Larison unleashed!

I don't know, Rod. This whole pissing match reminds me too much of the NR v. Andrew Sullivan thing: in the end, who cares? Much too intramural. I like Jonah's columns and his Corner notes, because his sense of humor and irreverence (about the political) appeal to me.
But I bought your book, and will probably buy the next one, too. I probably won't buy Jonah's when it comes out simply because I would not expect his prose style to wear as well after 100+ pages. Your ideals appeal to me even if I often disagree with your prescriptions. Let it go. We'll make up our own minds about your ideas.

All I can say is, "Bon app tit!": Mr Goldberg, from Pinsk, coming to America, shared a table in the ship's dining room with a Frenchman. Mr Goldberg could speak neither French nor English; the Frenchman could speak neither Russian nor Yiddish. The first day out, the Frenchman approached the table, bowed and said, "Bon app tit!" Goldberg, puzzled for a moment, bowed back and replied "Goldberg." Every day, at every meal, the same routine occured. On the fifth day, another passenger took Goldberg aside. "Listen, the Frenchman isn't telling you his name. He's saying 'Good Appetite,' that's what 'Bon app tit!' means." At the next meal, Mr Goldberg, beaming, bowed to the Frenchman and said, "Bon app tit!". And the Frenchman, beaming, replied: "Goldberg!"

I make this exchange (aptly named in Starrs' second sentence) one more reason to maintain some distance from the intramural arguments of conservatism. Both Larison and Goldberg have strengths and weaknesses. And when an argument begins to be self-referential--who said what, who is more at fault for the hostile turn things have taken--I lose interest. My unsolicited and doubtless unwanted advice to both is that there is often a great deal to be gained from listening carefully to what our enemies--or, to turn the heat down a bit, our opponents--say about us. (In passing, I also suggest that Larison increase the contrast between type and background on his blog--I would read it more often if I didn't find it physically hard to read.)

Larison is a turgid windbag who needs more concision.

What Maclin Horton said. Excellent post.

I don't see the complaint. Larison posts are longer than most, but he has some decent things to say, and he tends to be more right than wrong. It seems that a lot of posters here are guilty of a bit of Goldbergism themselves. When you're dealing with ideas you have spend time wrestling with details and seemingly small differences that often lead to wildly different consequences. You can't really do this by exchanging soundbites.

Derek Copold-- Can't speak for anyone else, but I'm fond of subtleties--ideas do depend on them. The length of Larison's posts isn't the issue, either. Trouble is that I don't think his collection of small details actually adds up to much.
You probably shouldn't assume that those critical of Larison are so because of disinclination to wrestling with subtle ideas.

For a few years now when people asked me about my relationship with Rod Dreher in the wake of our disagreements over his book, I've said he's a friend, he's a good guy and it's not personal. After seeing how ecstatic he is over Dan Larison's relentlessly shabby ankle-biting, I can only conclude that Rod doesn't feel the same way about me on one or all of these points. If he really feels like Larison is right, I wish he'd had the spine to say so himself over these many years we've stayed in touch rather than let Larison do his fighting for him. As it is, his full-throated endorsement of Larison's posts makes me think that Rod's ideological transformation has breached the core and hit his character.
As a longtime fan of Rod's, I'd like to believe I'm wrong. If I'm right, it's a shame.

It seems to me that Mr. Dreher and Mr. Larison despise Mr. Goldberg far more than he despises them, yet they are convinced that the reverse is true.
Also, even if we were to concede Jonah is as awful as described: If I had become convinced that a former friend of mine had become so despicable that a savage attack concluding that he was probably a mere "ideological enforcer with a weakness of sci-fi" was "masterful," my predominant emotion would be sadness at his degeneration rather than glee at the artistic skill of the man skewering him. Even if I secretly felt glee, I would try to put sadness at the fore in my public response. I thought Rod had more class than this.

I don't mean to say that Larison's posts are "garbage." Larison is probably the most erudite blogger around. I really have no dog in this fight; I just think Rod could have handled it in a better way.

I also agree wholeheartedly with James. Rod, what has happened to you? You used to be better than this.

As Larison shows, what bloggers often miss is an editor. "Has the goods"? Did Jonah Goldberg rob a bank or soemthing?

I don't agree with Larison's take on NR. I greatly appreciate my friendship with the folks at the magazine, and am grateful for the opportunities they gave me. There's no bad blood at all between me and NR. Jonah and I fell out over "Crunchy Cons." But that's between Jonah and me, not me and anybody else at NR.

Jonah: For a few years now when people asked me about my relationship with Rod Dreher in the wake of our disagreements over his book, I've said he's a friend, he's a good guy and it's not personal. After seeing how ecstatic he is over Dan Larison's relentlessly shabby ankle-biting, I can only conclude that Rod doesn't feel the same way about me on one or all of these points. If he really feels like Larison is right, I wish he'd had the spine to say so himself over these many years we've stayed in touch rather than let Larison do his fighting for him. As it is, his full-throated endorsement of Larison's posts makes me think that Rod's ideological transformation has breached the core and hit his character.
As a longtime fan of Rod's, I'd like to believe I'm wrong. If I'm right, it's a shame. Jonah, I've deliberately avoided clashing with you in public, because I don't see any point in arguing. When you implied that my attempt to articulate a neotraditionalist vision was bordering on fascism, I took it personally, but I didn't see that I had anything to gain from continuing to engage you -- not even when stuff got back to me through mutual friends ... things that it would have been hard not to take as a personal insult. People who know us both, or who know our writing, asked me many times what Jonah's "problem" with me is. They couldn't figure out where the level of vitriol coming from you about my stuff came from. I told them honestly that I didn't know, that it mystified me too -- not the fact that you disagreed with me, but the way you disagreed (e.g., put-downs and suchlike). I told them that all I could figure was that something about my kind of conservatism offended you personally, or perhaps there was some back story that I didn't know about. But I was at a loss to understand why you reacted with what seemed to me to be like intense negativity bordering on spite. You've strongly condemned my kind of conservatism, which is certainly legitimate, but then you'll in other places say things that indicate a real intellectual sympathy with traditionalism. Which leaves me confused. So I'm left to wonder if you just don't have a coherent worldview (but you're a smart guy, so that seems unlikely), or if your problem is not traditionalism, but rather your problem is with me.
I don't agree with Dan Larison on some things; I am not a paleocon. I certainly don't share his hostility to NR. And I definitely don't agree with him on Israel. But I don't think he is full of "hate," and I think he made a good and necessary point about your debating style and tactics. As I wrote before, I think on the NRO Crunchy Con blog, I gave up trying to engage you on the ideas because it was like shadowboxing. Finally it occurred to me that you didn't want to talk about the ideas at all, you just wanted something you that was silly to go away and quit stinking up the joint. This is what I was cheering for in Larison's post: His part-condescension, part-mockery approach to crunchy conservatism expressed very well what he thought of traditional conservatives they probably also do not deserve a lot of his time. He had no interest in people looking backwards when the backwards -looking folks were challenging some of the pieties of modern conservatism last year, but he now feigns interest when it suits him. He seemed perpetually put out that he even had to talk about things as retrograde as farming or localism. He believed, as he was glad to tell us, in a partial philosophy of life, which helped explain where he was coming from a lot better than anything else he said. If belittling and insulting his interlocutors is Goldberg s idea of having fun, so be it, but he shouldn t be surprised if the people he insults don t take it in the good-natured spirit in which it was supposedly offered. Anyway, all this no doubt amounts to very little.

All, There is a great post at Taki's Top Drawer on humility. It is very instructive. Thanks, Kevin

This is interesting, if only because Rod seems to be mad at Jonah for...well, being Jonah. Jonah has long mixed his entertaining style of writing with serious ideas and for as long as I've followed his writing it seems that most of the people who have a problem with Jonah are people who either take themselves a bit too seriously, or are fairly thin skinned (not that a well-aimed line from Jonah wouldn't sting, I imagine. I've often thought that he and Mark Steyn would be the most difficult to argue with because their points are well leavened with humourous barbs.) I'm surprised Rod would be in either of these categories, but then I'm not in his shoes either. I've not read Crunchy cons but I do recall the exchange he and Jonah had on the Corner and the CC blog. What's difficult for me to follow is where certain parts of this conversation have occurred. I'm not sure when Jonah ever called Rod a "liberal." He certainly didn't do it in his post above. I'm not sure the "implication" hasn't floated in there at times but the fact that Rod is especially sensitive about it is for me a telling point. No, I'm not suggesting Rod has deliberately taken up the "liberal" banner. Rather, I think he's probably painfully aware that certain of his viewpoints are common on the "liberal" side of the aisle and I sense from what I've seen of his writing that this rankles him a bit. At the same time, I myself find it hard to see how some of those same particulars amount to a "traditionalist" form of conservatism, especially some of the "crunchy" bits. At times they seem more comfortable in the Teddy Roosevelt wing of progressivism - which I don't view as specifically "liberal," there being a few flavors of progressivism out there. Full disclosure, I'm an evangelical and more or less *lean* conservative, rather than claim it as an ideology (being anti-death penalty and fairly moderate on gun control issues, for example). So, for me personally, I find it strange that Rod clings to conservatism as tightly as he does.
I know he's had quite a few changes of late - his very moving article on his conversion to Orthodoxy comes to mind - so perhaps this has heightened his sensitivity somewhat. It seems like he and Jonah should be able to work this out though, and do so without giving Larison more credit than he is due. Having read Larison's posts (from Jonah's links) I found them quite unconvincing, mainly because Larison spends a lot of time suggesting Jonah doesn't make real arguments, which is transparently false to Jonah's regular readers... of whom I would have thought Rod was one of. I think the best advice is Kevin's. I've certainly burned a bridge or two on a comment board. Better to build a few instead.

Jonah had said Rod was headed in the direction of becoming a liberal and, then, in a more recent post that the prediction had proven on point. On the merits of this and on the merits of people who get angry at Jonah in general I'll usually side with Jonah. (I think what drives them the most nuts is that they can't stand and aren't used to people making jokes about them, much less losing debates to such a person--not saying this applies to you, Rod, but in general that's the impression I get of people who attack him.) Re: Friendship and whether Rod was disingenuous in not being more blunt, though, I don't think his last couple comments were a face-saving maneuver-I can see where he's coming from in having taken that stuff personally.

Rod, if you don't mind the suggestion, go back and read the first two posts again.

Jonah is right about Rod becoming less conservative which could be construed as more liberal. The determination needs to be made if less conservative more liberal is bad in itself. I offer that it isn't bad nor is it evidence of weakness. That's if we agree that weakness is the opposite of strength and strength is good. Conservatism offers rigidity as evidence of strength. Modernity has proven to us that rigidity as strength is a fallacy. It doesn't matter if it's a piece of steel, political policy, or religious faith, rigidity is a recipe for catatrosphic disaster. Because when it fails it doesn't just fail, it fails in the most self destructive manner possible. Modernity has taught us that real strength comes in layering elements in a material. It's called lamination and without it we wouldn't have gone to the moon. The layering provides us with strength because the different elements provide a give and take allowing flex. Flexibility is what gives the stronger materials their value to us the consumer. This is not unlike what we see in a discussion like this one on conservativism. We have a group of personalities trying to assert their rigidity is the most rigid and therefore the most strong-good. They're correct of course. If the object of the exercise is solely about rigidity then being the most rigid would be the most strong-good. Crunchy con isn't about rigidity. It's about strength. It's about product and application. The interpersonal conflicts we've seen discussed share a commonality in every endeavor where modernity has offered a substitute for tradition. Some will embrace the new and some will resist it to their last breath. Invariably the discussion will divert from the topic, new versus old, to personalities. It's been my observation that the initiator of the diversion from the topic is the one whose argument is suffering the most in the conflict. I leave that to the participants in this cat fight to figure out. I like many aspects of Crunchy and I'm an atheist and a liberal that's graduated to being a progressive. I believe in Crunchy because I see it as a search for strength over rigidity. Jonah's right about it leading to liberalism. It's a search for strength after all.

I don't get why this catfight is even on this blog. I fully understand the transparency thing, but if there's people that don't agree with you, so what?? They have their own blogs, let them say what they want, and you do the same on your own. Tending someone else's garden doesn't make your own grow.

The whole bitchy catfight is rather unseemly and embarrasing.

Whatever, Harvey. If you think ideological rigidity is only found on the conservative end of the spectrum, I'm not sure what to tell you. Other than maybe you should post some pro-life or neo-conish type posts at Kos or Crooked Timber and see what happens. Hell, even mainstream Dems will shun you with those views. As for crunchy conism not being about rigidity, I must laugh. If there is one thing that has turned people off to it, it's all the nitpicky little rules and arguments over orthodoxy. You're a liberal and that's fine. But please don't insult our intelligence by representing your own ideological myopia as virtue.

Can't say that I saw any irony there. My point is that CC sounds attractive in many ways (at least to me), and I live out many of its principles. But in long-form narrative or discussion, it quickly devolves into something resembling -- in form, not substance -- the campus PC debates over how to properly behave so as not to offend the sensibilities of any of the various victim groups. CC to me should be about eliminating stress, not adding to it.

I am sympathetic to kirkian traditionalism and agree with rod alot when he talks in broad terms. I just disagree with him when he forms it into a "sensibility"or whatever he calls it and don't think it is really all that traditional. I don't think rod gives Jonah's arguments against CCism enough credit. Many conservatives want desire strong communities and believe that moral values are more important than economic prosperity. I think Jonah is one of those conservatives. To bad Rod isn't willing to figure out why people like Jonah and me aren't on his bandwagon even though we like Russell Kirk. For the record, my wife stays at home and takes care of the kids and we have a garden and we try to implement many localistic ideas (no that doesn't mean I shop at the overpriced whole foods), but it is tough in a modern world. hopefully I can find the sense of community that Kirk made we aware I yearn for. I don't think I will find it here.

"Isn't this the source of the cat fight that is the topic of this thread?" Then why are you continuing to perpetuate it? What the heck is a "non-traditional venue" anyway?

Rod,
I find the idea that you think crunchy conservativism is the same as the traditionalist conservativism of Russel Kirk a bit baffling. Wearing birkenstocks, loving organic food, and so forth are the cultural tropes of the hippies, not of the Old Right, and whatever their merits, the hippies were nothing if not anti-traditionalist and non-conservative.
If I recall correctlly, your book contains praise for Jimmy Carter's maliase speech, Hillary Clinton's book "It takes a village", the Green Party, and the Communist inspired slow food movement, among other things. Is it really so hard to see why someone might come away from reading your book thinking crunchy cons were kind of liberal? Even if all of the above do represent True Conservativism, can't you see that this might not be obvious to everyone?

This whole thread is pretty ironic. Jonah Goldberg (I assume he actually wrote that post) just came in and did what people were accusing him of doing. He didn't engage with Rod or Larison but just asked, "So who's side are you on?" This reminds me of what Austin Bramwell wrote a while back--contemporary conservatism has become more about "us vs. them" than any sort of substantive ideas.

Okay Ben, a pro-life or neo-conish post at Kos from me would be comparable to a pro-Hilary post here by you. It would be not only out of character, it would be evidence of a chemical imbalance. Whether you misunderstood me or only pretended to, I think most readers know full well what I was talking about. Namely, it is a joke to claim, as you do, that liberalism is all about open-mindedness and is blessedly free of ideological rigidities. Even the most myopic liberal should recognize this as a joke. You know as well as I do the rigidity that I was referring to was the embracing of old systems that failed for a reason... Searching in non-traditional venues is a liberal or progressive tenet. Yes, liberals are experts at trading the imperfect for the even worse.

Ben:"Yes, liberals are experts at trading the imperfect for the even worse.". Reminds me of Ambrose Bierce's definition of a conservative as "one who is enamored of existing evils, as opposed to the liberal, who wishes to replace them with new ones".

"CCism, which is really nothing more than my attempt to articulate Kirkian traditionalism, is really just liberalism in drag?" In my view CCism, whatever its intent, has ended up in a place that is not Kirkian and does embody liberal and incorrect assumptions. I don't expect you to agree with this, but I also expect that you will not treat disagreements with you as disagreements with traditionalism per se, which you have repeatedly done in this thread.

I am sympathetic to traditionalism but not to the crunchy con project nor to paleoconism. Those aren'the same thing and, no, its not personal. Care to explain?

Dear God, no.

I don't want to offend you, Mr. Dreher, and I don't think I need to detail what I think is wrong with CCism in order to make the point (I don't think you need me to detail what's wrong with paleoconism). The point is that not everyone who disagrees with CCism disagrees with traditionalism per se and therefore you shouldn't take disagreements with the one as disagreements with the other. And your unholy glee at Larison's shabby attack is still shabby.

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