Consumer Crunchy Crap
This article in the Washington Post outlines the "Crunchy Conservative" movement, of which, they seem to have found a single family in Dallas (oh, by the way, the father, he's a Dallas Morning News columnist and author of a book about "Crunchy Cons," what a coincidence.) Crunchy Conservatives are socially conservative people who also shop at Whole Foods, recycle, and care about quality time with their kids. I want to take issue with "cruncky cons" in general for a couple reasons. 1) This dude doesn't seem to know what he's talking about and appears to be making this up as he goes, and 2) even if he did, this falls into a pernicious little category of idenity-through-shopping of which I'm really getting tired.
First, as to Rod Dreher, the crunchy con in question, and whether or not he knows of what he speaks let's just take a single short passage:
""A house like this, in a lefty city?" Dreher asks. "We would never be able to afford it. But here? In 'the hood'? We got this so cheap. We like it aesthetically. That's not always valued here.""
I submit that this is self-serving hookum. It's internally contradictory and contradictory of his whole crunchy con message. First off, their house (a "1912 Craftsman bungallow near downtown Dallas") is a small old house in the central city. Yeah, it's a great house for a young family. You know how I know that, by visiting the analogue to this house with a young family living in it affordably in "lefty" cities like Los Angeles and Denver. Also, Dreher contends that a (presumably) righty city like Dallas is a better place to live, but then in the next sentence talks about how his aesthetic isn't valued there. Again, do you know where it is valued? That's right, lefty cities.
This is the larger point. I don't thing crunchy cons exist, or if they do, their either in denial, or superficial assholes. Denial because raising your kids without the dreck on TV, buying into sustainable agriculture, and being environmentally consious are lefty values. They're really just good sense, but mostly good sense embraced almost exclusively by the left. I point you to everything done under Reagan and both Bushes as my proof. So these good people aren't "crunchy cons" so much as anti-choice lefties. And that leads me to believe that their mostly just superficial assholes. They like the sense of satisfaction that eating better, and spending more time with the children brings, and they like feeling young and with it, but they don't actually believe in any of this stuff or they'd have they're hands over their faces like the rest of us. Wanting to protect eh environment and encourage sustainabel agriculture and get the culture on an anti-corporate kick means opposing the modern GOP and embracing not just an aesthetic, but an ethic. The "con" part of crunchy cons seems to be that Mr. Dreher likes Jesus. And why that makes him conservative is anybody's guess. See, I think Mr. Dreher is someone who would like to be a liberal but is filled with self-loathing and insecurity to the point of having to cover his masculinist bases by claiming a conservative traditionalist creed.
Besides, all this is part of larger trend of identifying sub-cultures and ideologies with consumerism. Basically Dreher wants you to believe that he's a different kind of conservative because he shops at Whole Foods. Just like David Brooks wants you to beleive that the prescence of Home Depot shoppers across America is a sea chnage in the fabric of society because people shop there, not because of the global economic and political forces that conspire to create big, box-store, consumption economies. This is surface as substance. And it's a real problem in American popular discourse. This is the same phenomenon to be found in weird naming of government programs. The "Clear Skies" initiative raises caps on factory emissions, but it says clear skies so it's environmentally friendly. Jsut like the crunchy cons claim the love of Whole Foods, and thus must be environmentalists despite doing nothing meaningful on that front at all. Talk is cheap, that's why so many people buy it.
First, as to Rod Dreher, the crunchy con in question, and whether or not he knows of what he speaks let's just take a single short passage:
""A house like this, in a lefty city?" Dreher asks. "We would never be able to afford it. But here? In 'the hood'? We got this so cheap. We like it aesthetically. That's not always valued here.""
I submit that this is self-serving hookum. It's internally contradictory and contradictory of his whole crunchy con message. First off, their house (a "1912 Craftsman bungallow near downtown Dallas") is a small old house in the central city. Yeah, it's a great house for a young family. You know how I know that, by visiting the analogue to this house with a young family living in it affordably in "lefty" cities like Los Angeles and Denver. Also, Dreher contends that a (presumably) righty city like Dallas is a better place to live, but then in the next sentence talks about how his aesthetic isn't valued there. Again, do you know where it is valued? That's right, lefty cities.
This is the larger point. I don't thing crunchy cons exist, or if they do, their either in denial, or superficial assholes. Denial because raising your kids without the dreck on TV, buying into sustainable agriculture, and being environmentally consious are lefty values. They're really just good sense, but mostly good sense embraced almost exclusively by the left. I point you to everything done under Reagan and both Bushes as my proof. So these good people aren't "crunchy cons" so much as anti-choice lefties. And that leads me to believe that their mostly just superficial assholes. They like the sense of satisfaction that eating better, and spending more time with the children brings, and they like feeling young and with it, but they don't actually believe in any of this stuff or they'd have they're hands over their faces like the rest of us. Wanting to protect eh environment and encourage sustainabel agriculture and get the culture on an anti-corporate kick means opposing the modern GOP and embracing not just an aesthetic, but an ethic. The "con" part of crunchy cons seems to be that Mr. Dreher likes Jesus. And why that makes him conservative is anybody's guess. See, I think Mr. Dreher is someone who would like to be a liberal but is filled with self-loathing and insecurity to the point of having to cover his masculinist bases by claiming a conservative traditionalist creed.
Besides, all this is part of larger trend of identifying sub-cultures and ideologies with consumerism. Basically Dreher wants you to believe that he's a different kind of conservative because he shops at Whole Foods. Just like David Brooks wants you to beleive that the prescence of Home Depot shoppers across America is a sea chnage in the fabric of society because people shop there, not because of the global economic and political forces that conspire to create big, box-store, consumption economies. This is surface as substance. And it's a real problem in American popular discourse. This is the same phenomenon to be found in weird naming of government programs. The "Clear Skies" initiative raises caps on factory emissions, but it says clear skies so it's environmentally friendly. Jsut like the crunchy cons claim the love of Whole Foods, and thus must be environmentalists despite doing nothing meaningful on that front at all. Talk is cheap, that's why so many people buy it.
posted by justin | 11:48 AM
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