Peter Lawler, who is headed to St. Francisville this morning to spend the weekend teaching us about Walker Percy, writes about the differences between postmodern conservatives and Front Porchers. Excerpt:

Nothing signifies the mixture of good and bad that is our high-tech, consumerist society more than the screen. I’m not at all nostalgic for a world without it, but it has made lives better in some ways and worse in others. It’s democratic in being a good that’s now available to about everyone, but it seems that fewer people than ever have what it takes in terms of learning and habituation to use it well. And there’s the screen’s detachment of us all from the world of real faces and places, a detachment that, on balance, makes it harder to raise and educate kids. (Those who school at home, admittedly, find the screen quite a blessing.) Rod, I guarantee (we all see the evidence), is enjoying too much screen time to be open to all the good people of St. Francisville have to offer him. It’s also the screen, however, that readily allows him to have some of the best of more than one world; he and his family live amid the localist virtues of a small town with a rich history, while he can still flourish productively as a literary figure in a cosmopolitan environment whenever he wants.  (Imagine how much Flannery O’Connor would have benefited by being connected online.)

This is an important point. If not for the Screen, we wouldn’t be able to live here. We would have to live in a city somewhere, where I could make the living that supports my family. If not for the Screen, many of the pleasures that make urban life so enjoyable — easy access to movies, books, and shopping — would not be available to us here. In part because it allows for online classes and tutorials, the Screen makes it possible for us to educate our special needs kid at home. And on and on. As far as I can tell by looking at the ticket sales, one-third to one-half the people coming to town for the Walker Percy Weekend learned about it through this blog. Thanks, Screen!

Yet Peter is absolutely right that the Screen imposes an isolation that wouldn’t be there without its existence. We must not assume that the only people using the Screen are semi-aliens like me. Very many people in my town and parish use the Screen. My 79-year-old dad phoned me the other day to say he had figured out how to use FaceTime on his iPad, and was able to contact his granddaughter Hannah in Prague. He was delighted. He stays in touch with old friends far away via the Screen. My mom watches old movies on Netflix, via her iPad. The Screen brings our small community together in surprising ways. If you want to know what’s happening in town at any given moment, you look at Facebook. We needed fresh mint for the Walker Percy Weekend, so Julie put out a call on Facebook for it — and many local people responded. Because my wife uses FB a lot more than I do, she’s plugged in locally in ways I’m not.

I see no point in going all Wendell Berry, and refusing the Screen. If you’d like to do it, that’s fine, but I know too many people (including myself) who have better lives — and more localist lives — thanks to the Screen. I know a family who can afford to live out in the countryside because they have a home manufacturing business, and sell over the Internet. This is not hypocrisy; this is irony. The trick is learning how to make the Screen work to provide a better life for yourself than you’d otherwise have.

Last night, my dad told me how pleased he was to see how much interest there is in the Walker Percy Weekend. He said he had no idea who Walker Percy was, though he certainly knew all the local Percys, who have been around here forever. Matter of fact, he said, not too many people around here have any idea who Walker Percy is, though like him, they know plenty of Percys. Walker Percy, one of the great American writers of the 20th century, a man who lived in the Florida parishes, who wrote about people like us, and who even set his final novel in our own town, is a stranger to many of his own people. Now, thanks in large part to the Screen, that may start to change this weekend. My dad thinks that’s wonderful, and he’s right. What occasioned his remark was a visit from Franklin Evans, a longtime reader of this blog, and a man I met when we lived in Philly. He came down for the Walker Percy Weekend, and having read Little Way, wanted to meet my mom and dad. They had a grand time, us drinking beer while Daddy told stories. It was a real human connection, between people from very different parts of the country and walks of life, who never would have met without the Screen.

Maybe that makes me a pomocon. I dunno. I don’t intend to overthink this. I intend to drink beer and eat crawfish, and talk to strangers who are about to become friends.