I did not know whether to be amused or alarmed when a friend recommended I read Crunchy Cons by Rod Dreher.
He thought the description fitted my husband and me perfectly. Alarm seemed more appropriate when I looked up the full title on Amazon. Crunchy Cons: How Birkenstocked Burkeans, gun-loving organic gardeners, evangelical free-range farmers, hip homeschooling mamas, right-wing nature lovers and their diverse tribe of counter-cultural conservatives plan to save America (or at least the Republican Party) .
Was that how my friend saw me? As some kind of gun-toting environmentalist nut? Me, the person who agonised over whether even to give my children toy guns? When a sense of humour reasserted itself, after oh, only about three months of intensive therapy, I realised that my friend's tongue was firmly in cheek, and so was the author's. And yet, both were also in earnest.
When the book arrived, I found it less cardiac arrest-inducing than the provocative subtitle. "Crunchy" originated from crunchy granola, as a shorthand description of healthy- eating, environmentally aware hippy types. The term "crunchy con" is explained as conservatives who "don't buy in to the consumerist and individualist mainstream". The crunchy con manifesto begins with: "We are conservatives who stand outside the conservative mainstream; therefore, we can see things that matter more clearly."
Well, who couldn't live with seeing more clearly than most ordinary mortals? But there is a major problem here. The conservative mainstream? That might make sense in America, where conservatives abound, and there are oodles of conservative media outlets, ranging from ranting talk radio to considered journals. In contrast, in Ireland, being described as conservative is social death.
Conservative is a synonym for repressive, backward-looking, punitive, rigid, and possibly even rural. The only vaguely acceptable form of conservatism in Ireland is to be economically right wing. Thus, we have a Minister for Justice who is economically conservative but on so-called social issues, like the age of consent, frightens his Fianna Fáil colleagues into fits.
Having a civil war instead of going to the trouble of developing distinct ideologies may explain how the allegedly left-wing party leader, Pat Rabbitte, mutters ominously about immigration, informing us that there are "40 million or so Poles after all, so it is an issue we have to look at". That comment is about as useful as the e-mails I receive from kind readers who send me the population of Africa every time I suggest we need to look at how we treat immigrants and asylum-seekers. Six months later, Labour decided to concentrate on so-called "stealth taxes", identifying 50 ways in which citizens pay hidden taxes. Mr Rabbitte issued the lofty rallying cry, that "in a successful economy, with buoyant revenues, there is no need to increase taxation and Labour has no intention of doing so". Certainly, it's a popular line, if particularly unsustainable in an Ireland where we have first world incomes and Third World services.
In Ireland, we rely on a simple test to decide whether people are conservative or liberal, right wing or left wing. Are you pro-divorce, mildly, if slightly conflictedly pro-choice, and haven't a good word to say about the Catholic Church? Welcome, good and faithful left-winger, even if you have more homes than Bono and pay almost no taxes on your massive income.
Are you sceptical about divorce, completely anti-abortion and a regular churchgoer? Be cast into outer darkness, you rabid right-winger, and don't try waving your placard protesting the US use of Shannon at me, because it will make no difference.
Anyway, back to the crunchy con manifesto. The second point declares: "Modern conservatism has become too focused on money, power, and the accumulation of stuff, and insufficiently concerned with the content of our individual and social character."
Except that no one in Ireland who subscribed to that would be described as conservative. You could stand anywhere on the political spectrum except on the section marked "corrupt chancer" and make worried comments about our individual and social character, and have complete credibility.
What about the third point? "Big business deserves as much scepticism as big government." In Ireland, what's the difference? Don't they all hang out in a big tent at the Galway races? And the biggest government of all, the EU which generates regulations faster than Michael Flatley can tap dance, is virtually invisible and no major source of concern to most Irish people.
Let's skip to number 5. No point even discussing 4 - "Culture is more important than politics and economics." We are nowhere near appreciating culture more than politics and economics. Number 5 declares that "a conservatism that does not practise restraint, humility and good stewardship - especially of the natural world - is not fundamentally conservative".
In an Ireland where the word conservative is the kiss of death, lots of Greens will be shifting uncomfortably at the idea that good stewardship is fundamentally conservative.
The final point of the manifesto suggests that the "institution most essential to conserve is the family". I have a theory about many Irish Greens, that while they may not be conservatives, they could tick many of the boxes of the crunchy con manifesto, particularly regarding family. Then, there are the other Greens, who think that the only family worth preserving is that of the natterjack toad.
As an aside, have you ever noticed that a lot of so-called Irish liberals lead exemplary family lives, while others characterised as conservative have much more colourful histories?
Dreher's book is a great read, even if the oddities of American culture are vaguely astonishing. For example, eating organic food is enough to get the author categorised as a rampant lefty even as he made a living writing for the right-wing National Review. And do I qualify as a crunchy conservative? Well, my stay-at-home husband home-schools our kids, three of whom were born at home.
Indifferent to the nearby Dundrum Shopping Centre, I became positively rapturous when a shop described as Ireland's first fully organic corner shop opened nearby.
We compost and recycle, and I use public transport. However, our children wouldn't eat a salad to save their lives and we have more game consoles than an arcade, even if most are donated or second-hand. Guess we are just crunchy and confused, like most of Ireland.