the Anti-Crunchies
Kansas Must Be StoppedPeter Suderman, cosmopolitan, pop-culture savant and lover of leveling capitalism linked to two recent and unfortunate mental excretions from the anti-Crunchy brigades.
I'll deal first with Anthony Sacramone of First Things.
The country, I’ll concede, may be where you find community, if by that you mean your next-door neighbor walking uninvited through your canted screen door to borrow a few shotgun shells to dust back yet another coyote. But it is also where you are apt to find the same old prejudices, superstitions, and gross habits masquerading as traditions. Not that the big city is bereft of such things, but at least you’re confronted with competing and contradictory prejudices, superstitions, and habits. In short, it’s hard to stay a city person for long and not be made aware that there’s someone else out there—probably right down the hall in a nicer apartment—who thinks you’re an idiot.
Translation: "I fucking hate you hicks." Good grief. Is Anthony Sacramone's only interaction with the "country" the time he read Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" in the ninth grad? Give me a break. Who is making the following argument? Country: Religious and good. City secular and evil. But Sacramone takes the opposite approach:
The city is where natural law, lawlessness, and the Sword of the Spirit do battle on their Broadways; where multiple cultures jostle for breathing room in the same cathedrals; and where cultural barbarities do us all the favor of advertising the Fall without our having to read about all those “begats” once again.
What? The argument for the city is cultural barbarities? Did Anthony Sacramone shed a tear when the sex shops were shut down by that evil populist Guiliani? Did he start to forget he was a fallen human being when he couldn't get the quarter shows? This prose is pretty gaseous and of course it comes from the same people who believe Crunchies aren't specific enough in their policies. Sacramone then points out that the early Christians were in Roman cities. Oh WOW - you totally blew my mind away. I also forgot that all of Jesus' parables were about retailers, performance artists and investment bankers - you know - the salt of the earth.
Then there is the Contra-Crunchy:
I used to work as an editorial associate at a big-city daily paper and one of my jobs was to open all the nut mail the reporters received. Now I am not saying Casey Stegall is a bizarre crank who would send 17 pages of single-spaced discussion of the metaphysics of computer hacking and 4th-dimensional psychic powers to a newspaper that would never be accused of taking itself too seriously.
But I am saying that Stegall's ravings on our persecution and control by a distant and scheming "elite" are removed from Art Bell/Illuminati/Trilateral Commission territory by style more than they are by substance.
In other words: Shut up. There is no elite. Crazy people say words like elite. No one of any intellect believes that societies are ruled by elites, or that elites have incredible influence on our culture. Machiavelli, James Burnham, Michael Praeto, Gaetano Mosca, Antionio Gramsci - those sound like the names of the tin-foil hat brigade. Nutters all of them. (Covering ears and shutting eyes) Blah blah blah, I can't hear you. Blah blah blah, I like my IPod. Blah blah blah, I'm going to pretend you aren't arguing for a reduction of the size and influence of the federal government (the main plank of the conservative movement for the past 55 years) because you are coming at it from a different angle. Blah blah blah, I hate bluegrass music.
So, instead of "the fog of federal regulation," the Sage of Perry, Kansas suggests "incentives to keep cultural capital local" and "encourage people to work, study, and raise families close to where they grew up." Let's assume for a minute that it's anyone's business where people choose to get hitched and hatch rugrats. The practical question is, why should we trust the government to do this? There is no secret government-in-exile that will ride triumphantly back into Washington if only we elect Ross Perot, Ralph Nader, or Lyndon Larouche for that matter. Hell, I barely trust them to figure out how to pick up the trash and fill in the potholes.
Translation: I hate Kansas.
The Lyndon Larouche thing is just gravy. Do they hand out instruction manuals on this kind of writing? If someone you don't like says something that is different - reinforce our intellectual conformity on him by associating his ideas with something that he finds noxious. Lyndon Larouche, David Duke, Jerry Fallwell. These are just some examples. They are all out of the mainstream. So when someone else pulls themselves out of that mighty river of thought - they are the ontologically becoming like David Duke. Obviously. The motto of this style of argument should be "Intellectual diversity is conformity. Conformity is freedom." When the power of Tocqueville's common opinion fails to ensnare someone the reaction is quite nasty from the commoners. The anti-Crunchies are the ones who believe in the end of history. Society is not the best of all conceivable worlds - but America right now in 2006 is the best possible world. And on Friday it will be the same or better. There are no new or old ideas that matter anymore, anywhere.
But the truly ironic and laughable part is that Stegall harps endlessly on "elites" and "control" and "aristocratic" forces is quite comfortable extending the force of government much deeper into our lives than any bean-counter deep in the recesses of the Under-Secretary to the Commission on Reduction in Redundancy Reduction would dream of. Instead of a government controlled by elites, Stegall proposes government--controlled by a different set of elites.
Where does Caleb Stegall say that the federal government should be doing this engineering when the entire tide of the piece pulls against that idea? Anyway, if Caleb doesn't think we should have a different set of elites, he ought to. Elites don't just run government agencies, they produce and promote attitudes in our culture. Leaving the government out of it - if you wanted a culture that stigmatized divorce, or abortion - you have to get a new set of elites. The Anti-Crunchy argument however, always comes down to this formula: Caleb wants us to be rooted. Therefore he must want a constable guarding the border of every podunk county in America, beating the big city dreams out of children trying to get away from home with a 19th century nightstick - and he wants the federal government to pay them. This is not an argument. It's one step above saying Caleb wants trains to run on time Just.Like.Hitler.
PS. Let it be noted that Caleb Stegall was a prarie populist long before Dreher called him Crunchy and created Crunchy conservatism.
Michael Brendan Dougherty
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Among several books I intend someday to write, one stands out: The Great Indoors: Why Going Outside Is Vastly Overrrated. Now is probably the time to pitch it—contrarian cant at its finest—given all the hugga-mugga over Crunchy Cons and the various websites supported by sundry disciples of Wendell Berry, who believe consumerism, free markets, and technological obsolescence are destroying our souls, families, and communities.This concern is an old one. And the solution—high-tail it for the Ozar -
Forget about nukes--if you want to destroy Manhattan, just drop a copy of this Casey Stegall essay from the 86th floor observation deck of the Empire State Building. The crater would stretch clear from the Chelsea Piers to the House Ruth Built. Here's a teaser:
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Source: Populism Nown the 1980s, the historian and social critic Christopher Lasch pronounced dead the conventional political categories of right and left and argued for a revitalization of politics through a redefinition of terms."The idea of a 'left' has outlived its historical time and needs to be decently buried, along with the false conservatism that merely clothes an older liberal tradition in conservative rhetoric."
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Response: Populism Like You Mean ItWell, fine and good, but this is not "an actual political platform." This is a series of appealing but somewhat-general statements of principle. It's more specific than, say, the Distributist website that lists, as examples of places where Distributism has been put into practice, "Middle Ages Europe" and "Most of Middle Earth." (Excluding Mordor, presumably . . . and who really knows about the Haradrim?) But it's not quite ready for the prime-time of present-day U.S. politics.
Reader Comments (29)
"Now is probably the time to pitch it—contrarian cant at its finest—given all the hugga-mugga over Crunchy Cons and the various websites supported by sundry disciples of Wendell Berry, who believe consumerism, free markets, and technological obsolescence are destroying our souls, families, and communities."
Caleb being one of the sundry disciples and Caleb's Dallas Morning News piece being the most recent salvo in the Crunchy- anti-Crunchy fight - I wrote (in my stupor - this IS a blog) as if Sacramone were naming Caleb. I can't help but think he had him and his Dallas Morning News piece in mind though.
I will revise the post slightly to reflect that Sacramone doesn't mention Caleb by name. And if you don't know Caleb Stegall is the editor of the New Pantagruel - an excellent Christian webzine. Caleb was profiled in Crunchy Cons too.
An arse Sacramone may well be, but there is a small element of truth. West of the Mississippi, the local elites tend to be socially mobile transplants in semi-rural locations. Most of them are "conservative" in the sense that they vote Republican and many of them even attend Church (albeit revivalist/pentecostal megachurches), although the negative influence they exert upon small towns and rural areas around them cannot be understated: in aesthetics, spirituality AND manners.
Perhaps there should always be a certain tension between the country and the city, although the modern tension is a gross parody of better times. Metrosexual airheads deserve the retrosexual reaction, but those of us--urban or rural--who cherish neither form of effeminization are the losers in this game.
I have but one observation and one question.
First, in writing that Caleb "is quite comfortable extending the force of government," the Contra Crunchy did not limit himself to the force of the federal government. Mr. Dougherty presumed the reference was to the federal government just so he could ask this:
"Where does Caleb Stegall say that the federal government should be doing this engineering when the entire tide of the piece pulls against that idea?"
This is arguing over a strawman that is not precisely what the Contra Crunchy wrote, and whether he did this deliberately or through sloppy thinking is anyone's guess.
My question, to those who scoff at the idea that Caleb Stegall wants a more intrusive government, is in reference to this passage:
[Caleb's brand of populism] "would seek creative ways to open regional markets for regional goods.
"It would seek to permit regional cultural and religious particularities to emerge from the fog of federalized regulation and be made manifest in our schools, courthouses, businesses and civic organizations. And it would provide incentives to keep cultural capital local. It would encourage people to work, study and raise families close to where they grew up. It would seek ways to promote local culture and would cultivate loyalty to our neighbors and a fierce love for our own places."
Just how could this be accomplished with a government that is less intrusive than the one we have now?
Here it is few months later and I still don’t see a political movement or even a weak linkage between my lifestyle and my politics. I don’t like being called a crunchy. Not too happy about being perceived as a crypto liberal either.
I’ve blogged at the contra site for awhile now. We have some good exchanges, but it is hard for me to debate people I more or less agree with on fundamentals. Where I think that I diverge from them is I tend to see the excesses of our culture (e.g. a sixty+ mile daily commute) as problematic. I’m suspect of very large transnational corporations. Not because they makes tons of money--but can the world peacefully sustain the growth?
What has been disappointing is that there is not a lot of thoughtful debate. However, there is a lot of sniping back and forth. No crunchy has made a compelling argument for a third party. Rod was pretty tough on the McMansion crowd, but without addressing the real needs of families to raise their kids in safe areas. These are a few disappointments for me.
At the end of the day it is about perceptions. I think the contras perceive the crunchies’s problems as solutions and vice versa. Since the crunchies are calling for change it is incumbent upon them to offer specific solutions to the problems they site if they want a to start a new party. Here are two things to start with: first, overcome Pauli’s solid assertion that crunchies should work within the current conservative political structures for change, second, change the freakin name--I hate being called crunchy. ;-)
"In other words: Shut up. There is no elite. Crazy people say words like elite. No one of any intellect believes that societies are ruled by elites, or that elites have incredible influence on our culture."
A common thread in the Crunchy position on culture and commerce is that we are mindless consumers being force-fed a noxious popular culture like geese for foie gras. That we have no choice--"They told me if I didn't vote for Taylor Hicks that little Timmy would die at the bottom of that well!"
I never said that elites have no power or influence. But I think Stegall ascribes far too much to their influence, and that is where he veers into the weeds.
Moreover, I think this influence is diminishing. It wasn't long ago that the only coservative voice was Rush Limbaugh on AM radio and Dan, Peter, and Tom gave us the news as they saw fit. Imagine Reagan with today's blogosphere behind him! And yes, the Left still holds the Academy, but who outside of their own fan club really takes them seriously anymore?
"Where does Caleb Stegall say that the federal government should be doing this engineering when the entire tide of the piece pulls against that idea? "
Hmm, how about: "What would this kind of regional populism look like in an actual political platform... It would encourage people to work, study and raise families close to where they grew up."
How exactly would such 'encouragement' be applied? I don't think he is talking about helpful pamphlets or PSAs from the Ad Council. One commenter on my blog talked about zoning and a five-year residency requirement for voting. I think that is "pretty far out of the mainstream." This is why I keep asking for Stegall & Co. to go on the record about *precisely what they would propose to do.* I will be happy to debate specifics if he will just offer them.
"Translation: I hate Kansas."
Riiight. Pretty cute coming from a guy who grew up in a suburb of NYC and blogs about women's fashion. You have zero credibility on this point.
So yeah, I happily tune out Caleb and friends with my Ipod blah blah blah. It offers me a bit more in the way of intellectual stimulation, creativity, and ideas than the crunchies do. And that's when I'm listening to the Bee Gees.
Hitler? That comparison is a little over the top, and hurts your contra credibility. These men and women are espoused Christians just like you, not nazis.
I am curious to know what exactly do you think these people are proposing?
Stegal's views are informed by the teachings of our faith. Perhaps they are a tiny bit naive, but all I've ever infered from their writings is that they are trying to live a simple Shire like existance. There was no need for dictators there. They had to get rid of dictators in the end of the book.
My apologies when I was browsing Dreher’s and Dougherty’s posts I did not read carefully. He was accusing you guys of making harsh exaggerated criticisms. I was wrong. I’ll be more careful next time.
Dougherty
Outside of history texts and documentaries, mentioning Hitler is unnecessary about 95% of the time. It was certainly unjust in this case. Perhaps you should read them a little closer. Writing with wit is one thing, applying venom is another. Perhaps you went a little far with “It's one step above saying Caleb wants trains to run on time Just.Like.Hitler.”
Yes, I grew up in a suburb of NYC and blog about women's fashion. So somehow that means I can't criticize people who think all non-NYC culture is stealing shot gun shells? I don't follow. There is a huge difference between not liking bluegrass music because it wasn't something you learned to like as a child and exhibiting an insane hatred for those who do. I didn't have to live in the appalachians in order to know that "community" in rural America consists of more than pilfering shotgun shells from your neighbor. I can love NYC, I might even feel out of place in Kansas - doesn't mean I hate them - Anthony Sacramone somehow thinks that Kansans can't have a proper sense of Original Sin. There's a difference.
What is funny about this debate is that each side accusses the other of snobbery. Rod is too good for Wal-Mart. Anthony Sacramone is too good for those located West of the Henry Hudson Parkway.
Is it your contention that participating in a web log http://concrunchy.blogspot.com> devoted to expressions of contempt for sundry utterances of an editorial writer for the "Dallas Morning News" constitute 'tuning them out'?
"Riiight. Pretty cute coming from a guy who grew up in a suburb of NYC and blogs about women's fashion. You have zero credibility on this point."
Zero credibility on what point? Anthony Sacramone's commentary incorporates an understanding of life in small towns and the countryside that is but a series of (unflattering) caricatures. That remains true without regard to the point of origin of our moderator.
"'It would seek to permit regional cultural and religious particularities to emerge from the fog of federalized regulation and be made manifest in our schools, courthouses, businesses and civic organizations. And it would provide incentives to keep cultural capital local. It would encourage people to work, study and raise families close to where they grew up. It would seek ways to promote local culture and would cultivate loyalty to our neighbors and a fierce love for our own places.'
Just how could this be accomplished with a government that is less intrusive than the one we have now?"
'Accomplished' perhaps with changes in taste and private initiative. With regard to public policy, here are some suggestions. They may not be very effective toward the ends favored by Messrs. Dreher and Steagall, but, taken together and with some qualifications, they do not render the state more intrusive than it is already:
A. On the governance of educational institutions by local burgesses rather than by professional guilds (operating through judicial and administrative decrees):
1. Strip the federal and state judiciary of the authority seize control of local schools (or, better yet, of all policy-making authority).
2. Turn the ownership of public schools over to membership corporations composed of resident alumni, funded by vouchers. Being owners, they can determine the curriculum and the disciplinary rules according to their lights.
3. Close state teachers' colleges. Presume that if local schools find it improves the performance of teachers to have them instructed in educational or developmental psychology, they will require such.
4. Abolish the federal Department of Education, transfer its surveying functions to other agencies, and phase out the remaining programs.
5. Have a board of regents in each state (nominated by professional corporations with the advice and consent of the legislature) administer examinations to students in each grade level in English grammer, mathematics, natural sciences, geography, history (of a discrete factual sort), foreign languages, and sundry vocational and technical subjects, for purposes of quality control and the construction of league tables. That function aside, abolish state departments of education.
6. Persuade schools to incorporate the study of local history, local geography, local literature, local music, local art, and local architecture into the curriculum.
7. Have state legislatures issue new charters to all tertiary institutions which are not subsidiaries of relgious or commercial corportations, placing them under the government of membership corporations composed of locally-resident alumni who elect the board of trustees thereof. Make it explicit in these charters that the general and particular educational mission of the school is the responsibility of the trustees to determine.
8. Revise labor law as follows: no contract of employment (and therefore no right of 'tenure') is enforceable in a court of law for a period of longer than six years.
9. Make accreditation bodies liable for defamation.
10. Have public agencies set up in-house institutes to do research in support of programs determined by legislatures. End state research grants to local colleges.
B. On the vigor of local government:
1. Replace 'grants-in-aid' and 'bloc grants' with general revenue sharing which would be distributed according to formulae and whose use would be wholly at the discretion of local legislatures;
2. End collective bargaining for public employees. Insist they be hired according to written examination, and as easy to terminate as any employee of a business corporation;
3. Reconfigure the administrative boundaries of local government to conform more to actual settlement patterns (as was the case in metropolitan zones prior to about 1925) and trade areas. This would render local government more distant, but it might allow for more local control and local mobilization by:
a. Ameliorating the chronic fiscal dilemmas which beset central cities;
b. Re-invigorating local politics artificially enervated by monopolies borne of social segmentation in metropolitan areas;
c. Changing the balance of power between local authorities and national commercial chains;
d. Allowing for the devolution of certain functions beyond the capacity of lightly populated rural townships to perform.
4. End mandates on local government. Superodinate authorities should do it themselves or allow local option.
C. On association:
1. Favor the integrity of'little platoons' in law and political economy:
a. End no fault divorce;
b. Ban abortion;
c. End subventions to out-of-wedlock child-bearing;
d. Allow heads of households to claim disabled and elderly relatives as dependants;
e. Transfer the responsibility for investigating child abuse and neglect from the social work apparat to the sheriff;
f. On public welfare: have federal authorities tinker with income distribution through the tax code and unempolyment benefits, and have more particular authorities provide for pensions for cripples and collective consumption of services for which need arises insistently and unpredictably (medical care, nursing care, and legal representation), but leave the rest to communal and family initiatives.
2. End the metastasis of 'protected categories', which inhibits free association and the autonomy of corporate bodies. Replace the current body of 'civil rights' law with more circumscribed legislation that protects blacks and Amerindians with regard to the use of public accommodations and the seeking of employment (making it clear that standardized examinations for employment are legitimate) and protects women from sexual extortion.
C. On local particularity in material culture and mass entertainment, &c.:
1. Encourage and empower planning, zoning, and historic preservation boards to insist that real estate development, particularly of a commercial nature, be an organic extension of extant forms and patterns in the area and be amenable to foot traffic.
2. Amend broadcast and cable regulation. Have the authorities auction off licenses and franchises (say) every six years to a pool of contestants composed of limited partnerships of local residents who have signed agreements to abide by local obscenity regulations.
3. Return to localities the power to regulate, and prohibit, vice.
D. On the mobility of factors of production:
1. Incorporate into tax law, commercial law, and corporate law a bias in favor of producer co-operatives;
2. Enforce immigration law.
E. On the integrity and stability of urban neighborhoods:
-Get the muggers, drug dealers, pimps, obnoxious vagrants, and graffitti off the streets. Get small commerce back on.
This conversation has really declined, but for what it's worth, I do not believe Dougherty is on record as having ever acted snobbishly toward the (traditional) culture of rural America. Of course, he is quite capable of defending himself without my help, but there is a larger point to be made.
A defense of localism should not be taken as a license for demagogic populism, unrestrained nationalism, or extreme unilingualism. The truth is, the supposedly cosmopolitan metrosexuals dwelling in modern cities are themselves, in fact, rather unilingual and culturally ignorant (unaware, for example, that any European government before 1789 was actually legitimate, that there was a time when people valued something other than the Rights of Man, or even that there exist correct and incorrect ways to speak the English language).
A conservative need not himself be "provincial." Many (probably most) people, owing to their station in life, have no need to become polyglots and could live a very good life staying in one general area. The upper classes in a truly vibrant society must be cosmopolitan out of diplomatic necessity; only by understanding how their own people function as part of the larger order of Christendom can they effectively govern. And the artists and intellectuals must understand their own people as but one part of the Body of Christ, not a unit in a vacuum. English history, for example, would be absurdly empty if it confined itself to domestic ongoings. But they do this in defense of more specific units.
What is dispicable is the attempt by modern liberal and socialist societies to turn provincialism cosmopolitan. For one thing, the constant transplanting of Middle Americans that we see today is a worrisome phenomenon; there is always the risk of creating a general population where the average man has few roots and loyalties. And this leaves the land and the people vulnerable to hostile onslaughts (e.g., the current Mexican invasion).
For another thing, the modern idea of cosmopolitanism is but a deplorable parady of the international monarchies of times past. And as the cosmopolitan processed is "democratized" the quality of higher education and the ruling classes shoots straight down. I'm told a century ago, one percent of Americans understood ancient Greek and Latin; now the figure is less than a third of that. How many English or American statesmen speak any languages other than English (or Spanish, if they wish to pander to foreign governments)? How many foreign elites speak any foreign languages other than English?
Why, yes it is. Hey, you used the word "sundry" -- look up the definition. I only spend time on Dreher's and Stegall's defining moments of crowning hypocritical glory. (I'm sure I've missed a few, which i regret). as far as their poorly-edited ideas about, say, Williams Jenning Bryan, or small town living -- pass the NoDoz.
errr, then why are you posting them here?
Dougherty, by all means feel free to criticize those people, as well as those who exhibit an "insane hatred" for bluegrass music and who say Kansans don't have a proper sense of Original Sin. Just don't go saying Sacramone is one of those people.
what really ticks you guys off is that we have fun when we criticize crunchies. no sense of humor allowed!! we will read your satire literally to make you look like scum!! laughter will not be tolerated!
just deal.
You are the first person I see that is talking in specifics. Where can I find out more information? If you don't want to talk here please leave a post on my site I will get the email.
http://immaculatedirection.blogspot.com/
"errr, then why are you posting them here?"
The actual results of a discrete public policy, much less a portfolio of them, are often difficult to gauge in advance. My thoughts were based on a set of conjectures about how human relations might evolve in a salutary direction given certain stimuli. Some of these conjectures would be easier to test through observational study than others, hence the use of the term 'might'. It would be foolish of me to speak here and now in terms of a deterministic relationship between policy and social outcome. That is why they were labeled, 'suggestions'.
JohnT:
I'm afraid I haven't any information, just thoughts on the passing scene.
Do you mind if I cut and paste them into Rod Dreher's blog under the post that brought me here? Perhaps that will get the conversation rolling over there. Thx.