Ho, hum – another day, another brilliant piece by Jordan Ballor on the relationship between a well functioning economy and a well functioning community. Yesterday Joseph Knippenberg noted this piece; today, Ballor strikes again:
Indeed, it was not very long into Dreher’s sojourn into small-town America that the limitations of the small, local, old, and particular became painfully obvious. As if on cue, less than a month into his new community, Dreher complained of the “frustratingly slow” Internet access in his house. You can perhaps imagine the gravity of the situation: “We had to cancel Netflix, because we can’t stream. My iPad apps can’t update, and have been permanently hung up for weeks (I’ve rebooted the iPad several times, to no avail). Skyping is very spotty. You can’t watch any online video, even YouTube, without transmission being interrupted.”
Dreher is savvy enough to realize how these complaints sound, and defends himself on the grounds that “given the line of work I’m in—media—I have to have reliable broadband access to do my job efficiently.” It seems when it comes to our professions, sometimes efficiency does trump simplicity after all. So much for Slow Journalism.
Dreher’s frustration in this situation illustrates in microcosm how deeply the contemporary communitarian conservative impulse relies on the technological innovations made possible by global trade…
But even as the irony of the Internet illustrates the deep dependence of communitarian conservatives on technological innovation, largely made possible by global markets, market conservatives are no less dependent on the insights of social conservatives…Market conservatism is not reducible to libertinism. But neither do Crunchy Cons corner the market on communitarian conservatism.
February 10th, 2012 | 3:45 pm
This irony has always struck me pretty hard. The fact that the Crunchy movement has grown and blossomed almost entirely through blogs and Internet discussions (yes, there are books, but where do people buy them? Where do they discuss them? How do they get other people interested in the movement?) between people who will never be in a non-virtual community with each other *has* to be seriously considered.
I am not saying it should discredit the whole Crunchy mentality — there’s a lot to like about it. But waving away the fact that a movement that’s all about personal community almost entirely, in practical terms, owes its existence to the World Wide Web, is just not going to work forever.
February 10th, 2012 | 4:22 pm
Who knew that the implications of his views was that he was to be a Luddite and that technological innovation of any sort is unique to liberal capitalism?
This is a silly caricature.
February 10th, 2012 | 4:24 pm
May I remind those keen conservative ironists who lap up the Acton brand of marketolatry purveyed by Mr. Ballor and formerly by Fr. Neuhaus (“gaining all [the money] you can”; what a true Sermon-on-the-Mount flavor that phrase has!) of some facts about modern technology:
1. The internet in its essentials was developed by government (DARPA) for non-profit purposes.
2. The WWW was developed by an English programmer working in Europe at CERN, also for non-profit purposes.
3. Those periods in US history looked back on with the most fondness by contemporary conservatives as being exemplary of our unique greatness also represent a time when the USA was an absolute scientific backwater. The eventual ascendance of the US in science and technology was not a product of domestic (or “global”) markets — rather of the prelude to the second World War, when we benefited from a huge influx of Europe’s best scientific minds. We’ve now lost any cognizance of what we had in the 40s through the 60s because of that, and now have to import most of our scientists and advanced technologists because our “best and brightest” have decided to go to business school instead (to the presumptive delight of the ‘scholars’ at places like Acton and AEI, who always sound to me as if they’ve never held a real job).
February 10th, 2012 | 4:31 pm
This has been noted over and over again by the Crunchies themselves. In Dreher’s book, at The New Pantagruel, at the Front Porch Republic, etc. The point just isn’t that brilliant and it isn’t an argument (and I don’t know that Ballor claims it is) against renewing our understanding of “place, limits, and liberty.”
February 10th, 2012 | 4:56 pm
I think Mr. Ballor is missing the point. Just because Rod, who has spent more than half his life living in major urban areas around the country, has had some not-unexpected difficulty in transitioning back to a slower way of life does not discredit his ideas or prove that they are impossible to live out. The fact remains that Dreher moved to that community because he saw those ideas actually being lived out daily by the people there. He did not go off in search of Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster – the place actually existed with real people living out the real ideals that Rod values. Just because no one who lived there was blogging about it or writing articles about it at NRO doesn’t mean that it wasn’t happening or didn’t exist.
To my mind the the Crunchy Con movement was about people who had left their small-town beginnings, and in looking back recognized that something valuable had been left behind. Just because they don’t all instantly pack up and move back to the farm doesn’t mean that they are hypocrites, nor does it mean that their quest will fail. They aren’t yearning for a return to the sepia-hued past, sans Internet and other technology, but are rather attempting to find ways to live in the modern world that promotes community values. One way to do that is by discussing ideas about it with other like-minded people on the Internet. Again, that doesn’t make them hypocrites, it just means they are using the tools at their disposal to sort out their thinking in search of what they hope will be a good way to live out their remaining days in this world.
Rod had the courage to move back home even though he knew there would be difficulties. The fact that he has a “modern” job working via the Internet from a small town touches only very lightly on the surface of what he advocates. Picking on him because he hasn’t made an instant and smooth transition back to small town life seems petty to me.
February 10th, 2012 | 6:24 pm
On Lent of 379, Gregory of Nyssa strongly condemned the institution of slavery as opposed to the order of creation. One could only imagine the indignant responses of those like Mr. Ballor and Mr. Forster above:
Critic A: “But Gregory, don’t you eat food purchased from the man down the street. Doesn’t he own slaves? And what bout the slaves that knit your tunic? Aren’t you being a hypocrite?”
Critic B: “That settles it, this ‘brilliant’ analysis refutes Gregory!”
Of course, such a response wouldn’t be fair. Just because Gregory would not have been perfectly able to live in accordance with the truth — as we are incapable of doing in any age — does not nullify his call to move toward it. The imaginary interlocutors above provide a response that allows them to dismiss the question of slavery of practical grounds. They cannot imagine an alternate because they are enthralled to their ideology. So rather than question whether slavery was right or wrong by submitting their practices to the standard of the Gospel, they dismiss such concerns with hand-waving.
One could, I suppose, retort that my comparison begs the question; that it is not clear that the criticism of Gregory is akin to the criticisms of Mr. Dreher. But such a response would miss my point: because the criticism is dismissed without really considering it, pre-critically, so to speak, it never gets considered whether the way of the modern market is evil or not. If it is, then Mr. Dreher’s position, like Gregory’s would be one where he cannot live perfectly in accordance to the Gospel in a world that denies it. The response then is to change the world. If it is not, then the response is to dismiss the argument on those terms, not for some supposed hypocrisy. That just looks look like ideological posturing, not “brilliant.”
Furthermore, if Mr. Ballor and Mr. Forster were fair to Mr. Dreher, they would note that he is remarked that while he finds this change difficult, he also finds it worth the difficulties because it is the right, good, and just thing to do.
February 12th, 2012 | 8:58 am
What I missed in the details was answer to the question of how to manage life in rural area?
Does one leave it to market forces or does one use some form of government intervention?
I confess, while I have no dog in any fight with social conservatives and do not disagree with many concerns, as a lefty, I will battle conservatism with its desire to seek government funds for its “Red States” and “Red Counties.”
This is actually my great opposition to Obamacare is that we will see a large shift that of communal wealth assigned to health care move from where it is collected (NE US and West Coast) and go to the South and Midwest to build on its capacity, while the NE US continues to subsidize the libertairan leaning Red States in excess of Red State contribution to the wealth of the US.
Its also why I would suppport the move of military bases out of underpopulated regions to move to the NE or the West Coast. It is time to move these economic engines out of regions that need less protection (due to less population) and into the populated regions.
I think conservatives need to refigure their position and truly come “out” in favor of those government-supported activities because the way to change the culture war is to unfund Red State America.
A smart discussion that is fair to the citizens of Red State America would refigure that.
February 12th, 2012 | 9:32 pm
“1. The internet in its essentials was developed by government (DARPA) for non-profit purposes.
2. The WWW was developed by an English programmer working in Europe at CERN, also for non-profit purposes.”
1. So? Would you like to try using one of those original internet connections? They would be impossible to use. Current internet is provided by public companies, not some non-profit (and by the way, DARPA is a defense research effort, and encourages its grantees to take what is not classified and commercialize it).
2. Mosaic/Netscape evolved the original www protocols, and Microsoft expanded them. Now there are a lot of for-profit orgs that offer web browsers that are head and shoulders above the original one. Much of the development has been a combination of university and commercial research, with the university funding coming from – ta da! taxes.
But both parties have slashed R&D budgets, and the demonrats especially have squashed technical education in the schools in favor of social re-education. Now much of the important work is being done by foreigners – some by commercial, and some by taxpayer R&D.
Dreher needs to look around. He’s a lazy crunchy con, who doesn’t realize the marked has alternatives for him.
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