Reviews of New Books
By Blake Hurst and Brandon Bosworth

Crunchy Cons

By Rod Dreher

 

A “Crunchy Con” I’m not. Rod Dreher’s book of the same title is a passion­ate lament against much of what passes for con­temporary con­servatism. His book title, and attempt to promote a corresponding political movement, is a reference to conservatives who eat (and breathe) granola. Dreher argues that conservatives have strayed from the one true faith, and thinks only a revival of traditional values can save us. I sympathize with his argu­ment: I live and work three miles from where I was raised, and almost every day do things the way my grandfather taught me. I even believe some things are worth doing that way for no other reason than to honor our family’s long attachment to our northwest Missouri land. But in the process of promoting such things Dreher ignores other conservative notions, like pragmatism, freedom, and avoidance of ideology.

 

The thesis of the book is that conser­vatives, or more properly Republicans, elevate the market to a place once held by family, home, and spiritual things, making them little better than Demo­crats in their prescriptions for society. Dreher argues passionately for organic food, environmentalist politics, home-based education. He views free trade and free markets with skepticism. He writes movingly about his religious con­version, and makes clear that all of his other prescriptions flow from his faith.

 

Consumerism, Hollywood, television, and the modern Republican Party are all easy targets. But Dreher’s prescriptions have little to offer even those of us who have sympathy for his diagnosis.

 

Much of his emphasis and discussion is on the production and consumption of food. To quote Dreher: “Nearly all American agriculture today is carried out by agribusiness and its efficient factory-farming methods. Rural America is depopulating, and dying with it is an entire way of life and a traditional set of values derived from living close to the land. This is the cost of saving money on meat and vegetables at the supermar­ket. But few conservatives stop to think about that.”

 

Which is just as well, because when Crunchy Cons think about farming and food, confusion is the result. Rural areas in much of the Midwest, like where I live, are indeed losing population, and I agree with Dreher that this brings losses to our culture. Most of my neighbors make this argument when they lobby, usually suc­cessfully, for increases in farm subsidies.

 

But if your thesis is that economic freedom is running amok (Dreher’s posi­tion), then agriculture shouldn’t be your main example. It is subsidies and anti-market intrusions that increase fertilizer and chemical use on farms today. And government protection not only does little to protect the family farm, the rural population decline Dreher laments cor­relates almost perfectly with the amount of subsidies an area receives. Different crops and different farming regions are subsidized differently, and it’s a useful rule of thumb that the more “protected” the farming, the worse the depopulation.

 

Dreher urges consumers to buy locally, buy organic, support small farms. But there is no linkage. Many of the organic products on Whole Food store shelves are produced by large organizations. The organic market is hyped by the same sort of marketing that normally sends Dreher screaming to his copy of Small is Beautiful.

 

Producing food organically doesn’t always improve the environment, and often makes it worse. On our “indus­trial” family-run farm (industrial and family are not exclusive, just as small farm and organic are not synonymous) we practice no-till farming, which cuts erosion of irreplaceable topsoil by as much as 20 tons per acre a year. That practice wouldn’t be possible in organic production; without crop-protection chemicals, the only way to control weeds is with several cultivations a year, con­suming copious amounts of fossil fuels, and releasing greenhouse gases.

 

Organic is not necessarily safer. Dozens of dogs were killed earlier this year when a dog-food factory used corn contaminated with aflatoxin, a natural fungus product which is much more likely to occur in non-genetically modi­fied corn. In recent years, all of the conventional corn on our farm was contaminated, but none of the geneti­cally modified corn was.

 

Dreher acknowledges the irony of his advocating traditional ways of doing things via computer, but doesn’t take the thought to its logical conclusion. People who are quick to urge others to reject technology are rather slow to do the same in their own professions. Nobody wants his oncologist to use Depression-era technology, yet writers invariably want their farmer in overalls with pitch­fork, fresh from “American Gothic.”

 

Dreher seems totally unaware of today’s intellectual ferment for market solutions to environmental problems. His chapter on the environment reads like a Kerry campaign backgrounder. Yet most original thinking on environ­mental problems today is coming from the right. Conservation banks, conser­vation easements, and the proper assignment and protection of that most conservative of values—property rights—offer today’s best hopes for an improved environment.

 

Dreher has written a challenging book, but I expect it will be his last con­servative work. The drift in his thought is clear. He rightly criticizes conservatives who value material things above home, family, and God. But he is not immune to a consumerism of his own. To put your children in day care so you can have two careers and the luxury they buy is indeed to put the material above the per­manent. But to preen about the moral superiority of your dinner choices, and to spend much more money doing so, is no less at odds with a life properly lived. Dreher says that conservatism should recognize the need for restraint and humility. But there is a marked lack of humility in the way he celebrates the choices that his Crunchy Cons make.

 

The problem in contemporary America isn’t our wealth, but how we choose to live and spend. Dreher pro­claims that economics trumps culture today, even though he believes culture is more important. But his attack on eco­nomic freedom is gratuitous. If we go about the hard work of changing our­selves, we can create any home, family, and cultural life we value. And which consumer goods we covet will surely change as well.

 

Blake Hurst is a farmer and TAE contributor.

 

Literant

 

Let me be perfectly upfront about something. For a conservative, hyper-patriotic American, I have certain Europhile tendencies. I drive a Swedish car, wear British shoes, and shoot Austrian pistols. I like to drink a nice glass of Cotes du Rhone while listening to Bill O’Reilly try to browbeat me to “Boycott France!”

 

So the fact that Europe is going to hell in a handbasket worries me. Two recent books on the subject are Menace in Europe: Why the Continent’s Crisis is America’s, Too, by Claire Berlinski, and While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West From Within, by Bruce Bawer. Berlinski, who has spent a good deal of her life living abroad, is a self-described secular Jew. Bawer, who moved to Scandinavia in 1998, is gay and the author of a book critical of Christian conservatives. Neither, in other words, is a poster child for the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. Yet both argue that Europe faces many serious problems today. Neither dismisses Europe’s troubles as irrelevant to Americans—a mistake made by too many commentators.

 

The Islamization of Europe is a key element in these books. Theo van Gogh’s spec­ter haunts both authors. Bruce Bawer in particular reacts to the vicious homophobia of many Muslim immigrants. Muslims talk more about killing homosexuals than about their objections to same-sex marriage, he notes.

 

Commendably, both books look not just at Muslim immigrants, but also at Europe’s failure to assimilate them. It is clear that the thinly veiled racism of many Europeans has certainly not helped matters. Berlinski discusses a bestselling British novel (White Teeth, by Zadie Smith) as well as her own personal experiences as an outsider to illustrate how even completely Westernized Muslims never really feel British—because they are never accepted as such. Berlinski contrasts this with the U.S., where pretty much anyone can be accepted as an American without fuss.

 

For two very secular observers, the authors have no difficulty noticing the prob­lems caused by the waning of Christianity in Europe. Bawer initially approved of the secular nature of his adopted society in his new home in the Netherlands. But he came to realize that “when Christian faith had departed, it had taken with it a sense of ultimate meaning and purpose,” leaving the Continent “vulnerable to people with deeper faith and stronger convictions,” such as radical Islamists.

 

Of course, Europe has other issues that are completely unrelated to radical Islam. For example, Berlinski looks at French farmer-turned-moonbat Jose Bove, whose popularity among haters of globalism/free markets/America/etc., says little for the supposedly discerning European intellect. In an odd turn, she also examines German industrial-metal band Rammstein. The band members themselves insist they are good leftists who pine for the gray old days of East Germany. Yet much of the group’s music, imagery, and lyrics suggest neo-Nazism to Berlinski. They seem to love their country like Nationalists, and they’re Socialists, so maybe they should be considered...you get the idea. While Europe is indeed afflicted with many worrisome variations of anarchy, ennui, and violence today, Berlinski may be taking a pop-music band like Rammstein too seriously.

 

Though much bad news can be found in these books, neither author is ready to give up hope. Bawer suggests changes in U.S. immigration policy to make it easier for Western Europeans to immigrate to America, in hopes of bridging the transatlantic gap. It’s hard to shake the feeling, however, that the continent many Americans once loved is virtually gone, while the Europe envisioned by Islamofascists is dawning.

 

—By Brandon Bosworth