Singled out

Many thanks to Dan for the link and the kind words. I do like to think of what I’m trying to do here and in other humble corners of the print and electronic media as an attempt to articulate a new (though at the same time oh-so-old) vision for conservatism, and it’s nice to be accused of being hopeful. I also share Dan’s belief that the breakdown of the Republican Machine will prove – indeed, already has proven – to be a boon rather than a bust for conservatism, and so agree that the Packer piece was disappointing in its focus on the stale and established (why wasn’t I interviewed for The New Yorker?). (Are David Brooks, Yuval Levin, Ross Douthat, and Reihan Salam really ready for embalming, though?! Brooks, maybe, but what would out-of-touch losers like me do without Reihan’s playlists?)

On the question of markets, Dan is right to note that many of us Neo-Traditionalists (to coin a term for a movement) don’t have a problem with them. But this issue is far from resolved, and that worries me: Dreher’s Crunchy Cons, for example, contains what I think is far more than its fair share of complaining about unbridled capitalism and the worship of the market. And what I, at least, want to say in response to that is that the present situation has not been the result of solely, or really even largely, free enterprise: for example, the industrialization of agriculture, as anyone who has read his or her Wendell Berry will know, was – and is – promoted by subsidies, encouraged by officials at the very highest levels of government, and championed by representatives of state-sponsored land grant colleges. Similarly, the move toward processed and packaged food, and the abandonment of any semblance of tradition and rootedness in the way we eat, were – and are – responses to the meddling of government agencies, naturally beholden to corporate interests, working hard to convince us that we need to change this or that aspect of the way we eat in order to become healthier. (We didn’t.) [ADDENDUM: The things to read here are Pollan, In Defense of Food, and Harvey Levenstein, Revolution at the Table, inter alia.] And so on. It should go without saying that America’s various “war efforts” also played roles in these changes. None of this proves, of course, that state inaction is the right response to our current quandary – but knowledge of this history should make would-be problem-solvers think before they act.

This last point is what makes me, unlike e.g. Helen, so hopeful for the possibilities of a communitarian-libertarian alliance. If, as is surely possible because what they’d be saying will be true, the Paulites and the Neo-Trads can convince the fast-growing homeschooling, home-birthing, raw milk-drinking, organic-farming, and backyard-gardening segments of the population that the State is their enemy and not their friend, that they’ll be best able to live the lives they deserve if the gummint just stays out of their hair, then we will have the makings of a movement. Call them the Farmer’s Market Republicans, or maybe the Joel Salatin Coalition. Just watch your backs, folks – they’re on the move.

Filed under: agriculture, conservatism, food, government/law, libertarianism