Legal Commentary

"Yes" says Crunchy Con columnist Rod Dreher. He sets out his line of reasoning in a recent editorial in The Dallas Morning News. It's not long, so read it for yourself. I don't disagree with his conclusion that, ultimately, social conservatives are fighting a battle that is stacked against them, as a younger generation comes to maturity, a generation raised in a "sensate" culture that feeds them a steady diet of relativist gruel such as "whatever floats your boat." It's a tough fight ahead, and the outlook can appear grim.

On the other hand, I don't agree with Dreher's judgment that "the broader culture is lost." It certainly looks lost at the moment, but Dreher's "battle plan," outlined by a hero of his, Alasdair MacIntyre, is unappealing to me, personally.

Cultural conservatives should focus on strengthening their families and local institutions. Dr. MacIntyre's advice is stark: "What matters at this stage is the construction of local forms of community within which civility and the intellectual and moral life can be sustained through the new Dark Ages which are already upon us."

When confronted by the self-addressed accusation that he's "surrendering in the culture war," Dreher answers that "I prefer to think of it as retreating to a defensible position."

As I've discussed previously about Dreher's stance, the "Benedict Option" that Rod advocates isn't emotionally appealing to me, perhaps because I prefer to slug it out toe-to-toe with an "enemy" (to use Dreher's culture "war" metaphor) that's trying to impose upon me a culture that I find to be execrable. In large part, "the enemy" has been able to do this because "our side" has often abdicated control of the various public and private institutions of power as we pursued our more important goals in life: self-pleasure and immediate gratification, the rabid pursuit of our "right to happiness" right here, right now. Temperamentally, I prefer to take back those institutions. I don't expect the opposition to roll over and hand over control, and I expect the fight to be "bloody." Is that a problem? If you haven't got the stomach for it, I suppose it is.

From a strategic standpoint, I don't understand how Dreher and the "MacIntyreians" think their position will be defensible,if they retreat into little like-minded communities and surrender the larger culture to the forces that, Dreher believes, have weakened it, and will continue to weaken it, perhaps fatally. Saint Benedict lived in a time when small groups could "run and hide." Where on this planet is that going to be possible today or in the future? I don't foresee any "defensible position" in this or any future age, of being able to exist as a community with "pure values," which parents impart to their children, without the children (and the adults) eventually being overwhelmed by the influences of a much more powerful, if deracinated, culture; a culture that has used and will continue to use, very persuasive tools of influence, including the mass media and all the techniques of Madison Avenue, to appeal to all of the powerful, base instincts that are catered to in the name of commerce. If Dreher's intent is to have as much impact on the wider culture as the Amish do on it currently, then fine. If, on the other hand, he wants to remake and rebuild the society he finds moving in the wrong direction, I think that he can't retreat into enclaves filled with elitists who think that they live above the cesspool outside their walls. I think that the cesspool will rise, swamp and drown them.

That said, I'm arguing about Dreher's strategy, not his goals. Dreher's analysis of the state of contemporary culture is persuasive. His advice to seek a "religious liberty exception" to federal civil rights laws concerning homosexuality is well taken, if we get to the point where we need such an amendment. However, I think his position represents an ultimate fall-back, an end-game gambit, if a larger war for the broader culture fails. Dreher thinks that fight is over (based upon MacIntyre's analysis, I assume). I simply don't think retreat will work.

I don't presume to know for a fact that the fight isn't lost, but I don't believe that it is. Perhaps that belief is more influenced by my religious beliefs than by any cold, hard, dispassionate analysis of data. Perhaps it's an intuition based upon the fact that I don't wish to give up hope, which is a bedrock principal of a Christian faith that Dreher and I share. Since I don't wish to give up hope, I must not commit what GK Chesterton, in his autobiography, called the two greatest sins against hope: presumption and despair.  I can't presume to know that this "war" is lost and I can't despair that it is too late to keep fighting, even if that fight is like swimming against the tide.