Crunchy Con

Rod Dreher of Crunchy Con fame interviewed in GodSpy.

GODSPY: Rod, if you had to reduce Crunchy Conservatism to a few sound bites, what would you say?

ROD DREHER: I'd say that Crunchy Conservatism is nothing new. It's a rediscovery of the kind of traditionalism espoused by Russell Kirk and Richard Weaver and others in the 1940s and 1950s. It's a conservatism that values religion, family, and culture more than individual freedom and the free market. I'd also say it finds the overemphasis on individual freedom and economic liberty in contemporary conservatism inimical to much that we conservatives claim to treasure.

In terms of sound bites, I'd turn to the Crunchy Conservative manifesto on the back cover of the book: The institution most essential to conserve is the family. Beauty is more important than efficiency. Small, local, old and particular are almost always better than big, global, new and abstract. I'd also add that we've gotten to a point in our politics today where the left and the right are too quick to slap a negative label on a challenging or unfamiliar idea, so they don't have to deal with it. For too many of us on the right, calling something liberal and making fun of it is a way of avoiding having to question our own prejudices.