Jonah Goldberg is back! There are too many good points in this column that I can't post excerpts, just read it yourself. I hadn't read Jonah in a while since it seems he had been slipping - he's been working on a book. I guess he felt compelled to respond to Dreher's "attack".
I'm with Jonah 100% on this. I haven't read Rod's book, but I certainly wouldn't consider myself "crunchy". I do "crunchy" things, like enjoy shopping at Whole Foods and enjoy nature, but Jonah hits the nail when he describes crunchy cons as conservatives who are essentially Christian Marxists - they see the world in purely economic terms - or, the way I prefer to put it is that they fall into the trap of politicizing everything. These are the ones who are signing on to the whole environmental evangelical movement.
Whatever your take is - we can certainly say that the conservative movement is full of dissent and argument still, which I think is much healthier than what the other side's got.
1 comment:
I think I read Rod's original Crunchy Con article, but from there on have pretty much only read Jonah's take on the subject. As such, I don't feel qualified to say that Johnah's characterization of Rod's stance is correct. Having said that, if Rod really does describe "traditional" conservatives as mean uber-materialists, it seems like a case of the uncool kid trying to get the cool kids to like him by trashing the other uncool kids. Implicit in that motivation is that the popular culture defining (hence "cool") liberals are worth appeasing. I think that hint of appeasment is what strikes a bad chord with those like Jonah. It could be that the appeasment angle is unfair and Rod is soley trying to make common cause with others he sees as like himself. I guess I just see it as unlikely that Jonah is toatally making up the calling other conservatives bad names thing. No point here really, I'm not even sure I find the whole thing important enough to track down Rod's book and read it. Maybe I should though, I do shop at Whole Foods and prefer sandals to shoes...
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