Jonah Goldberg, on Rod Dreher’s book, Crunch Cons:
Yes, yes, often Rod offers caveats about how capitalism is preferable to other systems, how he’s not a socialist, that wealth and prosperity are important tools for fixing social problems and the like. But when he does this, he describes these insights and convictions as “crunchy” insights. “Mainstream conservatives,” meanwhile, are never given the benefit of the doubt. Rod is committing the ageless sin of the self-hating conservative, bee-bopping and scatting all over fellow conservatives so as to sound better, nicer, and more humane, as if to say, “I’m not one of those conservatives.” Indeed, one could go through the entire book and simply scratch out the phrase “crunchy conservatives” and replace it with “good conservatives” and Rod’s meaning would rarely, if ever, change. Because, you see, crunchy cons are the ones who “get it,” they are in the know on the Gnostic insight to the good life. Everyone else has blinders on.
Ouch.
As some of you remember, I was quite critical of Dreher’s histrionics during the Katrina aftermath—which, it seemed to me at the time, was simply a way to wring cheap grace out of a natural and civic disaster by highlighting his own showy OUTRAGE! “I feel,” he seemed to be shouting. “I ache for the human suffering!”
Of course, so did most of the rest of us. But to those who understood that a city under 8’ of water couldn’t be instantly healed, or that FEMA was a bureaucracy, not a magic bandage one stretches over massive flooding and property damage—particularly when the first stage response had completely broken down—Dreher’s hyperbole and recriminations seemed unhelpful and unwarranted.
In short, Rod struck me as a man who, in that instance, was seizing upon a bit of opportunistic outrage—all with the aim of making Rod Dreher look like he cared and felt just a bit more than those more traditional conservatives—whose cold, dispassionate rationalism he found inappropriate to a situation in which blacks were being forced, literally, to eat their own!
All of which is a long and roundabout way of saying that I congratulate Jonah on having the stones to point out this sometime-Dreher trait—even if he does soften the blow somewhat.
A stunning summary of how the center of gravity of world economics has moved decisively to free markets over the last 15 years. Forward this to ‘liberals’ if you want to piss them off.
Yeah, I seemed to have missed the request that the National Guard bring that magic bandage with us when we came down.
When the article about “crunchy cons” appears a few years ago, I had an “bingo” moment. I seemed to fit into the model – people who meet me often have assumed I’m liberal (and are usually shocked and disgusted to learn the truth.) But when I saw the book in the store, something about it put me off-the smugness of the idea. Goldberg’s article nailed it.
yep
Well, at least we all know that Dreher wouldn’t stoop to cannibalism if he were stuck in a Katrina-level disaster.
Not unless Whole Foods certified it was organic anyway.
TW: The truly modern cannibal only serves his long pig with organic cous cous and braised fennel. Fava beans are so 1991.
I don’t get the sense that Jonah G. softened the blow much when his concluding paragraph appears to suggest that he expects Dreher to pull a “David Brock” in the next decade and just come out as a liberal.
I say can’t happen soon enough.
Dreher bugs me (and evidently JPod too, if his comments over at that Crunchy Con blog are any indication). To my knowledge he’s never owned up to his hysterical and bitchy comments about the Bush administration’s handling of Katrina. I guess being “crunchy” means never having to admit you were wrong.
I seem to recall that Dreher’s from Ann Arbor, MI.
Nothing more really needs to be said, does it?
And another thing: I live in the Dallas area and take the Dallas Morning News. Dreher edits the Sunday editorial section, “Points” (or something) and boy does it suck. I had high hopes but so far its been a real disappointment. Dreher probably thinks its “edgy” with a couple of blog quotes on the front page margin, but besides that, its pretty tame, centrist pap. Limitations of the medium, perhaps, but still.
That and his oh-so-hip glasses and hair cut make him look like just the sort of smug liberal puke you want to punch in the face after about 10 minutes of enduring some rant while waiting in line for your overpriced coffee at the “locally owned” coffee shop.
The People’s Republic of Ann Arbor, that is.
TV (Harry)
tw: spring. Couldn’t come any faster to us here in Michigan.
Dreher is from Louisiana (click the bio link on this page), which can help explain (a) his general goofiness, and (b) his outrage over Katrina.
Another NRO commentator, Jay Nordlinger, is from Ann Arbor. Mr. Nordlinger’s conservative bona fides are never in doubt, in my opinion.
Just so you know.
I seem to recall that Dreher’s from Ann Arbor, MI.
Hey now. Some of us aren’t nuts.
Gnostic insight? What’s that? Is it opposed to maybe Nicean insight?
The Gnostic gospels arn’t much into conservatism last I looked.
More Goldbergian obscurantism.
Can’t believe someone actually pays him to pump that kinda crap out.
Its not my job to defend Goldberg or his writing, but I can’t abide public stupidity such as is on display in Goss’ last post. From “The New Advent” site, a quick and dirty description of one aspect of the so-called “Gnostic heresy”:
Jonah’s use of the term “gnostic” is not, therefore, inappropriate. Readers who are passingly familiar with gnosticism caught his drift immediately, and serious readers who didn’t could consult their research assistant, Mr. Google.
Ya friggin’ retard.
well Goldberg’s article did serve a useful pupose: it explains what the crunchy con nonsense is about and I was wondering what they were referring to at the Corner. Now I know…no thanks…I detest assholes who eat “organic” food…its mostly ignorant elitism.
Carl, really –
The word gnosticism comes from the Greek word for knowledge, gnosis (γνÎÃιÂ), referring to the idea that there is special esoteric knowledge, a key to transcendent understanding, that only a few may possess. Since this is one of the few common defining characteristics of systems typically referred to as ‘gnostic’, it is an ideal blanket term.
Gnosticism as hidden knowledge known only to a select few. How is that term misused? That’s the best you can do?
Darn you Fred, you are faster on the draw…
Especially when you pump crap out for FREE.
IT’S A GODDAMN JOKE, YOU FUCKING MORON.
I’m sorry, but who ripped the fucking wires out of your brain that allow you to understand metaphors properly? It’s a bit rich to call another person ‘obscurantist’ just because you yourself are too damn dense to understand fucking Dick and Jane.
Let’s review this, slowly, for the remedial students. Gnosticism connected salvation to the knowledge of the ‘Gnostic truth’–which was revealed only to the ‘Gnostic elect’. The Gnostic elect were the sons of light, everyone else was in the dark. Goldberg is merely mocking Dreher’s smug self-congratulation and apparent belief that a fairly trivial distinction between himself and other conservatives puts him among the elect and them, well, if not among the damned, at least in Purgatory for a good while. Goldberg is drawing an implicit parallel. He is NOT, surprisingly enough, suggesting that Dreher is a second century sectarian who believes in demigods and the pleroma.
Alright? Or rather, how many fewer syllables do I have to use before you understand?
Christ. I mean, just–Jesus.
I have no excuse, because I’ve already read the two prior smackdowns of ol’ Carl, but —-
gnosis = “secret knowledge,” a term used to describe a tenet of a really really popular heresy in early Christianity and illustrative of a general tendency among human being of all stripes…
…including, apparently, me, since I had to demonstrate my gnosis even though other have already definitively made the point. So there.
TW: Carl? You still under there?
Oops, three prior smackdowns. Maybe more by the time I get done commenting herein.
And now as to the post:
I used to take some kind of pride in hating Sam’s Club and Wal-Mart. I really did hate them, back then, for the shopping-in-a-warehouse feeling I got from them – and to be fair, it was back before Target scored Mizrahi and whosis, the architect guy with the neat toasters and all, and Sam’s and Wal-Mart started offering cooler stuff. I too was a Gnostic Conservative…
And then I got a grip, realized that I had the space to store 48 rolls of toilet paper and that buying 48 rolls of toilet paper at once meant I didn’t have to buy toilet paper but twice a year or so (something like that), and I started smiling at my fellow shoppers who had all realized the same thing. I renounced my heresy and learned to love the warehouse, and honestly I now enjoy the fact that I can buy three gallons of milk for the price of two in the grocery store, and a giant box of diapers without having to hunt down a coupon and a sale, and printer ink in multi-packs, and chargers for the Holiday Table that I’m not afraid to let the kids use, and a big block of feta and a big block of parmagiano-reggiano and a big roll of goat cheese for the same price as just the goat cheese at Whole Foods, and so on. I still enjoy the farmer’s market and the periodic splurge at Wegman’s, but it no longer tweaks me to be one of Sam Walton’s customers.
Weirdly, though, I still feel that urge to apologize for liking it. How deep the tentacles of snobbery have burrowed into my soul…
TW: I wouldn’t shop there when I had little means; now that I can afford to go elsewhere, I’m there all the time.
In another thread, Mr. Goss wrapped himself in PC Gnosticism in re: the divinity of multi-culturalism.
Can’t account for his wonderation on this thread.
Cordially…
Goss,
Stick your head in the blender. Hit “puree.”
And just look what this crunchy business has done to jpod. Making his own crunchy mulch, abandoning his crunchy grocer over some breast-feeding litmus test, drinking only those alcoholic beverages manufactured within five miles of home (I checked on google, none such exist).
Truly tragic. Rod Dreher: Moonbat.
Anybody here actually read Rod’s book? Just wondering. Sounds like a lot of reactions to reactions.
I thought it was one of Goldberg’s best editorials of late.
One question to the commenter “noah” upthread a ways…
Do you have a real critique to offer on organic food? Your comment was strong and yet offered no insight.
Enlighten me, if you have the time.
Can I ask a stupid question?
What am I supposed to get out of a book about Crunchy Cons? Is it a ‘how to’ guide, so I can become one? Or is it more of a thing so I can read it and find out if I belong?
Learning about people who vote Republican and drink Soy Lattes sounds interesting and everything, but I’d rather read a book with some sex in it.
On the other hand, Nordlinger can be a considerable ass himself. maybe you’re making the wrong inference.
Too late.
I’m one of the guys Rod interviewed for his book (see the chapter on houses), and while I see merit in what he’s saying in general, I think Goldberg’s critique is valid, too.
I don’t say “feh” on non-crunchies, and I don’t need the gummint swattign Wal-Mart out of my neighborhood. I can lead a “sacremental life” (a notion I really like about Rod’s thesis) without quaint shops run by local townspeople. You don;t have to run the local greengrocer to be connected with a neighborhood.
Can anyone explain to me how Dreher’s crunchy Cons amount ot anything other than conservative bobos? It really seems that since the early 90s or so this subculture has become identified as sophisticated or smarter. Part of me suspects its largely the result of aging baby-boomers enshrining their cultural preferences as smart and sophisticated. I’ll be the first to admit that I was largely a conservative practioner of this phenonomenon until I realized that I could essentially replicate what I was defining as intelligence and sophistication with a couple of trips to a sufficiently trendy shopping district, a couple of weekends at the local art cinema, and a $1,000 credit card bill.
Goldberg lost me right there. Had he said “infamously”, he would have been on the road to writing a good column. Instead, it’s just one long whine, “Don’t call me greedy! I have spiritual values too!” In that one column he embodies every single thing wrong with the conservative movement. When confronted with the contradiction between Christian ethics and capitalism, they fold like a cheap suit.
Screw Goldberg, Dreher and Chambers.
As Ayn Rand famously remarked, “God save capitalism from capitalism’s defenders.”
Ardsgaine,
Buckely is the main voice who’d succesfully argued against contradictions with having a Christian heart and a capitalist mind.
Goldberg knows this, as he’s read Buckley.
Goldberg’s column contained substantive criticisms, whereas your comments are just invective.
Any Rand also said “The Argument from Intimidation is a confession of intellectual impotence.”
Crunchy Conservatism combines good old-fashioned traditionalist conservatism, a hippie lifestyle, and smug self-satisfaction (which may actually be an inherent part of the hippie lifestyle).
Also, it seems to be characterized by good morals, solid aesthetics, and an indefensible confusion between the two.
Dreher says a lot of good and necessary things. Unfortunately, he also says a lot of silly and unnecessary things, and he says it all with the superior yet defensive sneer of the high-school computer geek talking about the varsity quarterback.