It’s time for another mini-round of Crunchy Cons mania, with Rod “friend of this blog” Dreher and his strange little book finally reaching gound zero in the journalistic world of snark. That would be the Style section at the Washington Post.
Reporter Hank Stuever actually went down and visited the infamous Dreher bungalow in urban Dallas, and there is evidence in his piece that he actually wrote some of his feature — half of it, even — after he met the family.
I was lucky enough to eat at the Dreher household — the very table shown in the Post piece — during the time between Stuever’s visitation and the publication of the piece. I must say that special kudos must go to the lady of the house, a journalist by training who is currently doing that homeschooling mother thing, for absolutely nailing what would show up as the lead direct quote in the feature. I mean, she called the soundbite word for word.
Two succulent, naturally raised chickens with good farm references are in the oven, snuggled up in a roasting pan like doomed lovers. Fat, perfect carrots are peeled, chopped, seasoned and ready to simmer.
“Notice that I am literally barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen,” observes Mrs. Crunchy Con, and perhaps, she quips, she should have done her hair for the occasion like Phyllis Schlafly’s. The li’l Crunchy Cons, boys ages 2 and 6, are out back in the warm Wednesday afternoon sun, making sculptures out of a bowl of ice cubes — something constructive and home-schoolish, something very We’re Not Watching TV.
You can read the story for yourself (by the way, the free-range photo with this piece is not from the Dreher household, but it could have been). I would be interested in knowing how GetReligion readers would rate the snark factor. Is it 50 percent snark and 50 percent nice or, my own rating, 25 percent snark and 75 percent nice or what. Offer us your ratings.
The piece is absolutely obsessed with the surface of things. Take the food, for example. Dreher’s ultimate point in talking about food is to talk about the sacramental nature — in an ancient, orthodox sense — of the key elements of life. I recently wrote a pre-Pascha column about an Eastern Orthodox priest who has created a cookbook that hones in on the same point, by which I mean the links between the family table and the holy table in the center of parish life.
This is the central thesis of Rod’s entire book. You can tell that Stuever heard this. It may be unfair to say that he did not grasp it. At the very least, he could not work it into the hip Style-page-flashing-back-to-the-New-Journalism worldview. So we get:
The Drehers are self-conscious and good-natured about living the “sacramental” life described in his book: Dreher writes in a breezy, slightly Southern style that is less dogmatic than a reader of political tracts might expect. He essentially lays out his family’s entire domestic process, from their practice of natural family planning over birth control (Julie’s expecting their third child in October), to what they eat, to Julie’s decision not to work, to how they home-school their boys with help from a parents cooperative.
Please note: Rod did not write a political tract. That is one reason why the political right does not know what to make of this book, which is about faith and culture over politics.
P.S. For those wanting to go whole naturally-fatted hog, there is a new Dreher interview up at Christianity Today. Here is how Capt. Crunchy answers the key question there:
What role does religious faith play in crunchy conservatism?
It’s absolutely at the center. If you’re going to stand against the materialism of the age, the only thing that gives you firm ground to stand on and the passion to fight it is faith in God. We live in a culture where the forces that try to separate families from their values and families from each other are so strong that only faith in God can give you that deeper vision you need to make the sacrifices necessary to live a countercultural life.
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Comments (14) |
May 3, 2006, at 2:31 pm
I think the article was pretty nice, all things considered. I also think that Rod came off a lot… nicer? committed but flexible? …than he sometimes appears in his writing. There’s no impression that ‘this is bad, and this other thing is bad, and we know better’ (what conservatives hear) or ‘conservatives are evil, and this is a laughable attempt by them to become less evil’. It’s more like ‘this is something we do, and it’s interesting and fun and good for us, even if it’s sometimes difficult’.
Also, it’s super nice to ‘meet’ Rod’s family.
May 3, 2006, at 2:41 pm
Maureen:
So what is your snark rating? No snark percentage at all?
May 3, 2006, at 3:39 pm
Wow, that was really nice. Maybe 10% snarky? ‘Cause you gotta have *some* snark for the Post Style section. But minimal snark. I’m pretty amazed, actually. He must really have liked dinner. Which isn’t surprising. The Drehers are awesome people, if I may say so.
May 3, 2006, at 9:22 pm
Well, I tried to get through the article but got only half way - the snark level was too high for me - at least 80%. As in “Oh aren’t they cute!”
Gag! Why did he have to describe what the boys were doing in the backyard as “so homeshooling and we aren’t watching tv”? He should have put his period after “cubes”. It goes down hill from there.
I’m sure the Drehers are very nice people and did not deserve such snotty treatment.
May 4, 2006, at 12:58 am
I’d go with a 15/85 snark/nice ratio. Overall, very friendly and even admiring, I thought.
I would’ve liked to have seen more on the rationale behind their choices in media. Seems very traditional-right-wing-Christian, but I’m sure there’s something else there.
May 4, 2006, at 7:30 am
I think any snark was outweighed by the ending about how those people are happy. The reporter seems not so much God-haunted as Rod-haunted.
Though actually, Rod’s wife seems to have made the deeper impression. You just don’t gafiate from being a well-paid reporter with an important job! But if you can, and it’s even more fulfilling….
*to gafiate: to abandon one’s usual pursuits, or at least most of them. From the acronym GAFIA, “Getting Away From It All”. An old slang term from science fiction fandom, where it is used for those who take a temporary or permanent break from fannish activities.
May 4, 2006, at 9:32 am
Steuver’s a talented writer. I give it a 15% snark. But taking a swipe at Peggy Noonan but calling her “kooky old GOP furnishings” was worth the price of admission.
May 4, 2006, at 10:19 am
To me, the writer appeared to want to find something bad and instead found real people, with whom he had some things in common and some things not. I think all of us, regardless of our beliefs, find it troubling when we meet people whom we like but also with whom we have some serious worldview differences. It’s so much easier to demonize a person when you fit him/her into a nice, neat cage of preconceived notions.
Honestly, I thought the story came off as kinder than some of the “conservative” comments I have read.
May 4, 2006, at 12:53 pm
“The piece is absolutely obsessed with the surface of things.”
To be fair, some of use who are otherwise sympathetic to the sacramental project have had the same impression of Dreher’s book.
May 4, 2006, at 1:57 pm
I think the writer came to snark, but after meeting the family (especially the amazing Julie) came away unable to apply more than minimal snarkiness. His heart’s not really in the snarkiness in this article — unlike many WaPo Style articles.
May 4, 2006, at 2:13 pm
The snark percentage was hovering at the teens until
“from their practice of natural family planning over birth control (Julie’s expecting their third child in October),”
at which point it went through the ceiling. I could not avoid reading it as “they use rhythm instead of birth control—and so here comes baby number three!”
If it wasn’t meant to read this way, it’s hard to see how the parenthetical is supposed to modify the clause in a relevant and meaningful way.
May 4, 2006, at 2:30 pm
>Honestly, I thought the story came off as kinder >than some of the “conservative†comments I have >read.
Interesting. You might be right. I’ve read some rather brutal reviews of Rod’s book from the right, most recently in the latest First Things magazine.
May 4, 2006, at 4:58 pm
TMATT, I’ll take your word that “Rod did not write a political tract.”
But you also say “That is one reason why the political right does not know what to make of this book, which is about faith and culture over politics.”
While I respect your position, I again assert that Rod should quit using the word “Conservative.” Its meaning, in today’s lexicon, is primarily political.
Rod’s dance in-and-out-of the political realm produces posts like the following by Jonah Goldberg from http://crunchycon.nationalreview.com/
entitled Sensibility Versus Philosophy:
“…the relentless invidious comparisons between “mainstream conservatives†and Crunchy Conservatives in which the CCs come out as noble and good while mainstreamers fit Rod’s strawman stereotypes certainly amount to something more than a “sensibility.†Or at least they must be read that way if we’re going to have an argument about any of this. Otherwise, the entire enterprise boils down to a debate about Rod’s feelings and whether or not they are the yardstick of political and moral virtue. And I can tell you right now, they aren’t.â€
Perhaps the political right DOES know what to make of this book?
May 5, 2006, at 7:25 pm
Hank wants to believe … go, Hank, go!
(5 May is Kierkegaard’s birthday, so let’s all take a leap of faith!)
pax, jeff