The Battle Lines are Getting Clearer

In many ways I miss the old days of the Cold War. Everything was cut and dry, and you could make allies with all sorts of goofs and loons, because you had a common enemy. Conservatives could hold hands with liberal sycophants like Ronald Reagan and pretend that they didn't notice the tripling of the federal government, the shell game that made the tax cuts meaningless, the empty lip service given to social issues.

However, now that the Commies are gone we can look with a much clearer lens at the various sides of the so-called conservative camp. We still have life issues, but it is becoming clearer and clearer that the Right Liberals (which is the proper term for the neocons, with their fetish for free markets, their inherent materialism, their doctrine of absolute autonomy of the individual, etc.) only use life issues to hold a coalition at election time.

We are on the verge of seeing the battle lines shift rapidly. The mainstream of the so-called Conservative movement will follow the lead of California's Governor, and once they do that, they will hold power for a very long time, because they will tap into the inherent Liberalism of our culture. The Sexual Liberals and the Economic Liberals will positively love each other: the sex industry is profitable, and once the Glory of Absolutely Unrestrained Liberty is achieved, the Left Liberals will find that their issues are pretty minor, once they can stuff more crap in their houses.

In many ways I think that Rod Dreher's thesis on Crunchy Conservatism (Disclosure: I did not read the book, but I read the initial article with interest, and was asked to submit something for the interview, which I decided not to because, from the questions it was clear that Rod was not at all sure of what Conservatism was) is going to be important to our newest Culture War in terms of setting the boundaries.

If not the book or thesis itself, the vitriolic reaction to it will be the defining moment.

One of the traits of the Right Liberals is a mistrust of aesthetics, inherited from the Puritans. Along with that goes with a fetish for the marketplace and, ultimately, a worship of the material fruits of the market. So, for a Right Liberal, the best thing is the thing with the best, most vigorous market. A large corporation is large as a reward of its hard work, dedication, commitment to its customers, etc. Any attack on a large corporation, for most Right Liberals, smacks of wanting to impose socialism.

A couple of years ago you had these Right Liberals sniffing the air of things like farmers' markets and organic, small-farmed produce, and saying, "well, it's a choice, but it seems really silly, because, hey, look at these tomatoes I can get in January at the MegaChoice Market." And that was the truce: you people might be silly, but it is your choice to be silly.

Along comes Dreher who takes this point seriously, and says that one can be a Conservative and like organic produce simultaneously. Certain sectors of the Right Liberals suddenly became unglued.

"They aren't conservatives at all. They are just pro-life Democrats."
"It is a sham."
"It is nothing but superficial aesthetic choices."
"Wal*Mart is the best thing ever, because it is big and cheap."

And you started seeing the same people who shop happily at stores that are built on Chinese slave labor suddenly worried about every little policy that Whole Foods has (another disclosure: I rarely shop at Whole Foods, not because I dislike the place, but because I can find better selection of the same sort of stuff cheaper elsewhere in the Bay Area). These Right Liberals suddenly started wringing their hands with the best of the college student activists.

The reason for the Right Liberal's hatred of organic (it has nothing to do with price, because if you really shop organic, buy directly from the farmer, shop local and seasonal, you pay a lot less for your produce. That tasteless January tomato will cost you dearly) is that it confounds the notion of popularity equating to intrinsic good. 100 million Wal*Mart fans can't be wrong: why don't you people get with the program?

Exercising the choice that these people fetishize threatens their belief in that choice.

Our battle lines are drawing up. First we will probably stand together just long enough to neutralize the threat of Mohammedanism, but then the war will be Catholics versus Liberals. It may be the last war, but I am not one to try to determine THAT date.

So, here we have the Right Liberal take on urban planning: Jane Jacobs had some good ideas, so long as they are safely ignored by being bracketed in a free market system, in which people are free to build hideous, socially expensive, sprawling suburbs.

Of course he takes on Portland, one of the best planned and most livable cities on Earth. When he notes that the cost of housing has gone up, I contend that it is expensive for the same reason that the Bay Area is expensive: lots of people want to live there. There are very few cities in America that are livable. They become expensive as a result. You want cheap? Meet Detroit.

His contention of an unused light rail is absurd. I would like to see exactly what his statistic refers to (for instance, does it take walking into consideration?), because those trains are often full.

Portland works better than any other city in America. It is one of the most pleasant places around, with a vibrant economy, varied and interesting street life, a minimum of slum areas, creative reuse of spaces abandoned by inefficient and archaic industries, creative rethinking of existing business, many thriving bookstores, caffes, artisan bakeries, restaurants, a major banking center, etc.

The Free Market position, of course, is that places like Portland or especially Berkeley, one of these heavily regulated cities, are "bad for business." Interesting. If I am looking for businesses that have longevity, I look first in Berkeley. When the dot com industry (fueled by easy capital from some of the most credulous nitwits on Earth) collapsed, many municipalities, especially those "business friendly" ones, went severely in the red. Not Berkeley. Those pie in the sky idealists, with all their social programs and expensive regulation, turned in a budget that ended in the Black.

These "superficial aesthetic" notions (which shows you just how conservative the Right Liberals are. When they demean the Beautiful, what place do they hold for the Good or the True?) are the things that will save our rapidly degenerating culture. Suburbs grow in expanding rings, with the older suburbs decaying quickly. In a few years a trajectory of growth results in a far remote stand of new growth, cut off from the urban heart by rings of violent, nasty decay.

Eventually the whole ball of wax will fall apart, compounded by the debt burden of individuals as well as our federal government.

Posted by erik at May 7, 2006 8:46 AM