Crunchycons: Saving Conservatives from Themselves
by George Shadroui | View comments |
Print This Post
In his book Crunchy Cons, Rod Dreher argues that traditional conservatives who once tried to temper capitalism for the sake of community are now on the margins.
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 countercultural conservatives plan to save America (or at least the Republican Party)
by Rod Dreher
Crown Forum (February 21, 2006)
Hdbk., 272 pgs.
ISBN: 1400050642
With the fall of the Soviet Union, did victory go to the heads of capitalist-minded conservatives?
It is not unreasonable to think so. As Rod Dreher documents in his important book, Crunchy Cons, Ronald Reagan might have helped the West win the war against communism, but he also unwittingly unleashed mindless capitalism that has greatly harmed “the permanent things” traditional conservatives once cherished.
Though he does not wholly blame the Gipper, Dreher implies that Reagan’s ability to galvanize America behind a pro-business, anti-communist agenda left little room at the conservative table for those who might challenge his formula for electoral success. Capitalism became the sacred fire around which most conservatives and Republicans worshipped. When the Soviet Union and its empire tumbled, Reagan’s policies were further vindicated – and traditional conservatives who once tried to temper capitalism for the sake of community suddenly found themselves on the margins.
However, the war for the hearts and minds of conservatives is not over, not if people like Dreher, Matthew Scully or Paul Johnson have a say. Dreher engages the issue directly: what is it that conservatives seek to conserve beyond their own desire for material pleasures?
“The truth is, liberalism – if liberalism is understood as the setting free of people from all limits – has triumphed,” Dreher writes. And conservatives who embrace materialism are every bit as unimaginative in their approach to life as the leftists they love to excoriate, Dreher argues.
Dreher fully grasps T.S. Eliot’s argument In the Idea of a Christian Society – a wrong attitude toward nature suggests a wrong attitude toward God. Conservatives, in ceding this sacred ground to the left, have abandoned their most important obligations as responsible citizens.
Dreher seeks to reacquaint conservatives with values once celebrated by Eliot, G..K. Chesterton, Russell Kirk and James Buckley, among others. In doing so, he relies heavily on the important work of Wendell Berry, a self-described Jeffersonian farmer in Kentucky.
Berry, as I have written elsewhere on this site, has challenged modern systems that devalue those things that should matter most: land, culture, health, community, family, posterity. He is quietly winning over some of us who cannot comprehend a conservatism that would betray our children’s future for an ever-expanding materialist wasteland. Dreher steals a page from the libs when he suggests that family values have everything to do with the way we live, eat, communicate and learn. Shucks, for such outrageous ideas he might even get labeled a heretic.
Dreher, who sits on the editorial board of the Dallas Morning News, traces his conversion to a more sensible position on environmental issues to one-time fellow National Review staffer Matthew Scully, whose book, Dominion, is an elegant plea for deeper understanding of animals and nature. In reading Scully, Dreher realized that the popular caricatures of environmental and animal rights concerns embraced on the Right revealed a dangerously narrow perspective on God and life.
Even today conservatives are more likely to hear radio personalties rant about environmental wackos than engage in an informed discussion about how to carefully manage nature and the environment. But Dreher argues that the issues are complex and potentially profound. He writes, for example, that even if the evidence on global warming is inconclusive, “given the catastrophic results of a global temperature rise – including fiercer hurricanes, flooding of coastal cities, the loss of vast inhabited and cultivated regions to desertification or frost,” one would expect the prudent conservative to err on the side of caution.
If we destroy our forests, abuse our animals, deplete our oceans – the disasters to follow can hardly be described as mere environmental issues. These will represent economic, cultural and national security crises the likes of which the world has never seen.
Dreher does not limit his criticism to the right, however. He is tough on liberals, too, who cannot acknowledge any good done by President Bush, for example, so entrenched are they in their anti-right mindset. Thus Bush’s effective shepherding of a law to decrease harmful methane emissions was not even covered by the liberal media. Likewise, he, like Berry, wants a functional environmental policy that is not simply aimed at protecting land from human encroachment. We need to give serious thought about how we work and live upon the land productively.
Though environment is a theme throughout this book, Dreher’s focus is not simply nature or celebrated environmental matters. Shopping, education, housing, food; he casts a critical eye at each of these areas, and suggests that Americans need to give thought to how they are impoverishing themselves by making thoughtless choices in their day-to-day lives.
Dreher’s views are rooted in a deep religious faith. When we destroy the world around us, spiritually or physically, we destroy the very creation bequeathed to us by God. We cheapen life by reducing existence to a series of meaningless transactions in which the only cherished value is material gain. And yet material gain often equates to spiritual and intellectual poverty. The message is clear. If you eat better, you live better. If you live better, you think more clearly. If you think more clearly, you enrich your life and the lives of those you most cherish and love.
None of this is meant as an assault on free enterprise, but it is a critique of a mindless consumer-driven society. Dreher is not for eliminating free choices, but he does seek to counsel us on how to make better choices. Agree or disagree with a given argument here, this is a serious book that deserves consideration from all sides of the political spectrum. I, for one, think Dreher is mostly right on the big issues.
Crunchy Cons is available on Amazon.com.
shadroui@yahoo.com
Read more articles by George Shadroui
"None of this is meant as an assault on free enterprise, but it is a critique of a mindless consumer-driven society. Dreher is not for eliminating free choices, but he does seek to counsel us on how to make better choices."
Then he should be writing articles in "Consumer Reports". Either he does want to eliminate free choices, in which case his philosophy is some moderate variety of fascism (which is a LEFTIST political system, by the way), or he doesn't, in which case politics is moot in the matter.
Comment by Ted | August 24, 2006
The crunchy conservative movement, in it's mindless critique of Reaganomics, is, by
its quasi Rousseau doctrine, a Trojan horse of liberalism in the conservative
movement. The real moral decline in society, with its rising crime rate, divorce, drug use
illegitimate births, was in the collectivist 1970's. Since 1980, with increased
free trade, tax cuts, deregulation, there has been a subsequent improvement
in the quality of life index, or a decrease in the social pathology index.
The moral climate, despite what Dryer assets, has improved since 1980.
Dryer, with his preposterous misbegotten doctrine, is actually advocating
a retreat from modernity and progress that has been a staple of liberal beliefs
for the past 150 years. And, by the way, Dryer should know, but somehow doesn't,
that the environment has improved the last 25 years, and was much better
than in former communist eastern Europe. The moral crisis that Dryer
sees extends no farther than his misguided brain.
Comment by jeff flota | August 24, 2006
Dreher's book is like a breath of fresh air after the suffocation of moronic GOP lapdogs. Bush and his liberal cronies wouldn’t know a real conservative if they saw one. Being an apologist of WalMart, big business, free trade, outsourcing, and the unaesthetic wasteland of most corporate development hardly makes one a conservative. Kirk thought these people were the antithesis of conservatives.
This is a great book. It is not an intellectual classic (like Kirk or Weaver’s works, or Thomas Fleming’s recent opus the Morality of Everyday Life), but it is still worth reading.
Comment by John | August 24, 2006
This is one of the best recent books. It is trying to take conservatism back to its original roots. As the author alludes, being a lapdog for the GOP, WalMart, big business, free trade or outsourcing is not very conservative. As Russell Kirk said, supporting such things is most often the antithesis of conservatism.
It is not as intellectual as other greats (such as Kirk or Weaver's works, or Thomas Felming's recent Morality of Everyday Life) but it is definitely worth reading.
Comment by John | August 24, 2006
It seems that either the author of the book or the author of the review is relying on stereotypical caricatures. Capitalists are not greedy big businessmen out to steal from the average joe, they are simply one half of a two sided transaction of buyers and sellers. Capitalism at its base is the willing legal exchange of valuable goods between to informed and consenting parties. That's it.
Capitalism is not price-gouging or selling shoddy merchandise. If one party is not willing, inadequately informed, or is not obtaining fair value in the exchange, the transaction ceases to be capitalism. Selling meth is not capitalism. Cheating customers is not capitalism.
As far as the environment, it is specious to imply that conservatives are in favor of pollution while liberals are not. No one is in favor of damaging the environment. There is no philosophy of government that suggests that free enterprise includes the freedom to pollute. Only criminals pollute, only evil people damage the environment. This has nothing to do with capitalism or conservatives.
Comment by mountain man | August 24, 2006
Dear Mountain Man: Very clearly stated and I certainly agree with you. Those on the left who call themselves environmentalists are in fact preservationists and should be labeled as such. As in any group, there are two types: the ones with an agenda and the "useful idiots". I fear those with an agenda really seek pulling us all to a lower level with their false arguments that each and every organic or inorganic element of the earth should be left untouched by man thereby achieving their goal of a socialist order.
Funny, I think many of those people are the ones clinging to Darwinism, you know, that religion which claims that evolution is natural.
Comment by Mike Brown | August 24, 2006
Physically destroy the earth? This is a typical left wing environmental article.
This next statement is the one that most bothered me. The author apparently sees no purpose to life unless he's working toward his environmental ideal. "When we destroy the world around us, spiritually or physically, we destroy the very creation bequeathed to us by God. We cheapen life by reducing existence to a series of meaningless transactions in which the only cherished value is material gain" This statement leads me to believe this author does not have a close relationship with God, his religion is environmentalism, he worships nature.
Comment by Paul | August 24, 2006
Frankly, I don't like the term "conservative". It confuses the issue too much. A "conservative" is simply someone who wants to keep the status quo, or roll things back a little. "Right-wing" is a better term for conservatives, but leftists use the term "right-wing" to describe fascists, even though fascism is a thoroughly leftist system.
This confusion of therms is part of the problem: Dreher is probably in a good position to claim the use of the term "conservative". He's still wrong about the market, however. Conservatives in the 19th and 20th centuries came to appreciate free markets because economists demonstrated that free markets were conducive to a stable, virtuous, prosperous, and just society, and that market restrictions tended to create degradation, vice, poverty, and injustice. These observations remain true- unfortunately, conservatives like Dreher have once again decided that they aren't.
Sure, I'll grant that "crunchy cons" are genuine conservatives of some kind- but they're still wrong about the free market, and being wrong and "conservative" is worse than being right and "not quite so conservative".
Comment by Ted | August 24, 2006
I wanted to briefly respond to a few of the comments, as I think this is such an important issue to conservative values as I understand them.
I think the point Dreher and I are trying to make is that conservatives and Republicans should be more active in proposing reasonable solutions to the issues raised in this book. Our ocean fisheries are in serious trouble, due only in part to U.S. policies. Asian fishing fleets are certainly guilty of pursuing profit at the expense of the long-term health of our oceans. Drag nets, and other policies destroy millions of creatures that have miminal or no commercial value. What should done?
Limbaugh has claimed that humans cannot damage the environment. He is a leading conservative — but is that a position that conservatives should embrace. If he means we can't destroy the planet in total, he is right. But we can affect the environment to the degree that we cause great harm to our lives and those of future generations.
It is hardly anti-free market to suggest that we can make better choices in our daily lives. We can choose to grow food or buy health food rather than trek down to endless fast food restaurants. Is that anti-free market? We can turn off Hollywood, which often pushes horrific trash on our children? Is that anti-free market?
Is preserving a park for our children rather than paving it for roads or malls not a reasonable point of view. With all respect to some of the commentators, I watched leading conservative thinkers and personalities belittle even attempts to responsiblyl manage the environment. That is what Dreher and I are trying to counter — not to demand that all agree with us, but to stimulate a dialogue. I thank all for their comments.
Comment by shadroui | August 24, 2006
Nobody cares if you make suggestions, we do care if you use government to impose those suggestions.
Comment by Paul | August 24, 2006
The free-market DOES protect the environment- at any rate, it does so much better than the government does. Having the government protect the environment is a classic case of having the fox guard the henhouse, as the government is responsible, directly or indirectly, for the great bulk of environmental damage.
As far as making better choices in our lives… well, why is it a political issue what kind of burger I eat? I'll agree with Dreher that Hollywood is full of trash, and that fast food is unhealthy, but the whole point of the free market in the first place is to let people choose a lifestyle that fits their particular needs and circumstances. I'll agree that Americans have some ridiculous tastes in the items they purchase, but as I said before, if Dreher just wants to convince people to spend their money differently, he should be writing articles in "Consumer Reports" or something, not making statements on the nature of the conservative movement. If he wants to change the choices we make without restricting our freedom to make them, then great, I'll be glad to help- but in that case, this is not a political issue at all, but a social/cultural one.
If, on the other hand, Dreher actually wants to restrict economic choices, then he's got another thing coming. There are three classes of choices that can be made. Class #1 is "objectively wrong". These choices should be outlawed (murder, for example). The second class is "contingently wrong". These are things that may be right or wrong in particular circumstances, but vary so widely and are so highly contingent on particular circumstances that the law ought generally not meddle with them- purchasing a cheeseburger is clearly one of these choices. The last kind of choice includes those things which are objectively right. The law ought not prohibit these things, and a grave miscarriage of justice is done when they are prohibited (being Christian is something that should not be prohibited, for example). Either the "crunchy cons" do want to prohibit something from the second class, in which case there' s a problem, or they don't, in which case politics is a non-issue.
Sure organic food is great- but it can be more expensive than twinkies, and not all people, conservative or not, can afford it. Homeschooling certainly beats the lousy public schools, but not every parent knows enough to homeschool- is looking for a decent private school wrong in that case? I already ignore most of the crud coming out of Hollywood, but as Ludwig Von Mises said, "You do not increase the happiness of a man eager to attend a performance of Abie's Irish Rose by forcing him to attend a perfect performance of Hamlet instead. You may deride his poor taste. But he alone is supreme in matters of his own satisfaction."
Once again, the free market proves that it serves the virtuous society, it does not destroy it.
Comment by Ted | August 24, 2006
I would agree that it is preferable to reshape our sytems through free market choices. But as I am not a pure libertarian, I would also concede the necessity for governmental action to protect collective resources such as clean air, a vital ocean, environmental systems on which future life depends. Do you oppose all laws? In any case, all Dreher is trying to do is call attention to the consequences of thoughtless choices — hardly a heretical exercise.
Comment by shadroui | August 25, 2006
The very etymological root of ‘conservative: the Latin conservare means to preserve or restore, often referring to the environment. Haven’t you people heard of conservation?
Traditional conservatives were environmentalists. Russell Kirk and Richard Weaver certainly supported environmental conservation.
The real question is the scale. Most conservatives think environmentalism should be done at the local level, while liberals at the national level.
And if you have no aesthetic sensibility, you are a knave. If you prefer a sea of Walmart parking lots to parks and forests, then you are a barbarian.
(But overall, the environment is a minor point. The real issue of today is the illegal invasion of America by millions of Mexicans.)
Comment by Tom | August 25, 2006
Shadroui throws up a strawman when he asks, "Do you oppose all laws?" Libertarians/conservatives do not advocate anarchy. Ted does a great job refuting this in #11.
Conservatives/libertarians simply want what the constitution sets forth regarding the power and scope of government. Government should not be able to tell us how much water our toilets use, if our car has airbags or not, or make us put in handicapped parking at our businesses. Government is obligated to execute murderers, defend us against aggressors, and respect the rights our Creator endowed us with.
Protecting the environment is a good thing. So is feeding the poor, creating jobs, and making beautiful music. But the constitution does not grant the authority to government to address these issues. Surely the author understands the difference?
Comment by mountain man | August 25, 2006
Unrestrained free enterprise is a corrosive agent in tearing down traditional culture and the values that culture instills. For instance, many of the rural areas now being exploited by developers (who are a wildly free enterprise, unconservative lot who parasitically depend on government road building) are being changed beyond recognition. These rural areas were not only bastions of traditional culture, they voted along conservative lines. These areas are being transformed into suburban wastelands that are culturally much different than what they were.
Now it can be argued that these exurban counties will not only vote as conservative as they did in more rural days but that these areas will be packed with many more conservative votes. However, if one grants that the first wave of suburbanites and exurbanites vote conservatively, the second and third waves vote more liberally. We see this happening in suburban and exurban northern Virginia, once conservative Republican strongholds. Counties which Ronald Reagan won with seventy percent of the vote twenty years ago are now contested areas. Not only is this voting pattern caused by the second and third waves of suburbanites and exurbanites being different than the first wave, the stacking up of peoples causes people to ask the government for more remedies. It is self-evident that high density of population forces people to rely on government and, therefore, they vote for the sort of politics which is pro-government and anti-conservative.
I don't expect or want my fellow conservatives to ignore or disrespect the conservative economics of Milton Friedman, Adam Smith or Ludwig von Mises. But there must be more to conservatism than a fealty to free market economics. Read of Burke and Kirk and their love of the little platoons of society. Read Belloc and Chesterton and their beliefs in subsidiary- small family businesses, independent workmen, small farmers. Enjoy fishing and hunting and fresh air. Base your life in the family. Grow your own produce, if you can, or buy from your local farmer. Frequent the local butcher. Buy your goods from a local business, if you can, and only buy from a national chain if there is no other resource.
Mr. Dreher's book is important in that it lays out a different sort of conservatism at a time when President Bush has both put conservatism in disrepute and has betrayed it at the same time. Bush has raised spending at a greater rate than any president since the glory days of Lyndon Johnson. Bush has abandoned the borders to the extent that the submergence of the historic American nation seems a distinct possibility in our lifetime. Bush has embroiled the country on a tragic fools errand in Iraq at a high cost of treasure and blood in a nation of which the national interest is only in the oil which comes out of Iraq's sand. Dreher turns his back on Bush and Bush's fellow plutocrats and offers a much more palatable conservatism than we see today. It is a hopeful conservatism that is more John Ford and Frank Capra and less John Rockefeller, Donald Trump or Richard Lay.
Comment by Derek Leaberry | August 25, 2006
I can tell that some of the posters here have never worked for big business. Otherwise, they would not admire it so.
I am a conservative and have worked for 3 major corporations. I'd say that like 99% of the upper management at almost all major American corporations is considerably liberal. In fact, I'd rarely ever meet conservatives in corporations. Just look at the radical PC policies of Dell, Microsoft, Shell, Exxon, etc. These people are no friends to traditionalists.
The funny thing about big business is that these people are not theorists. They are not intellectual promoters of a "free market." They just want to win, which is why most of them have enormous budgets to lobby politicians to grant them obvious or not-so-obvious advantages over their competitors. They, in short, want government-granted monopolies.
Russell Kirk was right. Most people in big business are thugs and enemies to real conservatives.
Comment by Tom | August 25, 2006
Tom,
You make a good point, but kinda miss. If these corporations have leftist owners and/or are using government to strong arm an advantage, this is not a manifestation of the free market. This sort of activity violates capitalism.
I am not admiring big business, I am admiring the beauty of free market capitalism. But if we truly had a free market, the market would correct its own excesses. Because we have allowed the government to have extra-constitutional power and give approving nods to politicians who are going to "get" some businesses whil subsidizing others, capitalism can no longer correct itself.
Government is the cancer invading the free market. It assumes that its actions, sanctions, tax policies, and subsidies all happen in a vaccuum. Government upsets the balance.
In a free market consumers have all the power, but they don't know how to wield it. They expect government to rescue them. If a business is cheating customers or polluting a river, consumers must be willing to shift their buying habits. Business cannot survive without customers. The concept is the same as labor unions organizing against unfair labor practices. We need consumers to flex their muscles and "organize" against unfair trade practices.
Yeah, I know, how can a conservative support unions? Well, I see labor unions and consumer unions as free market solutions. They can come to bear on the market as part of the market and effect change in the market. This is quintessentially free market, because government stays out of these private, legal, mutually agreed transactions.
Comment by mountain man | August 25, 2006
Dreher's book is a "must read," as George Shadroui's review clearly illustrates. Most of the so-called conservatives I know reveal themselves as quite liberal in their views when the discourse is calm, focused and personal. We are a mostly compassionate people with similar goals; a safer, peaceful and more secure world, fairness and economic opportunity for all. The differences between us lay in HOW we might achieve these goals.
To Mountain Man - If a business can profit more by polluting the air and water, or cheating customers and screwing its own employees, it most likely will … if it is allowed to get away with it. If you've worked long enough, you've probably experienced that yourself. Without government oversite, I submit to you that our air and water would be filthier, there would be no labor standards or minimum wage, and children (not to mention adults) would still be working 12 to 14 hours a day. Pure, unchecked capitalism is not a self-correcting system. It seeks only to maximize profit.
Comment by John Ross | August 30, 2006
John Ross,
With all due respect, you are wrong. You managed to completely ignore my central point. "Unchecked capitalism" is a myth. Capitalism is the private, legal exchange of things of value between consenting, informed parties, nothing more.
Maximizing profit in this framework is noble, right, good, moral, and desirable. We need more of this. Exxon needs to have record profits every quarter, as does Walmart, Chevrolet, and my business here in a little town in Montana. If any of us break the law, we will be held accountable. Beyond that, government needs to butt out. Unless you can explain how government taxing the "oscene profits" of Exxon helps anyone but government?
Cheating, polluting, selling a shoddy product - these are violations of capitalism, and violations of the law. "Government oversite" (sic) drives prices up, forces legally operating businesses to be a defacto arm of the government implementing its social agenda, and burdens businesses with inane regulations. Government meddles in the private affairs of private parties who are simply going about their daily routine.
I don't mean to be rude, but your ignorance of capitalism is appalling.
Comment by mountain man | August 30, 2006
Mountain Man - IF you break the law, you'll be held accountable. I completely agree! That includes labor statutes, health and safety regulations, tax laws, evironmental protections and consumer laws. That's pretty much all I'm saying. Government is not the enemy. Someone has to make damn sure that business is all on the up and up. Capitalism is the best economic system humans have come up with so far. But it's not the be all, end all. And it's certainly not flawless. There is a down side to everything. If you really do understand capitalism, you'd be acutely aware of that.
Comment by John Ross | August 30, 2006
I wish you and your business in a little town in Montana great success, Mountain Man. Record profits … Yes!
A long time ago, I read something that Gandhi said about capitalism, that he was as much concerned about the "yoke of bolshevism" as he was the "yoke of capitalism." As a youngster, I didn't think much about it. After almost 40 years in the work force, I think of it often. I think I know what he meant. As I said, capitalism is probably the best economic system humans have devised so far. Perhaps the "yoke" Gandhi referred to is simply the point of diminishing returns; that point in which capitalism and money become more valuable than "the things things that should matter most: land, culture, health, community, family, posterity."
Comment by John Ross | August 31, 2006
John,
Well said. There are many things so much more important than money.
Regarding the law, there are appropriate laws (theft, misrepresentation, insider trading, etc) and inappropriate ones (minimum wage, handicapped parking, windfall taxes).
Yes, there is a down side to capitalism. That's life. Life is full of risks, and too many people expect government to rescue them from these risks. I'm tired of bailing people out of their bad choices and irresponsible behavior via my tax dollars.
If government is there to always catch us when we fall, we are no longer a free people.
Comment by mountain man | August 31, 2006