Rod Dreher

When a colleague teased writer Dreher one day about his visit to the "lefty" local food co-op, he started thinking about the ways he and his conservative family lived that put them outside the bounds of conventional Republican politics. Shortly thereafter

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)

Crunchy Cons

Simon Elliott Stegall

Well, I did it. I finally read Crunchy Cons. I'd been delaying this for a while, not because I don't appreciate Dreher's work but because I felt that I knew the book already. Among the people I run with, Crunchy Cons has approached the level of semi-holy writ. I resisted my friends' urgings to read it because I thought I had absorbed the entire book by sheer osmosis.

But I am very glad that I read it. Dreher manages to cut through the nonsense of politics and ideology commonly associated with the word "conservative" and gets back to the Kirk n' Burke roots of the word, which, to quote Dreher quoting Kirk, is about conserving the "Permanent Things". As Dreher points out repeatedly, most of our institutions in modern America are not committed to conserving anything of permanence; our schools, economics, and political parties are infatuated with lust, greed, and progress-at-all-costs. The institutions that do preserve the permanent things - our churches, families, and local economies - are rotting under the weight of liberal individualism. With clarity and common sense, Dreher calls conservatives to remember what is worth conserving, and pursue that with fervor. Thus he advocates green eating, media-free homes, homeschooling, and sanctified religion. These are great reminders, especially considering recent political events.

As young people approaching this book a half-generation after it was written, people like me (millennials) have perhaps a unique perspective on the efficacy of the ideas Dreher propagates (ideas much older than his book), because we can observe them in the lives of older people. In fact, my parents are one of the "Crunchy Con" couples that Rod interviews in this book (find them in the "Religion" chapter), a fact that I am both proud of, and find slightly hilarious. I'm proud because I have seen the wisdom of preserving our ancient institutions played out in my own childhood and upbringing, and recognize the huge difference it has made in forming me and my siblings into people far removed from the frenzied liberal insanity of today. It's an honor to see that codified in Rod's book. I find it hilarious because there is nothing funnier than seeing people you know so well and have spent your life with idealized in a book, because all people are so far from ideal. But that's what being a crunchy con is all about: preserving the permanent things in the choices of everyday life. "In this sense, to conserve is to create anew." Crunchiness won't look glamorous in your life, or mine, but it will be good, and perhaps preserve us when the horns blow.

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)

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