A Manifesto for Crunchy Cons

For those of you who have been following the rise of the Chunchy Catholic Cons, Rod Dreher has put together a blog to discuss this new direction of American Conservativism.

He has written the following Manifesto for our reflection.



Russell Kirk

A Crunchy Con Manifesto
By Rod Dreher

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.

The Rise of the "Crunchy Catholic Conservatives"

The inspiration (exasperation) which has led many Catholics to reflect on the economic and political options presented to us and begin the process of researching and imagining alternatives which are in accord with our Catholic Faith and Family priorities is now beginning to get some attention in the national media.

The "New Counter Culture" is nothing new to the growing number of young orthodox Catholic professionals who have the sophistication and critical faculties to know that neo-liberal economic ideology doesn't exactly add up to a "free and virtuous society" as touted by the new breed of "conservatives". We know that you can't be Pro-Life and pollute the environment, nor can you cave into a society whose god is Efficiency and whose liturgy is the "free" market.

Those who frequent the blog space of God's Revolution will remember this blog entry about Mr. Dreher's new book. After some comments from friends, we decided to created this blog site to begin the more serious (and humorous) reflections on how we can better structure our work lives and our living choices so that we are better expressing our Faith ethos.

Our Lady's Shire is a place where serious "Crunchy Catholic Conservatives" can discuss how the Chesterbelloc Distributivist ideal can become a practical reality in our own lives.

In a nutshell, Our Lady's Shire combines in a metaphorical phrase what we are looking to incarnate: A simple, local, natural, close to family, friends, land and faith way of life.

More than being a simple example of an eccentric "life-style option", the arch of this project is radical and revolutionary in its nature. We are talking about a Cultural Revolution not unlike what Eastern Europe experienced, especially Poland.

The Original "Crunchy Catholic"

In this photo taken from 1938 when Karol Wojtyla was just 18 years of age, he strikes the image of a young man who didn't shy from the simple dignity of working with his hands nor witnessing to his faith. He was a man who loved the simple joy of hiking in the mountains or canoeing up a river with friends. His social encyclicals as John Paul II would reflect a profound vision which today is at the heart of God's Revolution and being a "Crunchy Catholic." (By the way, after JP II was shot, his aids were sent to acquire a scapular and bring it to the hospital to replace the one he was wearing which was now soaked in blood).

Like Karol and his later witness as John Paul II, we too are counter cultural. What the Jesuits once were to the Reformation, we are to the Sexual and Globalist Revolutions. We are saying yes to sexual morality and the vision articulated in The Theology of the Body, and were saying yes to self-sufficiency and a business economy and market limited by a just juridical framework which promotes localism, SME's (small and medium enterprises) owned by people, not corporations, and ensures that the market serves man (and the family), rather than making man and the family objects of utility in the market.

Men like John Paul II, the Chesterbelloc, E. F. Schumacher, Dorothy Day, Heinrich Pesch, S.J., and many others are the bright lights that once collected, will offer illumination for the challenges we face today. Our Lady's Shire is a place to discuss their thought and others in this much needed current of renewal today.

Keep an eye on this space for future postings and various sightings of Our Lady's Shire as it begins to sprout up. Or come back to understand what is in the heart of that scapular wearing, birkenstock clad, rosary saying, organic eating young orthodox Catholic man or woman sitting next to you in the pew.

Why Our Lady's Shire?

If someone were to tell you that the answer to the great wars, social upheaval, and the myriad of other problems facing us today is to return to Our Lady's Shire - you might think that someone ought to be getting professional help or at least a job at Medeval Times.

Yet if you resist the temptation to dismiss and simply humor the man, you might discover that the idea is not all that wacky after all. You might ask some simple questions:

What is Our Lady's Shire?
Maybe the best place to start is by defining what a "shire" is in the first place.

Merriam-Webster defines shire as:

Pronunciation: 'shIr, in place-name compounds "shir, sh&r
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English scIr office, shire; akin to Old High German scIra care
1 : an administrative subdivision; especially : a county in England
2 : any of a breed of large heavy draft horses of British origin that have heavily feathered legs

Now, clearly we are not talking about the second definition here (although you might find one in Our Lady's Shire), but rather the first: an administrative subdivision having its etymological roots in the Old English word for office and the Old High German word for care. So, the Shire we are talking about here is a place, a subdivision, which has one unifying administrative "office of care."

However, there is more to it than that.

For Lord of the Rings fans, you will know that the whole point of this trilogy of books is the defense and flourishing of a little place for earthy people known as The Shire.

The films (from which this pic is taken) capture a concrete vision of a life that is ordered on the most basic and monumental of principles - a society ordered around family life.

This means a life of substantial self-sufficiency (not radical isolation nor individualism) and a communitarian ethic (not socialist nor communist). It is what society by and large looked like up until the Reformation and Industrial Revolution restructured our society.

Deep in the heart of this vision is a desire for True Liberty and a rejection of freedom - Amerikan Style (note: link is an example of one man's take of this). It is a recognition that small is beautiful, and it still is. But most of all, it is a response to intelligent reflection on the crisis of cultures and the principles of Catholicism taken seriously.

The Shire then is also a symbol, a visual and literary metaphor of what many young Catholic Families desire, but it also casts a contrast to the anti-cultural cluster of life choices we are offered as seemingly our only options.

Our Faith has given us new eyes to see and hearts filled with courage to propose another way to live.

Who is "Our Lady" and why is the Shire hers?

As you can tell from above, Our Lady is the Virgin Queen mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

At the heart of John Paul II's spirituality is the total consecration to Jesus through Mary. This spirituality is simple yet profound in its implications.

It is her "Yes" that ushers the incarnation of God in our world - Jesus. Her "Yes" crushes the head of the snake and gives birth to civilization.

She is the one who holds the "office of care" for the Shire. The meaning of this will be developed further on this blog as things develop, but at this point suffice to say that Our Lady's Shire is about Her Triumph and the vision of world unity and peace.