A Thinking Reed

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal

Conservatism

  • The limits of Berryism

    A couple of liberal bloggers point out, apropos of the AmCon interview with Michael Pollan (see here for my ramblings), that Wendell Berry is, in fact, not a liberal. Rather, his criticisms of big agriculture, big business, and big government are rooted in a basically traditionalist worldview. I take it that’s why unconventional conservatives and Read more

  • The limits of Pollanism

    UPDATE: Now with links! The current issue of the American Conservative, in addition to featuring John‘s very cool cover story on “conservative cuisine” (which I may blog about later), carries Rod “Crunchy Con” Dreher’s interview with Michael Pollan. This passage, where Dreher tries to draw a connection between Pollan’s “organic” conception of the environment and Read more

  • More Red Toryism, plus “atheism is bourgeois oppression”

    Russell has a nice post tying together some of the recent threads about “dissident conservatives” and “red tories.” Meanwhile, John Milbank expands a bit on his views in this interview. Pertinent passage: To my mind then, modernity is liberalism, liberalism is capitalism (‘political economy’) and capitalism is atheism and nihilism. Not to see this (or Read more

  • John Milbank and “red toryism”

    This short piece from arch-Radical Orthodoxist John Milbank has generated a bit of buzz in the theologican blogosphere. Milbank seems to be calling for a socially conservative/economically leftist (or perhaps agrarian/distributist is a better description) “Red Toryism” to combat the hegemony of what he deems a failed neoliberalism (i.e. social liberalism plus relatively unregulated corporate Read more

  • Hippie cons?

    Dan McCarthy writes that, along with Ron Paulites, post-industrial localist conservatives are a hopeful sign on the Right, and kindly mentions this blog as a small data point. Whether this adds up to a “movement” is anyone’s guess, but the blogosphere (ironically) has given me the opportunity to be exposed to people who take issues Read more

  • Doings among the Libertarians

    The Libertarian Party has nominated former Republican congressman (and Clinton impeachment manager) Bob Barr as its presidential candidate. Barr seems to be courting some of the same anti-war/small government conservative support as Ron Paul’s campaign (which is still going, incidentally). The natural conclusion to draw here is that this will hurt McCain, if anyone. Barr Read more

  • Paleos, Obama, Right, and Left

    Surprisingly, two debates have largely occupied the newly live American Conservative blog: one about what exactly constitutes “paleoconservatism” and one about whether conservatives should support Barack Obama for president. The two debates are intertwined in that several of the TAC writers seem uncertain whether paleos should continue to think of themselves as a dissident minority Read more

  • AmCon on the blogwagon

    The American Conservative, which snatched up paleocon uber-blogger Daniel Larison a while back, now has a group blog featuring several of its regular writers. It’s good to have a more regular outlet for anti-war conservatism in the blogosphere. Read more

  • The Keystone State and the nomination

    It may just be a quirk of this drawn-out primary season, but as a native of the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, I’m happy to see some attention finally being paid to the state’s political complexity. Here’s a NY Times piece about Barack Obama trying to learn to speak Pennsylvanian by bringing his celestial rhetoric down Read more

  • The dismal prospects of anti-war conservatism

    Speaking of the prospects for anti-war conservatism, Michael Tomasky reviews (free registration required) Bill Kauffman’s upcoming Ain’t My America: The Long, Noble History of Antiwar Conservatism and Middle American Anti-Imperialism. Tomasky gives a largely sympathetic hearing to Kauffman’s history-cum-commendation of conservative isolationism and notes that “it wouldn’t be a bad thing to see the Republican Read more