The anti-modernist rainbow coalition

Sharon Astyk makes a case for essential unity in our diversity. Excerpt:

But ultimately, what I would suggest is that, without overly eliding essential differences, it is possible to imagine that anti-modernism, that is, a commitment to and belief in the future both in the abstract and the real bodies of our real posterity, is sufficient to carry the weight of a movement. If that is not sufficient to bear political fruit, what else is, after all?

I would expect the many and varied debates that are already going on between disparate views of what society should look like to be both engaging and contentious. I think that if such an anti-modernist identity could collectively arise, and a political rubric be created for at least some alliance, we would have to decide what future vision we all collectively stand in favor of, rather than simply opposing the totalizing vision of modernity. I suspect hybrids and factions will arise in fascinating and troubling ways. I don't know that I will always like what such alliances achieve.

And yet, I think it is necessary. Agrarianism alone, peak oil awareness alone, eco-village culture alone, traditionalism alone, anarcho-agrarianism alone, crunchy conservativism alone, anti-globalization alone, climate activism alone, survivalism alone, distributism alone, radical homemaking alone, or any of the complex personal identities we create for ourselves alone are insufficient to stand against to the totalizing message of modernity, the one that erases even the possibility of our existence. All of these identities alone ultimately leave us...alone, too few to make an impact, without sufficient density of culture to draw others together under our rubric. If we are not to be small outposts alone, dissenting from modernity as it devours our future, our only hope is a unified case to preserve it.

Peter Kreeft poked his nose into this corner 13 years ago in a short essay on "The Politics of Architecture."