[Angelo Matera 02/21 10:13 AM]I would argue that the grassroots cultural renewal Rod describes in Crunchy Cons — home schooling, organic farming, Slow Food, etc. — is more necessary than ever because the conservative movement that has governed us for most of the past twenty-five years has undermined its own program of traditional values by unleashing business forces that have promoted consumerism, materialism and greed. They’ve allowed the "Naked Marketplace" — a business culture without values — to overwhelm American culture.
The phrase — "a priority for the conservative movement and the country" — implies taking Crunchy Conservatism beyond everyday monasticism and making it an explicit political platform, or at least a full-frontal critique of prevailing Republicanism. I would argue for exactly that.
As a Catholic I believe the monastic approach Rod proposes is most authentic (especially as embodied in lay movements), and most enduring. But I also believe Catholic Social Doctrine, which provides objective criteria for judging whether societies and government policies promote human dignity, can be brought to bear on the social issues identified in the book. Rod’s Crunchy Con agenda is also a good start.
In a 1976 article titled “Adam Smith and the Spirit of Capitalism,” neoconservative Irving Kristol warned that “in a bourgeois, affluent society, happiness comes to mean little more than the sovereignty of self-centered hedonism.” Unfortunately, despite their triumphs, the conservative movement (now dominated by neoconservatives), has mostly made that problem worse.
