican party, not with conservatism.... "Republican" and "conservative" are not now and never have been particularly synonymous. Conservatives have always had an uneasy relationship with the Republican party."