Birkenstocked Republicans
By Kelly Jane Torrance

Americans are never satisfied with just one, or even two, of a thing. Coca-Cola and Diet Coke aren’t enough. We want Vanilla Coke, Black Cherry Vanilla Coke, Diet Black Cherry Vanilla Coke, Coke Zero, Diet Coke with Splenda. Not to mention all those caffeine-free versions.

 

It’s the same in politics. We don’t want to be merely conservative or liberal. We want to choose between being left-liberal, progressive, or neoliberal, and libertarian, paleo-conservative, or neoconservative.

 

Add “crunchy con” to the latter list, courtesy of Rod Dreher. The Dallas Morning News writer and editor unveiled the term in a 2002 essay in National Review, where he was then working. His look at the connections between the personal and the political in his own life was sparked by an editor’s dig at his membership in an organic vegetable co-op. How could one be a conservative, yet participate in such a stereotypically liberal enterprise?

 

It turns out that Dreher uncovered a real phenomenon. So many fellow-travelers wrote in to tell him so that he decided the subject merited a book. And so this year’s leading contender for longest subtitle, Crunchy Cons: How Birkenstocked Burkeans, gun-loving organic gardeners, evangelical free-range farmers, hip homeschooling mamas, right-wing nature lovers, and their diverse tribe of countercultural conservatives plan to save America (or at least the Republican Party), was born.

 

So what exactly is a “crunchy con?” Simply put, it’s a conservative that superficially looks like a granola liberal. It’s someone who buys organic food, cares about the environment, lives in the city rather than the suburbs—and believes that the best government is a small one. Dreher explains that “crunchy conservatism is not a political program but a practical sensibility based on what the wisdom of tradition teaches is best for families and communities.”

 

Crunchy conservatism, Dreher says, is more a way of life than a philosophy. But he’s quick to draw on deep thinkers to make his point. Conservative heavyweight Russell Kirk is the patron saint of his movement. Economist E.F. Schumacher and agrarian thinker Wendell Berry are also well represented. In fact, Dreher may have given a new name to a group of people outside the current conservative mainstream, but many of their ideals have been long held dear by conservative thinkers. Kirk is the most notable, and he’s also widely considered the father of modern American conservatism.

 

But Dreher is correct to notice that, in some ways, modern conservatism is very different than what its founders envisioned. For most conservatives today, capitalism is the hallmark of the philosophy. But many of the right’s beloved thinkers, from Adam Smith to Russell Kirk, thought that the invisible hand wasn’t enough. Dreher quotes Kirk arguing that, “Once supernatural and traditional sanctions are dissolved, economic self-interest is ridiculously inadequate to hold an economic system together, and even less adequate to preserve order.”

 

Dreher believes that the right’s critics may have a point. Nowadays, he says, conservatism “ends up as general approval of whatever commercial interests want to do.” Capitalism’s defenders all too often turn into simply capitalists’ defenders. But as Dreher wisely points out, “Absolute power corrupts absolutely, whether it’s in the hands of big government or big business.”

 

Conservatives now may rail against sexual licentiousness, but they say little about economic licentiousness. “Too many people who call themselves conservative share the same fundamental conviction of many liberals, namely, that individual fulfillment is the point of life,” Dreher writes. “Too often, the Democrats act like the Party of Lust, and the Republicans the Party of Greed. Both are deadly sins that eat at the soul.”

 

Dreher believes that individual liberty is a means, not an end in itself. That end is living the good life, which for him deeply involves his religious faith. As is apparent from the sentences quoted above, Dreher’s Catholicism informs his vision. But one needn’t be religious to be a crunchy con. One merely has to be wonder if there’s more to life than wealth accumulation.

 

So, in chapter after chapter, Dreher details the crunchy-con vision, explaining why he and others buy organic, are concerned about the environment and animal rights, homeschool their children, and buy small houses in gentrifying city neighborhoods. People of all political stripes will find much to cheer here. Dreher may have found the key to convincing liberals that conservatives aren’t all hard-hearted money-grubbers.

 

But conservatives and libertarians may wonder, at times, why Dreher thinks he has so much in common with them. Crunchy Cons is mostly an inspiring guidebook to living your life with more meaning. Dreher realizes that it’s easier to change ourselves than to change society. He counsels infusing the political into your personal choices, which sometimes can be empowering, sometimes “spirit-killing,” to use the word Dreher says his detractors throw at him.

 

There are some policy prescriptions, however, and most of them involve bigger government. His frequent rants against modern agriculture ignore how many people those methods have fed. He also advises, “Use government, within limits, to look after the poor and the weak without creating a culture of dependency.” Politicians and social scientists have been trying to devise such programs—without success—for decades now. Dreher’s earnestness sometimes gets the better of him. Perhaps his happy medium between a free market and a cohesive but overpowering society tilts too much in one direction at times. He’s learned a lot from Russell Kirk. But he may have forgotten some of the lessons of Milton Friedman.

 

Crunchy Cons may be about a political development—of sorts—but the book is no dry policy tome, filled with facts and figures. In fact, their absence may trouble some who want to know just how widespread this movement is. There are no poll numbers on how many self-identified conservatives shop at Whole Foods or give money to the Sierra Fund. Dreher relies instead on the personal stories of his friends and correspondents. They’re often quoted at length. His style, too, is not in the least academic. This makes for an easy read, although readers may wish they were spared lines like “What’s up with that?” and “Come on, y’all, can I get an amen?”

 

But regardless of its faults, Crunchy Cons is an important book. It reminds us that the Right is not one big monolith. It reminds us that people on opposite sides of the political spectrum can share much in common. And it reminds us of an important tradition in conservative thought, one whose thinkers understood that politics isn’t everything. A free-market system may be the surest route to wealth creation. But the social ethos needed to shore up that system is another thing entirely. Rod Dreher has performed a great service by reminding us that this issue is as important as any other.

 

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Al Gore may have lost the 2000 Presidential election, but he's finding plenty to keep him busy. The former Vice President just signed a deal to write another book about global warming. Rodale will publish An Inconvenient Truth, a follow-up to Gore's 1992 bestseller Earth in the Balance, in April 2006. Let's hope Rodale has a good team of publicists. Gore has proven himself in need of their expertise time and time again. Two years ago, he chose New York's coldest day in 20 years to give one of his last major speeches on global warming.

 

 

Kelly Jane Torrance is a book columnist for The American Enterprise Online.