A note on "crunchy cons" and feminism

It's a cloudy St. Patrick's morning, and I am very much in the "taper and rest" mode before the marathon.  Tapering is so counter-intutitive; with most big "tests" in life, one studies more in the days leading up to the exam.  With marathoning, one does progressively less and less the closer one gets to the event.  This will be my 13th race of marathon distance or more, and the haunting sensation that all of my fitness is slipping away comes every single time.  I realize I like training for marathons more than I like running the actual races.

I've been very slow in responding to the "crunchy con" manifesto that has recently appeared over at the National Review.  Bob Carlton forwarded the manifesto to me yesterday, and the wonderful Russell Arben Fox has been blogging about it regularly.  Many elements of the manifesto resonate with my own progressive Christian, pro-feminist views:

1. We are conservatives who stand outside the conservative mainstream; therefore, we can see things that matter more clearly.

2. Modern conservatism has become too focused on money, power, and the accumulation of stuff, and insufficiently concerned with the content of our individual and social character.

3. Big business deserves as much skepticism as big government.

4. Culture is more important than politics and economics.

5. A conservatism that does not practice restraint, humility, and good stewardship—especially of the natural world—is not fundamentally conservative.

6. Small, Local, Old, and Particular are almost always better than Big, Global, New, and Abstract.

7. Beauty is more important than efficiency.

8. The relentlessness of media-driven pop culture deadens our senses to authentic truth, beauty, and wisdom.

9. We share Russell Kirk’s conviction that “the institution most essential to conserve is the family.”

10. Politics and economics won’t save us; if our culture is to be saved at all, it will be by faithfully living by the Permanent Things, conserving these ancient moral truths in the choices we make in our everyday lives.

Well, my first reaction is that it sounds an awful lot like a summary of the work of the marvelous Wendell Berry (particularly #6).  It also sounds very close to the views of many Mennonites I know -- with the distinct absence of any reference to pacifism.  And the fact that this "crunchy con" movement is being hosted at the National Review makes me very happy.  Anything in the conservative movement that is explicitly critical of rapacious capitalism and the military-industrial complex is heartening!

I can agree with most of this manifesto, vague as it is.  Indeed, the only points in the manifesto to which I can't give a hearty amen are the final two, and that's because with my feminist hat on, I'm mildly suspicious of paeans to the traditional family and the "permanent things."   I'm interested in strengthening extended families and creating human community -- so are most feminists and pro-feminists.  But "conserving" the family is too often a code for vigorously opposing non-traditional family arrangements such as same-sex unions; appeals to tradition can also be a club used against single parents (who are usually mothers).  If we take a truly long historical view, of course, we see that the nuclear family (husband, wife, children, living as a discrete unit) is not the only traditional way of arranging the home.  Historians of the family are quick to point out that the "traditional" family is a bit of myth -- and if my crunchy con friends will acknowledge that, we're well on our way to further agreement.

I want so badly to agree unconditionally with point ten!  To the dismay of my Marxist colleagues, I always downplay the importance of class struggle in my feminist narratives.  (Downplay is not the same as "ignore", mind you.)  In encouraging young men and women to do feminist and pro-feminist work, I emphasize the importance of personal commitment and personal choice.  This doesn't mean an end to political activism.  It does mean this: one's activism must be built on a solid foundation, and that foundation must be one's personal character.  Feminism is not merely about struggling for public rights, feminism is about how we live out our own private lives.  Anyone can "talk the talk" in a classroom, or in the street during a march.  But "walking the walk" is about living out the principles in one's daily life -- in the bedroom, in the supermarket, at the family dinner table.   The most important question is not "What do I believe?"  The most important question is "How are my beliefs reflected in my personal choices?"

So, I agree that it is the ancient moral truths that will save us -- if by the ancient moral truths, we mean Generosity, Compassion, Empathy, Courage, and a devotion to Justice.   If, however, the ancient moral truths are Submission and endless Self-denial, then I can't sign on to that.  This doesn't mean that feminism has to advocate reckless personal behavior!  It does mean that feminism embraces Pleasure and Honesty as equally vital moral truths, as worthy of exaltation and celebration as the older ones.  And above all, feminists insist that both sexes be encouraged to lead their lives according to the same fundamental principles, without the nasty double-standards too often associated with the conservative view of the family.

So many of my own instincts are those of the "crunchy conservative!"  My great-great grandfather, my step great-grandfather, and other relatives helped found the Sierra Club in the 1890s; they were staunch Republicans with a passionate commitment to preserving the natural world.  I've grieved the ways in which Republicanism in this country has become a strange mix of intense sexual puritanism, military adventurism, and rampant consumerism -- because it's so fundamentally at odds with the values of an older, more responsible generation of conservatives.  I'm not by any means ready to call myself a "crunchy con"; I have more that I need to read about the "movement."  But the fact that the conversation is happening is exciting, and I am eager to see its progress.

Comments

[djw]

Perhaps I'm more cynical than you, but I expect anything new or different in the National Review is a trial balloon for a new marketing strategy for the current Republican brand of big government corparate pseudo-imperialism. I hope I'm wrong.

[NancyP]

I am with djw. This sounds like a marketing ploy to get "Kansas" to look at the words instead of the deeds - like defending the abolishing of the estate tax by referring to saving family farms. Of course, no actual family farms in agricultural use can be found that were lost due to estate taxes - perhaps lost due to other problems (large bank loans, etc), but not due to estate taxes. Else, youbetcha Bush et al would have shown some weatherbeaten farmer on TV. I don't think they mean what they say here, else I can't see that they would get published in Natl Review, which has been very pro-large-business.

And you can bet that the "conserve the family" rhetoric is designed to be understood by the religious right base as "man the head of woman, as God the head of man" anti-feminist and anti-gay, while being unfamiliar and innocuous to non-religious-right middle-of-the-road voters.

Absent the regressive gender politics, the 10 principles here would be espoused by those people outside the conservative mainstream called "liberals".

[Hugo]

Nancy, I think that's the exciting potential here -- for a revisioning of what real conservatism is all about. Though I too am suspicious that this is a marketing ploy, another part of me is genuinely optimistic and hopeful.

[Lynn Gazis-Sax]

Knowing Rod Dreher from comments threads on other blogs, I'd say that "conserve the family" would indeed be intended in a socially conservative sense, and that he'd be personally sincere about the "crunchy con" stuff (whatever the rest of the National Review folks think of it all). Rod Dreher is the religious right base; he's a socially (and liturgically) conservative Catholic (though one who's willing to light into conservative as well as liberal business when it comes to the sex abuse scandals) who's Republican more on the basis of social issues than out of any pro-business sentiments.

[Lynn Gazis-Sax]

Oops, make that "conservative as well as liberal bishops.

[Emily H.]

I like this enough that I may have to start calling myself a crunchy liberal. ;)

I think it is heartening to see such a conversation taking place, though there's a certain cognitive dissonance that comes from seeing what I call my pinko commie beliefs echoed by conservatives...

[Vacula]

Hugo, I'm a little disturbed by this sentence: "If, however, the ancient moral truths are Submission and endless Self-denial, then I can't sign on to that" and some of the tone in your recent discussions on your young female students.

As a Christian, I know you value the mutual submission required in Ephesians 5:21, "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." You imply, feeding right into the "patriarchal" interpretation of Ephesians five, that submission and complete self-denial are the same thing. Submission is a communal, social value. We all submit to laws in order to make everyone more safe. In your discussions of "sisterhood" you talk about submitting some individual choices (as in clothing, etc.) in order to express your value for the others in your community.

You say "I always downplay the importance of class struggle in my feminist narrative" and "I emphasize the importance of personal commitment and personal choice". I can't help reading this and your comments about the importance of some kind of "rebellion" as a function of your upper-class perspective. Have you really experienced much "class struggle"? How were you encouraged to view your success, as a function of your upbringing and connections, or a function of your choices and personality? How were your failures dealt with? Did people assume they were inevitable because of your background or did they assume it was an abberation?

I know your advice may help many women, and I don't want to deny the experiences you are basing your advice on. But your suggestions don't seem to have much value for the ways we are all built (for good or bad) out of our class and cultural identities. You insist that personal rebellions are important. For those of us not born into a WASP family or one of equal priviledge, it is just as important, if not more so, to learn what we value about our upbringing and what we reject about the "norm" in America. That is probably why you see so many minority women that devote much more of their time to racial justice than gender justice. I think they're right.

Living at home and trying to help be supportive to my single mother and my siblings when I could be out on my own is much more maturing to me than independence could ever be. My family tells me if I'm being a pushy bitch. I need to learn to deny my irritability and arrogance. My mom needs to learn to assert herself and value her right to some pleasure and relaxation. Because we all love and trust each other, we can be honest and really push each other to "grow up into him who is the head, that is, Christ."

I really appreciate the things you've said about your goals within your marriage. I'm sure as a Christian you would want all families and all communities to have the same kind of goals for "mutual edification" that we see in Ephesians. I just wish you could marry in a little more cultural understanding and, perhaps, Marxist theory, to make the same goals apparent in your secular classes. You've said you need to revise your syllabi to include more of a multi-cultural understanding. I think your recent posts prove that point.