Shop class, slow food, crunchy conservatism

Don't know what you mean by "delicious" but I found the review irritating in the manner of NPR. Timely subjects, thoughtful insights...but quickly smothered or surrounded by condescention toward anyone who strays too far off the enlightened materialist reservation. Case in point: the "sources" Sannah cites seem to function as his "right-wing" alert flags for those he fears might not be wise enough to put Crawford in the correct left/right box. If I'm not mistaken, that's the box the right-way hippie conspiracy is trying to trash. Onward!

Welcome to all you right wing hippies! Wear those birkenstocks proudly. It strikes me as one speaks of wishing to get over the right wing - left wing divide - there is still the use of stereotypical characterizations of liberals as sushi eating Brazilian girlfriends cosmos. Could we get over this - cause if the "long emergency" does come - it is precisely these divides which will lead to violence.

I suspect I will love this book - have it on request at the library - but the difficulty with shop class, slow food, crunchy cons and libs, is that as a strategy to deal with the problems we face, it appeals to the usual educated white elites. If any of this is going to be viable in terms of creating genuine change so that we have a sustainable future, it must appeal beyond that demographic.

Cecelia, you're right. The left/right dichotomy is largely a tool for keeping us divided and angry at each other as the looting of American workers continues. We are going to have to get past that, soon, and make common cause with some folks outside of our comfort zones, if we're going to get through this. In that spirit, welcome aboard, Travis.

dod, Cecelia, Scott Walker, Travis Mamone: good on you all. Matthew Crawford seems like my kind of guy. I have been waiting for years for someone capable of flipping off the elites of both political spectrums. I am tired of being stuck between Babbitt style boosters and fighting fundies on the one hand, and rentier socialists and absurd hippies on the other. If we used some common sense we could cut energy use in this country by 20-30 percent within the next five years, but it wouldn’t meet Al Gore’s carbon trading scenario and some rabid Babbitt would object as well. Common sense folks, it’s what it’s all about.

This is my reading material for the weekend; us conservative Christian, social democratic, progressive populist localists are interested too.