The Destination for Serious Conservatives . . . and Catholics?

Rod Dreher, journalist for the National Review and Catholic commentator, will release his new book next month which profiles a breed of conservatives who share cultural sensibilities with the most left wing of liberals. He calls these conservatives "Crunchy Cons" - presumably a reference to granola eating.

Although the book is not yet out (you can read a some of the first chapter at Amazon) I think Mr. Dreher has caught wiff of something that many of us have known for some time. A full and sustained reflection on the tennents of conservativism and indeed of Catholic Social Teaching leads one to a vision of life which looks very much like Tolkien's Shire - an economy, politics and culture ordered by the common sense interests of the family. Simple life in the Shire is what the battle for Middle Earth is all about. And increasingly, the orthodox Catholics I meet, are fleeing to the feilds and/or opting for simple counter-cultural life choices. Their usual arguments are about quality of life, family life and how our current culture places enormous pressures on families that are contrary to the principles authentic Catholics value.

Opposed to the values of hyper-capitalism and globalized consumption, the older more traditional idea of the self-sufficient and reliant family grounded in the ancient and transcendent carries more appeal. Or even if one isn't so high minded, the prospect of exposing my children to a complex of pesticides or other chemicals and GMOs leading to health complications like allergies and behavior disorders (which in turn can be fixed with more pharmacuticals), doesn't square with my idea of being a protector and provider. Does the idea of eating good foods leading to living a healthy life in a local community where the majority of families own their own means of income add up to being a liberal?

I don't think so.

Anyone who has spent time with the radical left will discover that they are ripe for conversion. They already have and hold so many of the principles of CST and are putting them into practice as best they can. They don't have the whole truth, only part of it.

My wife and I are taking Bradley Classes and the instructor just happens to be a feminist. But, many of the values she expresses about our anti-motherhood culture sounds like it belongs in a meeting of Concerned Women of America. However, she (and others like her who shop at Whole Foods) don't see the disconnect between being against pollution in the environment and being for polluting the internal environment of a womans body with contraception; or the fact that independent birthing centers are illegal in Illinois, but independent (unregulated) abortion clinics are not only legal but protected (the state legislature had been trying to block independent clinics that offer 4D ultra-sound services to protect the abortion industry).

After our last class I asked her if there were any studies that linked woman who have had an abortion with a higher incidence of c-sections. I used the logic of her own words about "unresolved issues about mother hood can cause the labor to stall leading practicioners to interveen leading to c-sections." The hypothesis is that women who have had abortions suffer from post-tramatic-stress disorder which can trigger anxiety about having the baby during labor. We spoke about some of these issues and how the whole of women's issues have been consumed by abortion as if this was their only concern. She confessed to being a feminist and also that the feminists have failed her and her interests because she would rather be at home with the kids but has to teach at night to bring the money in.

We were doing well and grooving in agreement, untill I mentioned JP II's New Feminism and then it was like a wall came down.

Beyond the life issues and family issues the Republican Party has become the party of corporate giantism - these last values are deeply antithetical to conservatives and Catholics . . . and not to mention left wing environmentalist. We may discover that Catholics who reflect deeply on Catholic Social Teaching may have more in common with these left wingers than what the GOP would like us to know.

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