We are amused.

Confronted with "Birkinstocked Burkeans," the Ombudsman is luke warm and thinks it will be a good-intentioned but ultimately fruitless attempt to reinfuse conservatism with orthodoxy. His sibling in crime, the Style Editor, is red hot with contempt and sees the entire project as self-righteous, preachy, and narcissistic. Which leaves me to play the foil and, yes, the curmudgeon.

I freely admit, after reading Crunchy Cons this past week, that there is a disingenuous element at play, claiming not to condemn others for living a less-than crunchy life but all the while asking how anyone could think one way and live another. I did think a better title would have been Look, Not Everyone Can Live Like This, But Shame On You, You Should. The book does make one feel guilty at times, and I think in many ways that is what Dreher wants. I'll leave the hand-wringing about self-righteousness to others on this site, however.

In our huff at being called out for not living life the right way, we should not lose sight at the book's broader purpose, as the O-man rightly suggested: reinjecting orthodoxy into American conservatism. By orthodoxy, Dreher means the intellectual foundations of the modern conservative movement found most readily in Russell Kirk, Richard Weaver, and others. He is making the direct charge that conservatism, now subsumed within the Republican Party, has drifted from its moorings. Once waving the banner of tradition, particularity, localism, and community, it now mouths all the modern platitudes about progress, development, globalization, and multiculturalism (resistence is futile!). Conservatives once shed tears when fields and old neighborhoods were bulldozed for renewal and housing projects; now they shed tears of joy when a new chain store opens offering toilet paper at bargain prices.

There is something to this charge. Too many Republicans think lowering tax rates is the heart of conservatism. The party bears virtually no resemblence to the themes explored in Kirk's 1953 Conservative Mind or to Richard Weaver's Ideas Have Consequences and Visions of Order. Now if conservatives are no longer grounded here, in the fertile soil that gave them birth, then where are they now grounded? What is the 2006 conservative philosophy? I'm not sure it has one. Traditionalists (of which Dreher counts himself) cling to Kirk and company, the "others" (what to call these people?) cling to whom? Our Big Government conservatism, if there is such a thing, looks more like Woodrow Wilson -- spend and regulate at home, and make the world safe for democracy.

Another question -- is this spat between CCs and "the others" the old neo-paleo fight under new ownership?

Anyhow, it is true, dear fellow editors, that I liked the book and thought its broader question an important one to ask. Because if Dreher's questions are right (and I think they are) and his answers are right (I think they are, in part), then modern day conservatism is a body with no mind.