Are You What You Eat? Is That All?
The Washington Post today discovered the book/movement known as "Crunchy Cons," which is the term created by Dallas Morning News opinion editor and former New York Post columnist Rod Dreher for the "Birkenstocked Burkeans" who combine their cultural conservatism with a certain measure of environmentalism, living small, no TV for the kids, old-fashioned religion, etc.
I've been fascinated by the "Crunchy Cons" because it reminds me of some of the truly fascinating figures in the history of conservatism, among them Karl Hess, who wrote Barry Goldwater's 1964 convention speech and then moved to a kind of earthy libertarian radicalism that turned him into, of all things, a community organizer in the Adams-Morgan neighborhood of Washington. (Hess's theory was that the far left and far right converged, but he ultimately became a figure of the New Left.)
I don’t expect the careerist Crunchy Cons (who may or may not consist of more that Mr. and Mrs. Dreher) to be undergoing half the crazed odyssey of Hess, but it actually turns out that their movement amounts to basically nothing more than standard conservativism + shopping at Whole Foods.According to the Post, that’s the Crunchy Con difference: they like to eat tasty organic food. And apparently, at least according to the Post, most conservatives don’t: I guess they like their food steeped in petrochemical byproducts, just like they like their baby seals processed, reconstituted and frozen.
This is what passes for a movement or an ideological position these days? First, who doesn’t shop at Whole Foods? A lot of people: people who can’t afford it. But among the minority of us who benefited from the Bush tax cuts, we are all beneficiaries of a great change in the availability and variety of healthier foods. I’m very happy that I can buy a chicken that’s not from Frank Perdue and I’ll pay more for it because I can.
But that is not a political stance. It is the mistaking of a consumer preference -- and a preference that is limited by economic inequality -- to some sort of public action.
My friend Kevin Mattson wrote an essay on the Commondreams website recently, based on his fine new biography of Upton Sinclair. He points out that Sinclair's expose of the meat-packing industry in The Jungle was intended to be, and was, a spur to public action: passage of the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. But Sinclair, he writes, was disappointed because he hoped for more sweeping change, gave up on reform and instead turned to dietary fads in a personal search for "perfect health." Kevin writes, "Sinclair’s experimentation in lifestyle change has replaced the more public solutions captured in the Meat Inspection Act and Sinclair’s dream for socialized slaughterhouses. This displacement suggests a wider transformation in the American conscience. We seem to have a hard time talking about public solutions for the many problems we face....“Lifestyle” politics – symbolized in the “whole food” markets that dot America’s suburbanized landscape – serve as the easiest means for people to feel that they’re doing something about the politics of food. Buying organic substitutes for considering ways we might improve the way we make and distribute and eat food collectively."
What’s amazing about the "Crunchy Cons" 15 minutes of fame is that we don’t even realize how far this is from a political stance. And if we don’t challenge the idea that your personal shopping preferences are a political act, we really can’t make the case for a politics of "common good" with much substance.
Shopping habits can help cue some political understanding. Organics shopping among working class individuals is probably good predictor of progressive values. Wal-Mart shopping (and Coors drinking) among high-income individuals is probably a good predictor of conservative values.
That's not to say that these are perfect predictors, but neither is any individual political act or belief.
May 4, 2006 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
I, for one, reserve the right to be suspicious of any set of values that can be adequately expressed by the purchase of luxury goods.
May 4, 2006 3:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
The simple/green life actually makes a nice fit with cultural conservatism. Unfortunately it doesn't mesh so well with the current conservative movement taken as a whole, what with its fetishization of economic growth, its libertarianism outside of sex and drugs, and its assent to a cultural standard that views conspicuous consumption as visible proof of the grace of God.
In fact, I suspect that the whole crunchy-con PR campaign is designed to head off an exodus of cultural conservatives weary of the waste and vanity of our consumer culture. The strategy is just as Mark describes it, to separate personal consumer choices from political ones. They want the target "crunchy cons" to think that driving a Prius makes up for voting for someone who will enable everything in a 100-mile radius of one's metropolis to be paved. Or that the latter doesn't utterly cancel out the former. Whether this sort of framing will work, remains to be seen.
May 4, 2006 4:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
But if these consumers still don't know where their water comes from, where their food comes from, and where their garbage goes, then there is hardly anything political in their decisions and choices. Their participation is limited to their consumption.
May 5, 2006 5:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
I guess they like their food steeped in petrochemical byproducts, just like they like their baby seals processed, reconstituted and frozen.
This passes for political argument these days?
Sinclair's expose of the meat-packing industry in The Jungle was intended to be, and was, a spur to public action:
Nobody willingly chooses poisoned or spoiled food. Either they can't afford better...or they're being deceived.
But that is not a political stance. It is the mistaking of a consumer preference -- and a preference that is limited by economic inequality -- to some sort of public action...We seem to have a hard time talking about public solutions for the many problems we face...Buying organic substitutes for considering ways we might improve the way we make and distribute and eat food collectively.
Yes sirs. Lets make collective decisions about what we eat, read, excrete, think, who we associate with and sleep with. And, since it is well known that most people can't think correctly about these things lets have teachers to instruct them on how to vote; a sort of dictatorship of the proletariat.
This guy is in serious need of a lobotomy.
Consumer choices are very much political decisions; they determine what is made and who is employed to make it. And, since mass production significantly lowers costs, they are very much collective decisions. In case the authors - and most posters - haven't noticed, General Motors and Ford are on the verge of bankruptcy thanks to consumer choices.
May 5, 2006 7:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
selfinterest,
Do the marketing and advertising components of mass production work for the benefit of the consumer or the shareholder? Perhaps the basis on which collective decisions are made, as well as who are making which decisions, is about where the economics end and the politics begin.
May 5, 2006 9:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Do the marketing and advertising components of mass production work for the benefit of the consumer or the shareholder?
When I want to buy something I do a little research; I talk to people who have professional and personal experience with the product, refer to rating sites such as epinions, consumer reports, look at what the manufacturer and his competitors have to offer.
People too dumb or too lazy to do that get what they deserve.
May 5, 2006 10:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
We're still talking about food, right?
May 5, 2006 12:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
For probably the first and last time I will agree with Jonah Goldberg on something. He has been pretty adamant over at NRO in making the case that the whole crunchy con thing is much ado about nothing and there is a lot less here than Dreher seems to think.
Sure consuemr choices and lifestyle can be political. But in the end politics is about policies and laws. If Dreher and his crunchy cons agree with the rest of the NRO crowd and other Republicans on virtually every policy then they aren't anything more than Conservatives who like organic food. Unless they are prepared to come out with how their lifestyle leads to different policies then who cares?
May 5, 2006 2:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
First, who doesn’t shop at Whole Foods?
I certainly won't shop at Whole Foods. For one, I'll always pass up a store for a farmstand or farmers' market. Whole Foods brand of green just seems quite odious in comparison. And their recent scuffle with Sonoma Foie Gras has upset me quite a bit. I can do without whatever Whole Foods is selling (the illusion of greenishness).
May 5, 2006 3:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs). Even better.
May 5, 2006 3:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
I didn't know you were restricting yourself to food in your first reply...but yes, if you wish. The principles are the same.
May 5, 2006 5:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good. Then please help me understand how people deserve products from deregulated food industries, as you have applied your libertarian principles in this case:
May 6, 2006 6:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly what are you complaining about? Food is cheaper and better, and of greater variety, than anywhere else in the world. Fresh fruits and vegetables, good meats, fish and breads. What's your problem?
May 6, 2006 10:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
You are the one invoking the principle of Every Man for Himself, and I'm the one with the problem?
May 7, 2006 8:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Answer the question. Excellent food is available in the United States at the lowest prices in the world. Plenty of info is also available on the negative effects of junk food. Those who try to sell poisened or spoiled food or who make really fraudulent or deceptive claims are prosecuted. So why are you so concerned with regulating food companies and their profits and advertising?
May 7, 2006 9:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Corporations, food and otherwise, have a responsiblity to their shareholders. Government has a responsibility to serve the public interest. So why are you so threatened by government stewardship of the public interest?
May 8, 2006 7:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Because people like you don't understand the value of capitalism, or free competition.
May 8, 2006 9:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
...or the evils of monopoly, and government is the biggest monopoly of all.
May 8, 2006 9:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
...and, once again, why do you want to see more regulation of the food industry?
May 8, 2006 9:35 AM | Reply | Permalink