FROM THE ARCHIVES
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RE: Charleston
[Rod Dreher 03/14 08:45 AM]JPod: Which brings up another point: The idea that people "choose" where they live. It's never as simple as that. People live where in some proximity to where they work, and they want as much home as they can afford.They're willing to brave traffic and, yes, even some appalling aesthetics to have the kind of home they want. OK, stop right there. One theme of this chapter is to question the idea of whether it's right to want "as much home as [one] can afford." David Holme, quoted in the book, chooses to live in a much smaller house than his brother, because he wants to be closer to his work, so he can get home faster and spend more time with his family. In fact, his wife quit her job so she could devote herself to raising their son. By way of contrast, his brother and his brother's wife both work crazy hours to pay for As Much Home As They Can Afford out in a far exurb, and have to spend a long time commuting because of it. Meanwhile, on the occasion they are at home with their kids, it's hard to live together as a family because the kids are off lost somewhere in this exurban castle. It's obvious that the built environment, whether a neighborhood, a commercial district or a house, has something to do with the kind of life we live. Bigger is not necessarily better, if you measure the quality of your life by means other than the size of your garage.
JPod: Once again we see the key contradiction between the contributors to this blog and the vast majority of ordinary Americans. You guys live ideologically. You make choices that gratify you because they represent a fulfillment of ideas you hold. Most people don't live this way, and to presume that they should is, well, the sheerest snobbery. It is really quite something to read a conservative claiming that to live life according to one's principles is "the sheerest snobbery." Conservatism is elitist in the sense that it believes in standards. It believes that ideas have consequences, that some ideas are better than others, that there's a way to live that's better — truer to our religious values, truer to human nature — and that we shouldn't be embarrassed to say so. I presume you are not a moral relativist or a populist, John. You have no problem telling people how you think they should live in other areas of their lives — nor should you, as long as you are not obnoxious about it. You just don't like that we try to apply conservative principles to the way we build the environment around us, so you engage in crude populism rather than make an argument about why our concerns are baseless. Try something different. You won't get very far with a group of thoughtful conservatives by using "elitist" as a pejorative. We had all better be elitists about something!
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