Anthony Sacramone embarrasses First Things by blogging a nonsensical diatribe against Rod Dreher's book, Crunchy Cons, that could only have been penned by an urban intellectual snob.
He starts by granting the entire premise of Crunchy Cons:
Gee, is that another way of saying that total immersion in modern consumerist culture has side effects we don't realize? I believe that's the major theme of Crunchy Cons. Apparently Mr. Sacramone must only be angry that Rod Dreher drew conclusions from those premises.
He then goes on to rant about how great the city is because there, "cultural barbarities do us all the favor of advertising the Fall without our having to read about all those 'begats' once again," and how the virtues of the rural life are overrated because "Farmer Jones" practices the same vices as city dwellers, just "on smaller luxuries, more primitive needs, and stockier women."
Fair enough, but Dreher himself lives in Dallas, Texas, which if I recall from the seven-hour layover I had there last month, ain't exactly Smallville. Again, the actual argument in the book is not that you have to go back to the farm to live a moral life, but that modern culture's disdain for the rural life says something not nice about the culture (something on partial display in Scaparone's post, btw). Yes, Rod offers praise to those who strike out to the country seeking a way to make a calmer, more peaceful life for themselves. He does not prescribe this for everybody.
Then comes the obligatory hypocrisy slam that all Crunchy Cons critics throw out:
Once, again, let's remember the actual point of the book. All modern technology is not bad; unquestioning acceptance of it and the unchecked desire to accumulate more of it is. There is nothing inherently wrong with the Internet, but humanity is not served by a complete mechanization and digitalization of culture and the resulting disintegration of community. Has anybody seriously engaged that argument? Scarpone doesn't.
The most remarkable part of this rant, however, is the concluding two paragraphs. First, more backhanded slaps at stupid country bumpkins:
So what is the great virtue of the city? What is it about New York that you just can't find in Watseka?
Brace yourselves:
Yes, humility is the great urban virtue. Humility spurred by the virtues of greed and envy. Scarpone has just spent 800 words ridiculing stupid, racist, backwards yokels of "Hicksville" with their "stockier women," "bib overalls," and "gross habits masquerading as traditions" so he can preach the virtue of humility.
All this, yet not one word about the book that Rod Dreher wrote.
http://www.stblogs.org/scgi-bin/mv/mt-tb.cgi/19319