Where is crunchy conservatism today?

By Rod Dreher • October 7, 2011, 12:58 PM

It has been just over five years since I published “Crunchy Cons,” (available now in a Kindle edition) in which I reported on and articulated a particular neo-traditionalist conservative sensibility. My Big Cheese TAC Boss asked me to write a piece for the next print issue assessing where the issues and ideals identified as part of crunchy conservatism (if you want to see the original 2002 NRO article that started it all, go here). Where is crunchy conservatism today? Why has it failed to catch on as part of the conservative mainstream? Does it have any successes? Is there reason to think that it may yet? If it’s going to be relevant someday to more than a niche conservative audience, how will that happen?

I have my own thoughts on this, but am going to save them for the print essay. Please share your thoughts in the comboxes. I can learn from them.

42 Responses to Where is crunchy conservatism today?

Mr. Pickwick says:

October 7, 2011 at 1:13 pm

Your book, and the blog that followed, reassured folks like me that we weren’t alone. Even though some of us still can’t quite bring ourselves to embrace the term “conservative,” your efforts did confirm that there are people like us out there, and that it’s okay to be a traditionalist disgusted by the tired Right versus Left silliness.
Jaybird says:

October 7, 2011 at 1:15 pm

Where is crunchy conservatism today? Why has it failed to catch on as part of the conservative mainstream?

Blame Wall Street.
John E says:

October 7, 2011 at 2:01 pm

Why has it failed to catch on as part of the conservative mainstream?

Because mainstream America – conservative, liberal, or whatever – isn’t interested in living a crunch lifestyle.

If it’s going to be relevant someday to more than a niche conservative audience, how will that happen?

Energy prices rising to such an extent that our current social structure collapses.
John E says:

October 7, 2011 at 2:02 pm

Make the above – “isn’t interested in living a crunchy lifestyle”, thanks…
JO says:

October 7, 2011 at 2:02 pm

My own critique of your book (almost all of which I agree with you on) is that this isn’t really a movement. There will always be a substantial number of conservatives who think along those lines but there will always be even more whose idea of conservatism is much more limited. I think in a way its all part of our culture – cable news, materialism, etc. Most people won’t take the time to think or contribute to those aspects of conservatism.

Successes – FPR at least. I think widespread success will only come through a charismatic political figure talking about these kinds of things and bringing it to CPAC, Fox News and the popular conservative outlets.

If you drive out to Front Royal, VA, you’ll see it thriving.
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Conradg says:

October 7, 2011 at 2:30 pm

Okay, my thought is that in the general polarity of today’s politics, “Crunchy Conservatism” is actually a leftward leaning hippie philosophy of sorts, which means it’s anathema to mainstream conservatives, and even to actual left-leaning hippies. I happen to like it because I’m an eclectic left-leaning hippie, but generally speaking things that I like are doomed to permanent fringe status.

It doesn’t surprise me that in today’s political climate, the whole CC idea is both needed and falls flat. Plus of course, there’s your own identifying of CC with a kind of non-pluralistic social religiousity (gay marriage anyone?) that is off-putting to the liberals, myself included, while at the same time harboring an economic populism that sees corporate America as a soul-crushing force of greed and destruction, which is off-putting to most of the conservatives who control mainstream thinking on the right.

CC is left with a slender thread of eclectic followers, most of whom only find part of it appealing. It may become popular in some future incarnation of conservatism, but for now, it’s most likely to be of interest only to either fringe conservatives or the kind of hippies who demonstrate on Wall Street if they don’t pay attention to what they would consider your religious fundamentalism.

In general, the world as a whole has been captured by large economic forces which sweep away both the individual and the local communities that individuals have created over many centuries, and left in place a world-wide corporate community that doesn’t serve the individual, but instead primarily serves corporate interests. CC is a reaction to that, as I see it. I think your biggest mistake is to identify it with your own particular brand of religious/social community, which it seems you would like to see dominate the larger sphere, which narrows its appeal and is even self-contradictory, in that it doesn’t allow for different kinds of communities to thrive, only your own. So instead of CC standing for a genuinely pluralistic and diverse world of multiple communities, you still seem to want “one community”, but instead of being dominated by corporatism, you want it dominated by your own religious and social values. This leaves most people out, and so CC is not seen as a universal principle, but a narrow one for a particular kind of person, who is in this day and age rather rare. Not unlike the failure of hippie culture to take into account the needs of other kinds of individuality and community, including traditional forms that don’t appeal to hippies.
Siarlys Jenkins says:

October 7, 2011 at 2:44 pm

A short thought: the concept “Crunchy Cons” does not introduce a new body of thought. It reflects the fact that human beings are ornery individuals who pick and choose their positions on issues in a bewildering variety of combinations. Rod Dreher was expressing one such combination, his own. Undoubtedly many share his selection, but not a whole party’s worth. Gay pride advocates can be pro-life (and let’s not forget godlessatheistsforlife), people who appreciate the humanist tradition of the RC church can be pro-choice, libertarians can be either one, raging capitalists can hate Wall Street, and any of the above may or may not appreciate organic farming. Etc. What Dreher showed was that most of us are None of the Above.
Christopher G says:

October 7, 2011 at 2:56 pm

I’m a faithful TAC reader, a libcon, and very amenable to your message — but, listening to the NPR excerpt, the “bedroom” and “wives at home” qualifications kept me from sharing it with my wider base of friends.

You’re 80% of the way to reconciling much of what’s good in the modern world with smart conservatism. You need to think about some of your more de facto beliefs.
R Hampton says:

October 7, 2011 at 3:06 pm

I think many of the “little things” you described in the NRO article are regarded as elitist badges, thanks in part to the determined effort of some politicians and pundits (ironically, part of the elite) to make it so. For example, In 2005 you remarked;

“Is it just me, or does anybody else feel uncomfortable as nconservatives bashing elitism? There are some forms of elitism that we ought to affirm, usually having to do with quality, with meritocracy, or with certain traditions. Shouldn’t we distinguish between elitism and snobbery, the latter of which strikes me as unmerited elitism, elitism based on pure prejudice?”

And in 2008 (regarding Obama’s clinging to guns comments), Jonah Goldberg explained the difference between elitism and snobbery while acknowledging that, in practical terms, many see no difference;

“Maybe I’m biased because I don’t have any pressing problem with elitism, rightly understood. Elite derives from the Latin for elect and in our elections we decide who will be our (political) elite. Jefferson believed in a democratic elite which rose up on merit. I do too. We’re all elitists in one way or another (Show of hands: Who wants an elite surgeon to perform their heart-lung transplant and who wants a really average surgeon to do it? If you answer that you want the surgeon from the really meaty part of the bell curve, I will concede you are no elitist).

What’s offensive about Obama’s comment isn’t its elitism per se, but the arrogance of assuming that those who see the world through a different prism or who are relatively immune to his charms are somehow embittered and confused and therefore less equipped to decide who should be our elected elite.

And yes, I understand that elitism has come to mean snobbish arrogance and all that, which is what most people mean when they say elitist. But I’m going to cling to my view of elitism regardless of which way the tide pulls me.”

A useful example of how this front in the culture wars plays out is Sarah Palin – how her symbolic power is much greater then the actual power she held as mayor, and later, governor. She’s become a highly visible brand that defines not only what is mainstream social conservatism, but what it most definitely is not. Why that is so is a much more complicated answer, one I hope you will attempt to answer in the upcoming article.
David Lindsay says:

October 7, 2011 at 3:33 pm

Like Rod Dreher, I stand outside the conservative mainstream, and can therefore see more clearly the things that matter. That “modern conservatism has become too focused on money, power, and the accumulation of stuff, and insufficiently concerned with the content of our individual and social character”. That “big business deserves as much scepticism as big government”, to say the very least. That “culture is more important than politics and economics”. That “a conservatism that does not practice restraint, humility, and good stewardship – especially of the natural world – is not fundamentally conservative”. That “Small, Local, Old, and Particular are almost always better than Big, Global, New, and Abstract”. That “beauty is more important than efficiency”. That “the relentlessness of media-driven pop culture deadens our senses to authentic truth, beauty, and wisdom”. That “politics and economics won’t save us; if our culture is to be saved at all, it will be by faithfully living by the Permanent Things, conserving these ancient moral truths in the choices we make in our everyday lives”. And that, with Russell Kirk, “the institution most essential to conserve is the family”.

Ah, yes, Russell Kirk. The transcendent order, based in tradition, divine revelation, and natural law. Joy in the “variety and mystery” of human existence, including “natural distinctions”, with property and freedom closely linked. And faith in custom, convention and prescription, recognising that innovation must be tied to existing traditions and customs, out of respect for the political value of prudence. With Taki, I prefer “peace with honour to proxy wars, Western civilisation to multicultural barbarism, Christendom to the European Union, and Russell Kirk to Leon Trotsky”.

So I believe in national self-government, the only basis for international co-operation, and including the United Kingdom as greater than the sum of its parts. In local variation, and historical consciousness. In family life founded on the marital union of one man and one woman. In the whole Biblical and Classical patrimony of the West. In agriculture, manufacturing, and small business. In close-knit communities, law and order, and civil liberties. In academic standards, and all forms of art. In mass political participation within a constitutional framework. In the absolute sanctity of each individual human life from the point of fertilisation to the point of natural death. In the constitutional and other ties among the Realms and Territories having the British monarch as Head of State. In the status of the English language, and the rights of its speakers both throughout the United Kingdom and elsewhere. And in the rights of British-descended communities throughout the world.

Economics is about means to those ends, and to define politics in terms of economics is not to be a conservative, but to be a Marxist. I am therefore opposed to the “free” market, which, as the great anti-Communist Whittaker Chambers pointed out, corrodes all conservative things to nought. And I am therefore opposed to the neoconservative war agenda. Instead, I fight for the universal and comprehensive Welfare State. For the strong statutory and other, including trade union, protection of workers, consumers, communities and the environment. For fair taxation. For full employment. For the partnership between a strong Parliament and strong local government. For co-operatives, credit unions, mutual guarantee societies, mutual building societies and similar bodies. And for every household to enjoy a base of real property from which to resist both over-mighty commercial interests and an over-mighty State.

If “there is no such thing as society” (and yes, Margaret Thatcher really did say that), then there can be no such thing as the society that is the family, or the society that is the nation. There cannot be a “free” market generally but not in drugs, prostitution or pornography. There cannot be unrestricted global movement of goods, services or capital but not of labour. American domination is no more acceptable that European federalism. The economic decadence of the 1980s is no more acceptable that the social decadence of the 1960s. The principle of the planned economy came down to the Attlee Government, via the Liberal Keynes and via Franklin Delano Roosevelt, from an ultraconservative Catholic, Colbert. The principle of the Welfare State came down to the Attlee Government, via the Liberals Lloyd George and Beveridge, and via the Conservative Governments of the Inter-War years, from an ultraconservative Protestant, Bismarck.

The book is at the publishers.
Owen Sands says:

October 7, 2011 at 4:02 pm

To me there’s nothing more conservative than eating locally produced food, reusing grandma’s coffee table, and shopping at a store owned by a neighbor.

Why has “crunchy conservatism” failed to catch on? It could be because of the Republican’s association with big business, but it’s probably simpler than that. I suspect most people, liberal and conservative, are willing to shop in a soul-sucking box to save a few dollars so they can buy what they really think they need. What good is healthy, great tasting food if you can’t afford the next generation i-Phone?
Tiparillo says:

October 7, 2011 at 4:32 pm

“To me there’s nothing more conservative than eating locally produced food, reusing grandma’s coffee table, and shopping at a store owned by a neighbor.”

And these are all things promoted by my Progressive neighbors in Portland, OR (to the point of parody on IFC’s ‘Portlandia’).
Don Yarish says:

October 7, 2011 at 4:37 pm

I would think Libertarianism is a broad enough politcal principle to encompass many communities.
Witness the growing commonality between Ralph Nader and Ron Paul, yes some big divides on economic solutions but deep agreement on foreign policy, corporatism, civl rights and many areas that could and should move the counrty forward away from the neo fascist corporatist Republicrats. We had better find some way to move forward or the America we knew will never be regained.
Brody says:

October 7, 2011 at 5:05 pm

I think Crunchy Cons have not caught on, and I say this as an economic and social liberal who nevertheless values tradition, is that it is simply not feasible for many people. You have documented yourself the many trials and tribulations of staying true to your crunchy code: the difficulties in home schooling a child with special needs, the lure of the suburbs even if they seem kind of bland and consumerist, the fact that locally produced food and crafts are more expensive than whatever is in Wal-mart or at McDonalds.

I think a lot of people don’t think they even have any problems that Crunchy Cons think are problems. They like their Moral Theraputic Realist Deism, they aren’t bothered by materialism, they generally think they align themeselves with one political party or the other, they don’t interact with nature much even when they are on vacation, they don’t pay attention to their diet to the point where America is pretty obese, etc. Crunchy Cons is selling the idea that these people are living in a false consciousness. I tend to agree, but then I have always been a misfit, at least since puberty. I pay too much attention to things, which has always prevented me from going along to get along. If you think everything is just dandy, or that the socialist president or fundamentalist christians are to blame for everything, why question anything? Why dig deeper? Why rethink everything about society that has been normalized to you?
Allen says:

October 7, 2011 at 5:22 pm

Crunchy Conservatism has a lot to recommend it. I’ve been surrounded by and immersed in “crunchy” culture since I first went to college, but it’s always been of an invariably liberal/progressive/way-to-the-Left variety. Your writing has certainly had a drastic influence on me, especially the way I view and relate to conservative people and ideas. The simplest thing I suppose I can say is that I firmly believe that this country would be a much better place if more people believed (most of) what you believe and lived even vaguely in accord with those ideas. Coming from a godless gay liberal, I realize that may not mean much, but there it is.

I think that the fatal flaw of Crunchy Conservatism (as you’ve articulated it, at least) is that it very easily, and I would say inevitably, devolves into snobbery and tribalism. Too much of the CC philosophy is based on rendering judgment about how others live their lives. Which is fine, as far as it goes, it’s something we all do. But it seems like a crappy basis for building community, presuming we don’t want the community to devour itself.
kieranesq says:

October 7, 2011 at 5:37 pm

Crunchy conservatism is the life my friends and family all live in the Reston-Great Falls, Virginia area. We see each other frequently at daily Mass or Eucharistic adoration; buy our organic, pastured meats and eggs from Polyface or Fields of Athenry farms; run into each other at the local farmer’s market and Whole Foods; and send our kids to a Catholic Montessori school or homeschool. We severely limit television-watching. We are so busy with raising our families, working, and participating in church activities and prayer that there is no time for overconsumption. The women go to a pro-life, pro-NFP ob-gyn practice. We vacation in cabins in West Virginia or at Catholic Familyland in Ohio. We are interested in alternative medicine; many of us don’t vaccinate our kids or do so on staggered schedules. Many of us drink raw milk if we can find it. Some are WAPF members. Rick Santorum is a parishioner at our church, and we are all with him on the life issues, but I’d say that his hawkish foreign policy views are a turn-off to some of us. Crunchy conservatism is not a failure. It is a description of how many of us live our lives every day.
Brian Kaller says:

October 7, 2011 at 5:53 pm

In the USA, I find, too many politically active people live in a media bubble of their own side. Each side has its own mirror image of talk-show hosts, blogs, conspiracy theories and obligatory issue list, and few people seem willing to take principles rather than sides.

I know evangelicals, for example, who end up defending Wall Street tycoons; to me they seem reluctant but obligated, for if they are Christian, and Christians are conservative, and Wall Street is conservative, they must defend Wall Street. I have seen the same process at work with Green Party activists and abortion, traditionalists and climate change, and so on.

Too few people I know try to see beyond such stereotypes; for example, to see that conservatives might conserve, or that the only low-carbon world was the pre-carbon one.

I suspect most crunchy cons go uncounted, as no one knows where to put them.
RedRabbit says:

October 7, 2011 at 6:00 pm

I think a big part is simply demographics, and the demographic shifts on the right in the past few decades. The Republican party, the broader conservative ideology, and, to some degree, libertarianism, have seen the greatest gains among suburbanites and exurbanites. These people make up most of the conservative movement, I would imagine. A huge number of conservatives live in suburbs, and they love the suburban lifestyle.

As someone said above, the real issue is that many ‘mainstream’ Americans simply don’t want to live the ‘crunchy’ lifestyle, for whatever reasons they have. The ones most resistant? The suburban-exurban category. To many of them, your treatise on “crunchy” conservatism probably sounds the same as the liberals who spent a decade criticizing their SUV’s, McMansions, and big box retail stores.
Richard Barrett says:

October 7, 2011 at 6:03 pm

Crunchy Conservatism, as articulated, suggests that people would be better off changing how they think and how they behave, and the necessary changes are going to be expensive. Even if you’re right (and the book really resonated with me on most, if not all, counts), that’s not what most people want to hear, and the people who are already doing many of those things are seen as snobby and/or liberals who just won’t admit it. (You do remember Bubba, do you not?)

The “sensibility” thing also made it a little too squishy to be practical as a force that moved anything forward. What it needed was a concrete follow-up that said, “Okay, we may be small, but we agree on several things, and this is what we’re going to do from here.” Maybe a Crunchy Cons PAC would have been self-defeating, but some level of organization would perhaps have seen it taken more seriously as something more than Christian New Urbanist foodies who like Russell Kirk and JRR Tolkien and want to push their preferences on everybody else (spoken as a Christian foodie who lives in a town that sorta tries to be New Urbanist and who has Tolkien, Dreher, and Kirk all more-or-less grouped together on his bookshelf).
Stef says:

October 7, 2011 at 6:08 pm

Why has crunchy conservatism not “caught on?” Au contraire; I think it has. Just not among the people you would expect.

There are a lot of unemployed or underemployed young people out there, and many of them are gardening; learning how to wisely shop at thrift stores or on craigslist; teaching each other through video tutorials how to live without common appliances like washing machines, dishwashers, etc. They’re taking the bus or walking to work.

There’s a whole host of “offbeat mama” bloggers, many of whom will probably end up homeschooling. Those young mothers are teaching each other how to make cloth diapers out of old towels. They make their own soap, diaper rash ointment, personal care products like toothpaste, from cheap raw ingredients.

So I would say that many of these younger people are conservative in a classical sense – they are attempting to conserve the old ways; free themselves from spending money they don’t have; focus on their own families (which are often self-chosen) and friends.

What they’re not, most often, is politically conservative. That’s a whole other story.
Dave D. says:

October 7, 2011 at 6:24 pm

Look at these comments, count how many use disclaimers like “I’m a liberal, but..”

At best, CC was just lifestyle leftism-birkenstocks, organic food, and all the little class status markers of a certain type of upper middle class person focused on a culture of authenticity. At its worst, it’s real leftism. That’s why it never took on.
JonF says:

October 7, 2011 at 6:26 pm

Modern American conservatism isn’t conservative. It’s a radical reactionary movement, feuled by the resentments of people who thought white skin and middle class parentage meant a lifetime on Easy Street.
Hardly a surprise that Rod and others (David Frum, Bruce Bartlett, Buddy Roemer, Andrew Sullivan etc.) have bailed off that ship.
Richard Barrett says:

October 7, 2011 at 6:58 pm

I said:

…that’s not what most people want to hear, and the people who are already doing many of those things are seen as snobby and/or liberals who just won’t admit it.

And then, all of 21 minutes later, Dave D. proved my point:

At best, CC was just lifestyle leftism-birkenstocks, organic food, and all the little class status markers of a certain type of upper middle class person focused on a culture of authenticity. At its worst, it’s real leftism. That’s why it never took on.

As long as there is apparently no principled reason to embrace the lifestyle points beyond being suspiciously left-leaning and/or status-seeking, trying to sell it as a brand of conservatism to the masses will be a non-starter. When even Russell Kirk is read by a present-day neocon and dismissed as “not really conservative” (which happened when I gave the book to the staunched self-identifying conservative I know), then CC doesn’t have a chance in hell without some serious strategizing.
Hugh says:

October 7, 2011 at 7:23 pm

I can’t be a part of a club that would have me as a member.
Curmudgeon Geographer says:

October 7, 2011 at 8:16 pm

A good reason to get Conservatives/Libertarians to embrace some aspects, as Richard Barrett alludes to, you need to give them principled reasons for it that centers around their ideals. Show them their lifestyles aren’t fulfilling ideological conservatism.

I read the book when it came out, it resonated with me in some ways but not others. An example of one aspect I was dismissive of the first time around was local/organic food.

Since then, this past year I have discovered Paleo/Primal nutrition as part of my exploration of low-carb diets. Reading the science underpinning Paleo turned me into a devotee. As it happens Paleo is most successful (healthy and nutritious) with grass-fed meat, pastured dairy, free-range poultry; and those are damn near only produced “organically” and locally.

I’ve evangelized this to my family and their health has turned around. Seeing is believing.

Secondarily, you’d be surprised at the numbers of conservative/libertarians adopting the Paleo/Primal lifestyle. It’s happening, you just may not be seeing it as cohesively as the Tea Party movement.
Owen Sands says:

October 7, 2011 at 8:17 pm

“As long as there is apparently no principled reason to embrace the lifestyle points beyond being suspiciously left-leaning and/or status-seeking, trying to sell it as a brand of conservatism to the masses will be a non-starter.”

The masses are brain washed by crypto-statists like Rush Limbaugh. The masses think there is something historically conservative about the Bush Doctrine, and I doubt they would ever see — unless Rush told them to — the obvious conservatism in supporting local markets. So no, it will never be accepted by the airwave sheep, or by the folks who worship at the altar of consumerism, but, at the end of the day, who gives a shit what they think? Their radicalism will never be compatible with traditional conservatism.
Reader says:

October 7, 2011 at 8:29 pm

I agree with much of crunchy conservatism. I eat organic food, love small towns, prefer decentralization.

I think the next big movement will be a type of conservatism influenced by HBD (human biodiversity). In the past year, there have been about 100 new HBD blogs started. Have there been 100 new crunchycon blogs?

Not to knock crunchy conservatism — I like it — and what’s best about crunchy conservatism completely compliments and dovetails HBD conservatism. The two schools are similar in many ways.

Keep up the good work, Rod.
ABD says:

October 7, 2011 at 10:13 pm

Yea people are becoming very interested in HBD… it’s often discussed on the email lists I’m on.

Even trad Christians are discussing it:

http://traditionalchristianity.wordpress.com/2011/07/19/human-biodiversity/
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Michael Enright says:

October 8, 2011 at 10:54 am

I think that crunchy conservatism will probably remain marginal because it is essentially designed to be that way. It essentially appears to be an alternative lifestyle, and this can be interpreted in a couple of ways. At its most serious it is the building of local moral community that is in some ways separate from how others live. I am thinking here of Alasdair Macintyre’s call for a new St. Benedict. However, there really is no serious attempt at crafting the political means to strengthen this local communitarian vision. There is currently no idea as to how to translate crunchy conservatism to politics, and most crunchy conservatives are obviously ambivalent about that.

I also think that crunchy conservatives need to re-think how much modern conservative dogma we want to share in. I’m not sure we should always view the federal government as our enemy or that any expansion in the federal government is necessarily a bad thing. We need to consider how economic thinking outside of modern conservative-Republicanism may be helpful.
Kassi says:

October 8, 2011 at 12:13 pm

My husband and I have been hoping you’d actually write a second book on the issue. We cannot wait to see your article.
Richard Barrett says:

October 8, 2011 at 12:56 pm

Ever wonder if your first language is really English?

I wrote: “…which happened when I gave the book to the staunched self-identifying conservative I know…”

It should have been (and hopefully the meaning was clear anyway) “…which happened when I gave the book to the staunchest self-identifying conservative I know…”

Apologies.
Richard Barrett says:

October 8, 2011 at 12:58 pm

Also, can someone explain to me how “human biodiversity” isn’t to racism and eugenics what intelligent design is to creationism (i.e., a way to theorize the point of view that makes it sound more intellectually acceptable)?
Scott Lahti says:

October 8, 2011 at 3:31 pm

“Where is crunchy conservatism today?”

Solely within the very publicly unfolding autobiography of one writer who needs watching round the clock, both for his readers’ taste for highly differentiated entertainment – and lest he explode six centuries before, after all his word and will be said and done, our world does – much after the cartoon in which the Great One (no, not Mark Levin), consulting the X-mark on a Heavenly You Are Here kiosk, finds himself depicted within an artist’s rendering of a cutaway human brain.

Though trust me, it hurts me far more than it hurts my wayward brother-fifteen-years-removed from the NR contributorial diaspora, I must admit that the late (to intellectual maturity of any kind) Jonah Goldberg probably had a point when, in my words not his, he styled the “Crunchy Con” philosophy loosely coherent sensibility in culture, aesthetics and consumer/lifestyle preferences seeking to clothe itself in the larger civic gravitas of a coherent political philosophy – reminding us, if “dimly”, as it were, of Lionel Trilling’s having styled modern pre-1955 conservatism as a set of irritable mental gestures seeking to resemble ideas (WFB would, of course, sidestep that condescension in soon after setting about to turn a set of inimitable physical gestures into a three decade gig in front of the TV trays of Viewers Like You). Properly filtered, your auditing of any self-styled Crunchy Con will net you many a cool addition to your CD collection, your bookshelves, your recipe files, and your list of world religions to measure and try on for size, and thus earn its keep in the annals of wholesome refreshment for the soul, especially in those quieter moments after dark when, as Oscar Wilde’s Gilbert (The Critic as Artist) would say, “The night wearies, and the light flickers in the lamp” – and the combox boilerplate assures you as you make to blow out the gas jets for the evening that your latest blast of blinding insight unto a waiting world, no matter how extreme in content, has been held overnight for safekeeping within “moderation”.

When the politically-reified dandies of the fold at issue here decide they really would like to essay cutting some real political wood at its most deeply rooted and tenebrous, they might consider drawing an incendiary bead or six thousand upon the real fundament out from which which all our political disorders grow like hideous kudzu – that tiniest of totalitarian dictatorships we call the patriarchal family.
Steve S. says:

October 8, 2011 at 4:52 pm

Agree with Richard Barrett–let’s hope crunchy conservatism is not going the direction of so-called “human biodiversity” theorizing. In fact, let’s hope it’s going nowhere near that direction. A family member picked that stuff up from Steve Sailer, Jim Kalb and their ilk, and it’s poisoned his mind. In case anyone doubts this, just click on the link provided. Here’s hoping Rod (or somebody at TAC) polices this blog to stop misguided people who troll around on his blog trying to get a wider readership for their own frightful bilge.
Connie says:

October 8, 2011 at 7:21 pm

Richard–no, that can’t be done. Rod is unaware that HBD is the phrase that’s been coined so that the bigots can post on forums such as these and fly under the radar of the hosts who are ignorant of its background, meaning, and logical conclusion. It’s as though someone coined the phrase “secular superiority” as a cover for Holocaust denial.
William Harris says:

October 8, 2011 at 9:05 pm

There’s a lot of crunchiness that seems to be the understood reality for young adults; what looked esoteric a decade ago, local foods and all, now looks close to a common social style. This seems particularly true when one looks at the devolution of political Evangelical thought and the subsequent rise in a depoliticized segment. (A good example of this shift would be Alisa Harris’ Raised Right). The crunchy community is or has become apolitical.

Secondly, as a matter of politics, conservatives don’t need a crunch so much as an urban thinking. Where the crunchy con was seeking a commonality with tier of “liberal” middle class culture culture, today the challenge is finding commonality with the urban setting. To date, the style has been to move in a far more individualistic and often hostile direction. Still, there are those conservatives who hold a flame for that urban setting and all its messiness. They deserve more attention.

I say the above as a political liberal (but social conservative). Our cities are in desperate need for more solutions, the abandonment of them by so many conservatives is a tragedy. So don’t rewrite Crunchy Con, write Urban Con.
Man of the West says:

October 8, 2011 at 9:43 pm

Why hasn’t Crunchy Conservatism caught on? I could point to a couple of things–like the seeming obsession, for a while, with anthropogenic global warming, which just made people look ridiculous, especially after a certain notorious e-mail scandal. But really, those are side issues.

It’s basically the same reason that the older, more effective forms of Okinawan karate are practiced by a statistically insignificant number of people around the world, whilst their descendants, completely bowdlerized of any real self-defense content, are practiced by millions: people who don’t know any better are easily satisfied with half a loaf!

Almost everyone I know would describe him/herself as a conservative, but I would give 10-to-1 odds against more than three of them having heard of Edmund Burke, and 20-to-1 against them having heard of Russell Kirk. They all know for sure who Rush is, though–and that is not a knock against Rush, I love the man, but Edmund Burke he ain’t.

It takes time to learn about conservatism’s roots, time to learn about older ways of doing things, about monetary theory, about the Biblical presuppositions underlying conservatism–time that the overwhelming majority of people, simply trying to earn a living and raise their children, will never have.

Mercy, I know that sounds depressing, but that’s the way I see it.
Joel says:

October 9, 2011 at 11:09 am

I think American conservatives should emphasize the good life, as traditionally understood. That is, happiness is achieved in communities of like-minded people contemplating the good (God) with each other. How would that look in America? What patterns of life should it encourage and discourage? How would it help those mired in poverty or spiritual shallowness (many of the rich)?

I also think we should wake up to the fact that the Constitution is dead and quit trying to “go back” to it. Let’s start honestly about the reality we are in and about how to sustain great books, music, arts and industry.
Salamander says:

October 9, 2011 at 1:18 pm

Why hasn’t Crunchy Conservatism caught on more widely?

1. Most people do not like thinking too hard about anything. Re-examining one’s own ideology to figure out whether it truly is a conservative view vs. parroting whatever Rush Limbaugh says is too mentally taxing for many people. (This goes for liberals as well — this is why you see the cognitive dissonance in those liberals who live very conservative lifestyles themselves – yet insist that all sorts of non-bourgeois values are equally good for society).

2. Most people don’t like doing anything that involves effort. Cooking your own food, gardening, thrifting, walking instead of driving, putting down roots, reading the classics, not watching TV…these all are more work, at least initially, than living in the ‘burbs, eating packaged crap, and watching reality TV.

3. Even in the current economic climate, people are still not pinched enough to resort to doing Crunchy Con-ish things out of necessity. That might change, though.

4. There is a lot of overlap between crunchy liberals and crunchy cons, but thanks to the hot-button sexual issues (abortion & gay marriage, mostly) we can’t seem to forge any sort of alliance. This, by the way, is what makes my cynical mind wonder if the “conservative” powers that be have any actual interest in ending abortion. As long as it is an issue, they have a convenient wedge driven between socially-conservative crunchy types and their liberal counterparts. The same with gay marriage — the Left is making a much bigger issue out of this than one would think they would, probably because it is a good litmus test for defining Us vs. Them.

5. Along the lines of #1 and #2, most of the mainstream “conservative” politicians and media types are loud enough to drown out the crunchy message. There is nothing conservative about most of mainstream conservative thought, but unfortunately it dominates the bandwidth and people don’t realize there is another approach.
Sean Scallon says:

October 12, 2011 at 2:03 pm

Well first off you should properly give credit to where credit is due to the Rockford Institute, for they were exploring these trends and lifestyles in the “Letter from..” correspondent section of Chronicles before you put them into book form.

As for impacts 10 years on, they may be subtle and hard to find but they are there if you look closely. Certainly there would be no Front Porch Republic, nor a good number of conservative writers thinking beyond just sex, taxes and Israel. A Ron Paul for President campaign would have been more Randian than Crunchy Con and thus pointless and irrelevant compared to what the movement has accomplished. There probably wouldn’t have been a viable Free State Project of persons looking to influence where they live rather wasting their time trying to change the world. Movements to limit sprawl or nature conservancy are much stronger today with a conservative component added to it and that’s due to Crunch Cons as well.

But, sadly, it remains a limited movement simply because American conservatism is designed more bigness than smallness. This is why many gave their time and money to PNAC than worry about their own city blocks. After all it is largely funded by big business, it is largely spoken to by radio talk-show hosts with nationally syndicated shows run by big media companies, and guided by an establishment who resides pretty much in the biggest cities and high places. Many of its members go to big churches. Many of its adherents drive big cars and trucks which require lots of gas and wars to secure the gas. It tries not to think locally because it is a nationalist movement and operates on that premise. To be a community organizer..hell that’s for the Leftists! (even though one such person because president right under their noses.) Since American society has been affected by bigness since the big one (World War II) then it stands to reason American Conservatives will be affected by this as well and shift accordingly to it as it did. Good bye Taft and small towns and hello Goldwater and Nixon and sunbelt suburbs.

Can it change? Can go back to a Taftian-Hoover-Coolidge-Harding ideal of small towns and Main Streets and real down home values? Entirely no. But certainly in the aftermath of downfall and the inheritance of ruin, some can change by forced circumstance. And it can change simply through attrition, the old folks in their gated communities pass away. The talk show hosts become too old and no one of their stature can replace them. The pastor move on and big communities split up into small ones.

Perhaps what can best be said about Crunchy Cons is that it has endured as an ideal, no matter how small the idealist, until others were ready to pay attention.