Crunchy Cons

It is with no little trepidation that I mention the words above. If you have been following the conservative blogosphere, you know that "Crunchy Cons" is the title of a new book by Rod Dreher, and a new blog over at big-blog behemoth NRO.

I have some trepidation because the Doc tells me he has bought the book, and likes it; and the Style Editor has been fuming to me about these darn crunchy cons. Words to that effect. So it seems like the perfect thing to be talking about on a blog!

My initial take, to get things rolling, is that when some of these Crunchy Cons talk to much about lifestyle issues, I am automatically uninterested. Discussing "lifestyles" is all too post-modern, and unserious. But, insofar as it is serious, it seems a poorly named attempt to reorient American conservatism away from its love affair with Libertarianism and Populism. (The internet ain't exactly the place to do it, insofar as it is a perfect expression of both strains of American thought and culture...But let that pass.) As a serious project, it is trying to reinject Orthodoxy into Conservatism. The two are of course not synonymous: David Hume was one of the greatest Conservative thinkers, ever. Hence the sense that Rod Dreher's Crunchy-Con manifesto is Russell Kirk, a little Wendell Berry, shaken together with John Paul II. (Note that just about all of the commentators on the Crunchy Con blog are better known for their writings on Christianity than on Conservatism.) Myself, I cannot stand too much Wendell Berry, but he's a lot more substantive and truthful than Ayn Rand.

Naturally this effort is probably doomed to failure, not merely through poor execution, but also because Populism is just too strong. Me, I like the people fine; I just want to end the direct election of Senators. I would certainly prefer to be governed by the first 500 names in the Cambridge, MA phone directory than the entire faculty of Harvard; but I would also like, in that case, there to be a system of judicial review and frequent elections so I could throw the bums Abramovsky, Aaron, and Babbit out.