Unavailable
Unavailable
Unavailable
Ebook340 pages5 hours
Crunchy Cons: The New Conservative Counterculture and Its Return to Roots
By Rod Dreher
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
When a National Review colleague teased writer Rod Dreher one day about his visit to the local food co-op to pick up a week’s supply of organic vegetables (“Ewww, that’s so lefty”), he started thinking about the ways he and his conservative family lived that put them outside the bounds of conventional Republican politics. Shortly thereafter Dreher wrote an essay about “crunchy cons,” people whose “Small Is Beautiful” style of conservative politics often put them at odds with GOP orthodoxy, and sometimes even in the same camp as lefties outside the Democratic mainstream. The response to the article was impassioned: Dreher was deluged by e-mails from conservatives across America—everyone from a pro-life vegetarian Buddhist Republican to an NRA staffer with a passion for organic gardening—who responded to say, “Hey, me too!”
In Crunchy Cons, Dreher reports on the amazing depth and scope of this phenomenon, which is redefining the taxonomy of America’s political and cultural landscape. At a time when the Republican party, and the conservative movement in general, is bitterly divided over what it means to be a conservative, Dreher introduces us to people who are pioneering a way back to the future by reclaiming what’s best in conservatism—people who believe that being a truly committed conservative today means protecting the environment, standing against the depredations of big business, returning to traditional religion, and living out conservative godfather Russell Kirk’s teaching that the family is the institution most necessary to preserve.
In these pages we meet crunchy cons from all over America: a Texas clan of evangelical Christian free-range livestock farmers, the policy director of Republicans for Environmental Protection, homeschooling moms in New York City, an Orthodox Jew who helped start a kosher organic farm in the Berkshires, and an ex-sixties hippie from Alabama who became a devout Catholic without losing his antiestablishment sensibilities.
Crunchy Cons is both a useful primer to living the crunchy con way and a passionate affirmation of those things that give our lives weight and measure. In chapters dedicated to food, religion, consumerism, education, and the environment, Dreher shows how to live in a way that preserves what Kirk called “the permanent things,” among them faith, family, community, and a legacy of ancient truths. This, says Dreher, is the kind of roots conservatism that more and more Americans want to practice. And in Crunchy Cons, he lets them know how far they are from being alone.
A Crunchy Con Manifesto
1. We are conservatives who stand outside the conservative mainstream; therefore, we can see things that matter more clearly.
2. Modern conservatism has become too focused on money, power, and the accumulation of stuff, and insufficiently concerned with the content of our individual and social character.
3. Big business deserves as much skepticism as big government.
4. Culture is more important than politics and economics.
5. A conservatism that does not practice restraint, humility, and good stewardship—especially of the natural world—is not fundamentally conservative.
6. Small, Local, Old, and Particular are almost always better than Big, Global, New, and Abstract.
7. Beauty is more important than efficiency.
8. The relentlessness of media-driven pop culture deadens our senses to authentic truth, beauty, and wisdom.
9. We share Russell Kirk’s conviction that “the institution most essential to conserve is the family.”
In Crunchy Cons, Dreher reports on the amazing depth and scope of this phenomenon, which is redefining the taxonomy of America’s political and cultural landscape. At a time when the Republican party, and the conservative movement in general, is bitterly divided over what it means to be a conservative, Dreher introduces us to people who are pioneering a way back to the future by reclaiming what’s best in conservatism—people who believe that being a truly committed conservative today means protecting the environment, standing against the depredations of big business, returning to traditional religion, and living out conservative godfather Russell Kirk’s teaching that the family is the institution most necessary to preserve.
In these pages we meet crunchy cons from all over America: a Texas clan of evangelical Christian free-range livestock farmers, the policy director of Republicans for Environmental Protection, homeschooling moms in New York City, an Orthodox Jew who helped start a kosher organic farm in the Berkshires, and an ex-sixties hippie from Alabama who became a devout Catholic without losing his antiestablishment sensibilities.
Crunchy Cons is both a useful primer to living the crunchy con way and a passionate affirmation of those things that give our lives weight and measure. In chapters dedicated to food, religion, consumerism, education, and the environment, Dreher shows how to live in a way that preserves what Kirk called “the permanent things,” among them faith, family, community, and a legacy of ancient truths. This, says Dreher, is the kind of roots conservatism that more and more Americans want to practice. And in Crunchy Cons, he lets them know how far they are from being alone.
A Crunchy Con Manifesto
1. We are conservatives who stand outside the conservative mainstream; therefore, we can see things that matter more clearly.
2. Modern conservatism has become too focused on money, power, and the accumulation of stuff, and insufficiently concerned with the content of our individual and social character.
3. Big business deserves as much skepticism as big government.
4. Culture is more important than politics and economics.
5. A conservatism that does not practice restraint, humility, and good stewardship—especially of the natural world—is not fundamentally conservative.
6. Small, Local, Old, and Particular are almost always better than Big, Global, New, and Abstract.
7. Beauty is more important than efficiency.
8. The relentlessness of media-driven pop culture deadens our senses to authentic truth, beauty, and wisdom.
9. We share Russell Kirk’s conviction that “the institution most essential to conserve is the family.”
Unavailable
Author
Rod Dreher
Rod Dreher is a writer and journalist who has written three New York Times bestsellers, including ‘The Benedict Option’ (2017) and ‘Live Not By Lies’ (2020). He is a columnist for The European Conservative and a senior fellow at the Danube Institute in Hungary. He lives in Budapest.
Read more from Rod Dreher
The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How Dante Can Save Your Life: The Life-Changing Wisdom of History's Greatest Poem Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Healing Humanity: Confronting our Moral Crisis Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related to Crunchy Cons
Related ebooks
The Migrant Project: Contemporary California Farm Workers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRetail Inequality: Reframing the Food Desert Debate Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Philanthropic Revolution: An Alternative History of American Charity Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Holy Vote: The Politics of Faith in America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFix It, Make It, Grow It, Bake It: The D.I.Y. Guide to the Good Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Quaker Quicks - Money and Soul: Quaker Faith And Practice And The Economy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhat Matters: Words of Wisdom, Hope, and Love Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAll God's Children and Blue Suede Shoes (With a New Introduction / Redesign): Christians and Popular Culture Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Homebrew Churches: Re-conceiving the Church for Tomorrow’s Children Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Pentagon of Faith: Sacred Theism vs. Secular Humanism - A Christian's Need for the Traditional Faith of Our Fathers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings50 Things Liberals Love to Hate Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Good Life: Truths That Last in Times of Need Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFood for Dissent: Natural Foods and the Consumer Counterculture Since the 1960s Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUpside Down: How the Left Turned Right into Wrong, Truth into Lies, and Good into Bad Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Coming Home: Reclaiming America's Conservative Soul Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings"Broke," The Man Without the Dime Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Broken Village: Coffee, Migration, and Globalization in Honduras Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSimple Prosperity: Finding Real Wealth in a Sustainable Lifestyle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Holy Food: How Cults, Communes, and Religious Movements Influenced What We Eat — An American History Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe End of Meaning: Cultural Change in America Since 1945 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsForward From Here: Leaving Middle Age--and Other Unexpected Adventures Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Political Engagement as Biblical Mandate Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCIVIL BULLETS: The Final War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of Noah Rothman's The Rise of the New Puritans Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe $16 Taco: Contested Geographies of Food, Ethnicity, and Gentrification Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Cross in the Culture: Connecting Our Stories to the Greatest Story Ever Told Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Virtues of Service: Reflections on a Meaningful Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFrom Faith to Fun: The Secularization of Humor Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBrook Farm: Historic and Personal Memoirs Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings23% More Spiritual!: Christians and the Fad Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Politics For You
The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Capitalism and Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Republic by Plato Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fear: Trump in the White House Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On Palestine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on the U.S.-Israeli War on the Palestinians Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Letter to Liberals: Censorship and COVID: An Attack on Science and American Ideals Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Anarchist Cookbook Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Closing of the American Mind Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the SS: The Hunt for the Worst War Criminals in History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Reset: And the War for the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Essential Chomsky Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Daily Stoic: A Daily Journal On Meditation, Stoicism, Wisdom and Philosophy to Improve Your Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Humanity Archive: Recovering the Soul of Black History from a Whitewashed American Myth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Crunchy Cons
Rating: 3.7232143071428574 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
56 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5from the subtitle and cover of this book, i was expecting it to be a somewhat humorous portrayal of the subject matter, some kind of light read to laugh at and not take too seriously. however, i was pleasantly surprised. i picked up the book because i love people who violate stereotypes. i really wasn't expecting to get so much out of it, since the book was written for conservatives. the book made me think about the views i have held of conservatives and republicans, (war mongering, gay bashing, imperialistic, evangelical christians who are only interested in economic gain.) i mean, i knew before i read the book that those things aren't completely true, but this book made me realize how important it is to really not let myself slip into that mindset of dismissing everything and everyone conservative. he made a good point about how what often unites conservatives is hating liberals, and what unites liberals is hating conservatives. he doesn't talk tons about politics, because what we really need isn't political change, but cultural change, with not so much value on individualism and materialism. i was really impressed because he seems so much more consistant than many political voices. his beliefs about family values don't stop at abortion and gay marriage, but extend to turning off tv and spending time with your kids and your neighbors. and promoting quality of life after birth. and having a sacramental worldview, where everything has intrinsic worth and things we do reflect our values. and i liked how he pointed out about jesus saying just as much about greed as he did about lust, and republicans have become too focused on sins of lust... and of course i loved everything he said about caring for the earth and buying locally to support local economies and enhance community and families. the book just opened me up more to different ideas and different ways of thinking and how i should really try to get over the labeling people thing.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This was mildly interesting, but I don't see it forming a revolution from within the GOP. What I most enjoyed was the exploration of some other dimension than unbridled greed vs unbridled hedonism. The author also makes a respectable case for traditional religion.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I never read poli-sci till this last year. I loved this book and found my political identity! I: homeschool, vote republican, recycle, cloth diaper, give birth naturally...
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hm. Liked it, didn't agree with all of it. Agreed with a lot of it, though.