“Crunchy” conservatives.

Some folks are trying to be real conservatives, but they appear to be just as unthinking as many of the folks in the movement.

I first read Rod Dreher’s Crunchy Con Manifesto on Ben Witherington’s blog, and found it sufficiently obnoxious enough to rant about.

Why “crunchy”? Probably because they don’t consider themselves to be soggy. Considering how most activism is really just an organized reaction to things people are dissatisfied about, Dreher, author of Crunchy Cons, decided to market his particular variety of conservatism by writing a creed, or “manifesto,” explaining what makes him so very different. I’ll list his points, with my commentary.

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.

Yeah, that’s what every self-imagined non-conformist says. All of them claim to be outside the mainstream. God forbid any single one of them happen to be normal. Unless we’re ridiculed for being different… in which case we’re rather desperate to be considered normal, and try to argue convincingly that we really are normal and not really some zany fringe group like we’re depicted. If ever the Crunchy Cons get ostracized from the centers of political power because they’re seen as fringe elements or extremists, their organizers will make that same desperate lunge for the center, just to hold on to any pull they might have gained. Just like when Pat Buchanan left the Reform Party.

2. We believe that modern conservatism has become too focused on material conditions, and insufficiently concerned with the character of society. The point of life is not to become a more satisfied shopper.

It’s not just conservatism. It’s liberalism too. Your average progressive is encouraged to think about fair trade and global impact when they make their purchases, yet they’re never encouraged to think about whether they should make such purchases in the first place. They’re encouraged to ask, “Should my new car be environmentally friendly?” not, “Does a family with two drivers actually need a third car?” This is a valid point, but it’s not solely a conservative issue.

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.

How on earth can you have a free market and the restraints upon it necessary to make it serve humanity’s best interests? Doesn’t this idiot understand that this statement is self-contradictory? He’s calling for both capitalism and socialism. This is like saying, “Americans shouldn’t have to pay taxes, but they must be required to finance their government.”

4. We believe that culture is more important than politics, and that neither America’s wealth nor our liberties will long survive a culture that no longer 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.

On the contrary. In rejecting the “Permanent Things,” we are moving the country towards more liberties and more wealth. Fr’instance, we’re in the process of legalizing gambling. It started with Nevada and New Jersey, spread to the state lotteries, Indian reservations, and Mississippi River, and is making lots of money on the internet. More people are free to gamble; more people are making money off it. Porn, prostitution, and drugs are rapidly following. The decay of morality means greater freedom to sin, and great profit to be made from sinful behaviors. America’s widening freedoms are turning us more and more the “Great Satan” that the Muslims already call us.

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.

Very true. Probably the only profound statement Dreher makes.

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.

In my experience as a reporter, small business and local government is often just as corrupt, and much less accountable, than big business and big government. Small and local does not mean noble. Small means small. Local means local. Same with any other adjective. Old and particular ideas can be just as evil as new and abstract ideas.

7. Appreciation of aesthetic quality—that is, beauty—is not a luxury, but key to the good life.

Nah. It’s appreciation of the inherent goodness in an object. I would rather have a good, functioning car than a snazzy one. I would rather have an honest, faithful wife than a gorgeous one. I would rather worship a good God than a popular one. Beauty is superficial and misleading, which is why Satan appears as an angel of light.

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.

You mean a person who watches a lot of movies can’t tell the difference between fact and fiction? No wonder you and your kind are so paranoid about The Da Vinci Code. I am not confused by pop culture because I have been taught to critically think. Anyone who has been taught critical thinking can discern truth; anyone who prays and reads scripture regularly can learn the Holy Spirit’s wisdom. Depriving yourself can’t teach this to you; you can’t practice your thinking skills when you’re deprived of things to think about. There is a purpose behind asceticism, but it’s not to clear your head so you can think. It’s so you can listen. You need to learn to think regardless of the cacophany.

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 in the 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.”

True. But unfortunately many families are dysfunctional. So while we work to conserve functional families, we need to likewise create support systems to make up for the poor child-rearing of dysfunctional families. And I don’t mean prisons. I mean better public schools, pop culture that encourages good behavior rather than consumerism, and incentive systems that teach people to be better parents. Otherwise all you’re rearing up are isolated exceptions to the rule.

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. ln this sense, to conserve is to create anew.

If we are to be saved at all, it is through Jesus Christ and a relationship with him, not by following the Permanent Things (or the Law, or the Tao, or whatever you else want to call it). It is to obey him and demonstrate this obedience by loving those who don’t obey regardless. And again—because I have to be logical in all this—exactly what fool writes a political manifesto in which he denounces the very politics he claims to embrace?

Maybe they’re crunchy because they crumble so easily.