Crunchy, Soggy, Salty, Minty, and Sweet-and-Sour Conservatism
Apropos Caleb's post on ur-crunchyism in the Economist, I can only say he doesn't go nearly far enough. Why stop at "crunchy" versus "soggy," when granola comes in so many more varieties? In the interest of turning a relatively unified right wing into as many squabbling cliques as one sees on the Left, I would like to revise and extend Caleb's thoughts:
Salty-cons: A salty-con always tells it like it is: straight-up, no rocks, stop-your-whining-and-take-it-like-a-man. The best example is George Will, who hasn't smiled since that "lost weekend" when he sailed out into international waters with WFB in the late 1960s. Charles Krauthammer is also pretty salty, as demonstrated by the fact that he's hidden the fact that he was a cripple since his early 20s almost as well as FDR did. Come to think of it, FDR is about as salty as Jimmy Carter is crunchy, so I'm going to call him a salty-con. Besides, he looks really cool with that cigarette holder.
Ed: Several people have suggested I should add John Derbyshire to the list. At first glance there is a strong case to be made. He is so gloomy that physicists have recently discovered that light actually bends around him. However, he is also English, and as anyone from West Texas knows, that's pretty much the same thing as "gay." It doesn't matter how much of a homophobe he pretends to be. Have you ever noticed that he and Andy Sullivan agree on nearly everything else? In fact, Greg Gutfeld recently told me that Annie Proulx actually based the original "Brokeback Mountain" short story on the summer that Derb and Sully spent herding sheep in the Scottish highlands back when they were in college.
Sweet-and-Sour Cons: Where saltycons want to make you cry, sweet-and-sourcons wrap harsh truths in humor. Think TimesSelect abductee John Tierney, who became famous for his article on why recycling is environmentally hazardous. The fact that S&Scons (not S&Mcons, this is a family blog) delight in making Big Macs out of sacred cows makes them the arch-nemeses of Crunchy Conservatives, who distrust humor as "a frivolous and undignified pursuit unworthy of free men."
Minty-cons are fresh and fun and utterly forgettable once you're done with them. They're the Jessica Albas of the right-wing: more deserving of celeb status than Paris Hilton, but still clearly cruising thanks to a face made for television. Michelle Malkin is today's leading MintyCon, and gets the Scrabble double bonus for being both hot and Asian. Sorry Michelle, but let's be honest: if she was as talented as William Safire and ugly, you know what she'd be doing? That's right, answering Bill Safire's mail. It's not just a girl's game, either, as Sean Hannity proves. Still, just because life isn't fair doesn't mean we should dislike the minty-cons among us. They're useful, so long as they don't make the rest of us look stupid.
Related to the minty-cons are the Glamservatives, who manage to be as intellectually compelling as they are shaggable. All bow to Virginia Postrel, whose opinions will still be widely read long after Fox News replaces Hannity and Colmes with a pair of Brazilian strippers. While standing next to a minty-con just makes you look ugly by comparison, a Glamservative's casts an glow of fabulousness that makes the rest of us look a little bit better by association. William F. Buckley, Jr. is thus the original Glamservative. Anne Coulter could be glam, but she's a bit too harsh. I'll bet she calls her gay male hairdresser "Nancy Boy" and needs to be tied to the chair to prevent her from bashing him. Come to think of it, that should be a show on Fox.
Salty-cons: A salty-con always tells it like it is: straight-up, no rocks, stop-your-whining-and-take-it-like-a-man. The best example is George Will, who hasn't smiled since that "lost weekend" when he sailed out into international waters with WFB in the late 1960s. Charles Krauthammer is also pretty salty, as demonstrated by the fact that he's hidden the fact that he was a cripple since his early 20s almost as well as FDR did. Come to think of it, FDR is about as salty as Jimmy Carter is crunchy, so I'm going to call him a salty-con. Besides, he looks really cool with that cigarette holder.Ed: Several people have suggested I should add John Derbyshire to the list. At first glance there is a strong case to be made. He is so gloomy that physicists have recently discovered that light actually bends around him. However, he is also English, and as anyone from West Texas knows, that's pretty much the same thing as "gay." It doesn't matter how much of a homophobe he pretends to be. Have you ever noticed that he and Andy Sullivan agree on nearly everything else? In fact, Greg Gutfeld recently told me that Annie Proulx actually based the original "Brokeback Mountain" short story on the summer that Derb and Sully spent herding sheep in the Scottish highlands back when they were in college.
Sweet-and-Sour Cons: Where saltycons want to make you cry, sweet-and-sourcons wrap harsh truths in humor. Think TimesSelect abductee John Tierney, who became famous for his article on why recycling is environmentally hazardous. The fact that S&Scons (not S&Mcons, this is a family blog) delight in making Big Macs out of sacred cows makes them the arch-nemeses of Crunchy Conservatives, who distrust humor as "a frivolous and undignified pursuit unworthy of free men."
Minty-cons are fresh and fun and utterly forgettable once you're done with them. They're the Jessica Albas of the right-wing: more deserving of celeb status than Paris Hilton, but still clearly cruising thanks to a face made for television. Michelle Malkin is today's leading MintyCon, and gets the Scrabble double bonus for being both hot and Asian. Sorry Michelle, but let's be honest: if she was as talented as William Safire and ugly, you know what she'd be doing? That's right, answering Bill Safire's mail. It's not just a girl's game, either, as Sean Hannity proves. Still, just because life isn't fair doesn't mean we should dislike the minty-cons among us. They're useful, so long as they don't make the rest of us look stupid.
Related to the minty-cons are the Glamservatives, who manage to be as intellectually compelling as they are shaggable. All bow to Virginia Postrel, whose opinions will still be widely read long after Fox News replaces Hannity and Colmes with a pair of Brazilian strippers. While standing next to a minty-con just makes you look ugly by comparison, a Glamservative's casts an glow of fabulousness that makes the rest of us look a little bit better by association. William F. Buckley, Jr. is thus the original Glamservative. Anne Coulter could be glam, but she's a bit too harsh. I'll bet she calls her gay male hairdresser "Nancy Boy" and needs to be tied to the chair to prevent her from bashing him. Come to think of it, that should be a show on Fox.
posted by The Snob at 11:16 AM
25 Comments:
I'd like to suggest a new category. Hairball cons. We're difficult to get rid of and ultimately unpleasant.
Hey, can I go write a book now and get it talked about all over the web and radio?
Ha...alright, this one made me laugh...
Funniest line on the Cruchblog today comes from Rod Dreher: "I'm about to be mostly out of pocket doing book-promotional things for a couple of days, but I wanted to post a few things before I left for the airport."
Ah yes, that ol' small-is-beautiful, local-is-sacred, anti-big-capitalist crunchy lifestyle of airport-hopping to peddle books at mall megastores.
Before James rightfully reminds me that we're all hypocrites, some of Rod's fellow-NROers are also getting tired of his anti-big-capitalist talk vs. his pro-big-capitalist walk. JPod got on the horn to announce that, as a truly crunchy person, he wouldn't travel across the country in anything except a wagon train.
At least the Crunchblog has gotten off the food thing, which had turned duller than Frederica's deep-frozen veggie burritos. Now Stegall is saying that Homer Simpson is a crunchy con, which has set off much mirth from Podhoretz and Goldberg.
Still wish they would discuss birth control, the subject Dreher dropped so casually on the Crunchblog yesterday.
I shouldn't have been so quick to dismiss the Crunchblog foodfest as dull. Jack Fowler just posted a wickedly (and unlike the crunchies' stuff, intentionally) funny broadside against the Diet Imans.
Jack, the crunchies won't pry my Hershey bars out of my cold, clammy hands...because they'll be dead first.
Just kidding...I think.
Bubba -- check your facts more carefully. Caleb Stegall quit the law firm and is trying to live out his principles on a farm.
I don't know that Stegall has quit his law practice. Google gave me the phone number to The Stegall Law Firm. I tried the number and got...Stegall's voicemail!
How crunchy! Anyway, Stegall's recorded voice just gave today's date and said he was away from his presumably crunchy desk. Maybe he was busy bustin' sod with a horse-drawn plow.
I didn't say he wasn't practicing law. I said he quit his job with the firm he used to work for. Not sure why continuing to practice law is inherently a bad thing or contrary to crunchy principles -- the implication that it is is pretty dumb, actually. The question is, -how- is law being practiced? To what ends?
I don't have a clue as to what kind of law Stegall practices, and I really don't care. I just have to smile a little when one of the world's biggest cheerleaders for the sacred, wonderful, awe-inspiring traditional agricultural lifestyle sends me to voicemail at his law firm. I bet all those old-time sodbusters had lots of options on their voicemail software.
Yes, I know the usual line that we're all hypocrites. But it seems like the crunchies dislike and distrust today's technology...except when they use it themselves.
Obsessive and stalker-ish? Oh, come on. I just wanted to see if Stegall's work phone number, which he listed on a public web site, was operative.
I have no intention of stalking or obsessing about Stegall in any way, shape or form, and I don't much care for the implication that I do. The only point I was making is that Stegall doesn't mind using up-to-date technology like voicemail and the Internet in his work - and his work is hardly the traditional farming life he so lavishly praises.
By now it's no secret that the crunchies don't practice what they preach. But it is a little amusing that the most fervent crunchy of them all - Caleb Stegall - doesn't mind using the conveniences of modern technology in his law practice.
Stegall just got on the Crunchblog to brag about raising and slaughtering his own chickens. Has this guy ever admitted on that blog that he's a lawyer? From his posts you'd think that all he did was chainsaw timber and raise livestock.
By the way, Stegall's tone has improved recently, though he still sounds preachy about us wretched non-crunchies: "There is only so much reality modern man can take, and it seems he can take less and less of it as time goes on."
That line was irritating when T.S. Eliot expressed more succinctly, and it doesn't improve with the Stegall treatment. But at least he doesn't shout that non-crunchies are "not quite human."
I can't tell you how I know this, but there was some very direct intervention at NRO to get Stegall to tone it down. Looks like the intervention worked, at least partly.
what is so crunchy about working at home? a lot of dreaded "mainstreeeaam" conservatives work out of their homes, after all.
What's wrong with Caleb is that he has said that leaving home is bad, university is evil (and presumably grad school is worse), and that we should all be subsistence farmers.
He's know a hobby farmer with a law practice and an online opinion magazine that he edits.
He is nowhere close to living his ideal, and the fact the he has been hectoring people like me as unconservative for daring to try to make the world a better place and leaving home for education opportunities disgusts me.
These people are a serious threat to our party, country, civilisation, and continued survival. They elevate the tribal values that mire the middle east in suspicion, violence, and poverty. They celebrate the idea of subsistence agriculture as the truest good, denigrating the city of man as unworthy of the attentions of conservatives (or anyone) and that only the city of god matters.
They are eo-feudal luddites with a thirst for theocracy and obscurantism, mirroring the worst sort of christian though and policy that brought about the fall of Rome and more than a thousand years of barbarism. They need to be confronted at every turn and exiled from the community of respectable people.
I'm disappointed that NR has not aggressively culled them as they desrve, but it pleases me that Caleb at least has been disciplined somewhat
Most of these "crunchy" cons didn't grow up on a farm or ranch so they romanticize this existance, like big city leftwing enviros. Having grown up in and around the ranch and farm lifestyle made the Army seem easy in comparison, so I went there. Crunchies are as pretentious and ignorant of their preferred but seldom practiced lifestyles as limousine libs eating a rice dinner at $500.00 a plate to combat homelessness and hunger.
Bubba -- I probably misread your post, and took it to be claiming more than it was. I've gone back to reread it and all you said was that Caleb was currently a lawyer who -worked for- (past tense -- I probably read it present tense somehow) the tenth circuit court of appeals, and that is true.
I still think your reasoning is ridiculous, on two points.
First, the fact that Caleb has benefited from education in the past doesn't mean he has no right to criticize US education in the present. I teach at a small liberal arts college, and I think Caleb's assessment of the college climate is basically right -- with some caveats about what field you go in to, what college you go to, etc.
The fundamental assumption you're working with is that for one to advocate for a moral position, one must have lived consistently with it for one's entire life.
That's simply ridiculous. People can change their minds.
Next, you're still playing the rather adolescent hypocrite card. As far as I can tell, Caleb is doing more to get crunchy than anyone I've met or read about. He's sacrificed significant income potential with the decisions he's made. As I said in my most recent comment to the first post on this blog, the difference between the sincere and the hypocrite doesn't lie in perfect adherence to one's principles, but in the trajectory of one's life.
It'd be more intelligent to argue on principle rather than keep talking like a bitter teenager.
I've already pointed out how the crunchies play the hypocrisy card against the wretched "mainstream conservatives" they so dislike. (The gospel according to Dreher, p.15.) But when crunchies do it, I guess it's not adolescent.
Stegall was strongly advised to take down a challenge he posted on the crunchblog to NRO staffers about using daycare, among other things concerning their personal lives. And, in fact, the challenge got taken down. I can't get any more specific because my source requested anonymity. Since then Stegall's been a little more careful with his language.
The tu quoque fallacy -- "you too" -- asserts that because an opponent has done the same thing, therefore condemnation of it in this instance is wrong.
It's quite possible that charges of hypocrisy on the CC blog are just as adolescent as charges of hypocrisy here. I haven't been over there the last few days to look -- I don't read it every day.
I will say that the charges of hypocrisy here seem to be along the lines of, "Don't criticize this lifestyle, it makes me feel bad about things I can't do anything about," while charges of hypocrisy there seem to follow from valid priciple.
I'll side with principle. I'll admit that I live and have lived in a lot of ways that are inconsistent with some of my core values, simply because those are the simple options societally available to me. It doesn't bother me to admit this and see that I'm still doing so. This realization just gives me a trajectory.
My wife thinks along crunchy lines much more naturally than I do, and the net effect of all this is for me to pay closer attention to what she says about these things. For her, it's just a few little things -- use cloth diapers or organic diapers, eat organic foods or from the local farmer's market when possible, don't feed the kid baby food in jars but feed him real food we make ourselves, etc. They're just little things, but they're a beginning.
Now, Caleb and I have had our disagreements about higher ed. in the past -- probably two years ago. But I have moved closer to his position since my wife worked in the public school system. He's probably still much more absolutist about this than I am.
So far as a lack of humility on his part goes -- I really don't care. That's between he and God. I care about the truth of his words and don't need all truth spoon fed to me. Again, bristling under the manner of presentation without recongizing the truth being presented is somewhat adolescent.
He may indeed be failing in his obligation to present the truth in love, but that won't keep me from failing in my obligation to recognize and acknowledge the truth in all its forms.
Honestly, though, I don't think he's all that bad.
James, you might have to go after NRO writer Maggie Gallagher as well. She just slammed Dreher for - oh, I won't use the h-word - inconsistency:
"A true traditionalism would not be represented by people who move to Dallas, buy a nice bungalow and invite friends over for tasty organic cooked food."
What's even worse is that Stegall approvingly quoted the passage on the crunchblog. He seems to be piling on Dreher for, uh, inconsistency as well. This could get interesting, no?
At any rate, it is perfectly valid to look at the way Dreher is marketing his book to see if it is consistent with the book's own argument. And in all honesty, peddling the book at mall megastores, News Corp. cable TV outlets, and super-capitalist (and porn-laden) websites doesn't look all that crunchy. So why does Dreher get a free pass, while the rest of us must follow the One True Way Of Crunchiness?
It's correct that Dreher seems at least somewhat conscious of his strayings from the crunchy path, while Stegall appears oblivious to his own inconsistencies. But people are going to note the obvious - oh hell, I'll say it - hypocrisy in any case.
Eh...I haven't really seen any credible inconsistencies with crunchiness being pointed out in Caleb's case. They seem to either follow from the fact that he's participated in all this stuff -in the past-, or make really dumb generalities about practicing law.
Small town lawyers can do a lot of good for a lot of people.
At any rate, condemnation of inconsistent -practice- is not the same as condemnation of inconsistent -principle-.
I would rather see a person fail in their attempts to do the right thing than succeed in their disregard of the right thing.
Again, addressing the -principles- would seem to me to be the -adult- way to proceed.
Shrill is a good word, yes. But shrill isn't the same as hypocritical. See dictionary.com.
One follow up:
Why does Dreher get a free pass?
No one's given him one. My failure to address Dreher doesn't reflect on the accuracy of my critiques -here-, just as your failure to adequately or intelligently critique crunchy conservatism is not proof that it's above critique.
But let's say I was to give Dreher a free pass.
Let's assume that he's arguing from valid principles. Doesn't he have an obligation to disseminate them as widely as possible? We have to work within the system to change it. We have to use media to change people's response to media.
Are we inherently compromised by doing so?
Eh...possibly.
Does that mean we should make no attempt to make change?
No.
Don't worry. I just follow the rule: What Would Rod Dreher Do? So I'm going to enjoy all the benefits of big capitalism and modern technology, just as he does. Oh, I probably won't subject my kids to a dangerous crime-ridden area just because I get a pretty house "for a song."
As for our ol' buddy Stegall, he just posted his most obnoxious thing ever on the crunchblog:
"Conservatives who care about the military and about the strength of our national character ought to be concerned with the decadence inherent in much that Rod critiques. Sure, they won’t give a hoot about sandals and organic chicken, but they should care in a violent world about where we will find the kinds of men needed to honorably defend our country. From the suburban landscape of instant gratification, fear, and spoiled denizens of personal desire? Seems doubtful."
At this moment tens of thousands of suburban kids are putting it on the line in Iraq and Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Stegall is sitting on his asshole in Kansas, practicing law and pretending to be a dirt farmer on the crunchblog.
As I said on another thread, our local high school, located in a suburb north of Dallas, has lost two graduates in the Iraq war. I want this...object...Stegall to tell those kids' parents that their sons came from a landscape of instant gratification, fear, and spoiled denizens of personal desire.
One correction: I want that...thing...Stegall to tell every parent of a suburban kid who has died in Iraq or Afghanistan that their child came from a landscape of instant gratification, fear, and spoiled denizens of personal desire.
Allright, as I said on another thread, I've calmed down. I still believe Stegall's unconscionable slander against the suburban kids fighting and dying in Iraq and Afghanistan is repulsive, unfair, disgusting...well, you add your own adjectives.
But I shouldn't have let myself get so angry. I'm a little ashamed that I let Stegall bother me as much as he did.
To elucidate his opinion of this blog, Father Jape wrote:
> now I think it is just a
> pathetic cadre of adolescent hangers-on
> who scurry with glee like rodents with
> rotten food when someone "inside"
> feeds them some shop gossip.
Whoa - I think that's probably what Dan Rather wanted to say about LGF. I think the shrill award has to go to G.J.
There's something I've been really curious about, Father. Are you a real Jesuit Priest or do you just play one on the internet? Only, you see, I've never been called those things by a good Catholic before, let alone a priest, and I want to know if I should lose my faith over a slight technical misunderstanding.
It's a matter of punbic record that Stegall's challenge to NRO staffers about using daycare and the size of their families and other very personal matters was taken down. A staff member at NRO who requested anonymity advised me that the site's editor forced Stegall to take down the chalenge.
So that's the story. If it makes me a scurrying rodent in the view of Fr. Jape, I'll just have to bear my troubles. (It won't be hard.)
I hope Fr. Jape - if he's really a Catholic priest - never gets assigned to a suburban parish. I would hate to see him become a part of the that landscape of instant gratification, fear, and spoiled denizens of personal desire.
Halfway seriously, I agree with Bubba's distinction between Dreher and Stegall. At least Rod seems capable of self-examination and self-criticism. He knew that he got himself into a mess with his gunshots and junkies yesterday, so he backpedaled into a far less judgmental attitude towards the suburbs.
Stegall never seems to learn. Even when he tried to back off from his repulsive comment about the suburbs not producing soldiers to defend our country, he insisted - without a shred of evidence - that this "trend" is real.
I actually feel sorry for Rod. He's trying to hurry the blog along from suburb-bashing to education. He knows that the crunchies had a real bad day yesterday.
That should be "public record." Hey, it could have been worse (wink).
Amd let me apologize again for the harshness of my personal attack on Stegall. I shouldn't have called him a "thing" and an "object," and I shouldn't have referred to his, uh, rectal orifice. But I don't back down at all from my substantive comments about his really repulsive libel on the tens of thousands of brave suburban kids fighting and dying for this country.
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