Should I care about crunchy conservatism? (invadesoda)

Al gave his take on crunchy conservatism and I have a few thoughts on it as well.

Rod Dreher has been using the term crunchy conservatism in National Review at least since 2002; however, no one seemed to care until recently, with the release of the book Crunchy Cons. I have been trying to get a handle on what it is. Fortunately he and others have put enough articles on the net about the subject that buying the book doesn't seem necessary. His journey into crunchy conservatism begins something like this:

Talking with a conservative friend the other day, I mentioned that my wife and I were having a friend over to dinner, and were going to serve him all kinds of delicious vegetables from the organic food co-op to which we belong. "Ewgh, That sounds so lefty," she said. And she's right. We're probably the only Republicans who subscribe to this service, which delivers fresh vegetables once weekly to our neighborhood from farms out on Long Island. . . . . We'd go to farmers' markets in the city to buy produce, and before we knew it, we were making and canning our own apple butter...Julie and I are probably the crunchiest — as in granola — conservatives we know (hey, my bride even makes her own granola). In some respects, the life we live and the values we share have more in common with left-wing counterculturalists than with many garden-variety conservatives.

This condescension toward so-called garden-variety conservatives is one of Dreher's recurring themes. They also make their own granola and apple butter. My wife makes her own salsa, too, but I don't see it having the slightest connection to her political ideology. I can also assure Lehrer that the conservatives I know love fresh produce when they can get it. But I live in the South, so maybe it's a Northeast thing. Dreher continues:

The music we like — jazz, hard country, bluegrass, Cuban son — is something you can only hear on, umm, public radio or see on public television. When we began talking about buying a house, we realized we wanted something old and funky, in the sort of neighborhood that your average Republican would disdain.

It wouldn't surprise me if the old houses are probably sitting on more land than is customary nowadays and therefore actually cost more. Between this and actually having produce delivered to their home, I am getting the impression that crunchy conservatism requires a certain income. So I'm surprised he doesn't just buy an iPod.

Peter Kreeft is a Catholic philosopher I have enjoyed reading. Some of his writing reminds me of C.S. Lewis's non-fiction. He too turns out to be a crunchy conservative:

What shocked me was Newton's comment: "That's my new apartment, there. Isn't it great?"

I looked at the abomination of desolation he pointed to, and gasped, "You're kidding." "It's absolutely perfect," he argued. "It's got everything: location, roominess, parking, workout room, low condo fees. And it's a real community. Look." He directed my sight to the variety of people walking through the commodious walkways: businessmen, teenagers, a family with a baby carriage. "What don't you like about it? It's designed for people."

"People, that's good," I said. "But designed, that's bad. It's artificial. It's not a real neighborhood. It's the Liberal concept of a neighborhood. I can see how Dwight would like this place, but not you."

"Well," Newton said, irritably, "It's not something we should be arguing about. It's not important. Let's get back to politics, if we want an argument."

So far I'm pulling for Newton. Peter should mind his own business.

As I read this, I asked myself, to paraphrase the febrile Peggy Lee, "Is that all there is to crunchy conservatism? Where you live, what kind of music you like, and the right to make your own apple butter?"

Dreher comes close to denying they have a political program:

Though they share with many liberals a critical interest in aesthetics and the environment, a key difference between crunchy cons and the Left is the emphasis placed on these issues. Leftists tend to absolutize their tastes and convictions, look upon people who don't share them as morally deficient, and seek to impose them on an unwilling community. Crunchy cons, on the other hand, are more inclined to think simply that they've found a neat way to live, and want only to propose it to others.

In a future post, I'll attempt to evaluate this claim.