Defending the Bohemian

Ted McAllister has posted my favorite porcher comment so far. The true conservative, in our day and age, defends the bohemian against bourgeois careerism and slouching toward a meritocracy based on the productivity that comes from being smart, pretty, pleasing, and industrious—as opposed to being virtuous or just in love with life. So we conservatives unite against the bourgeois bohemian described by David Brooks. In the Bobo’s life, bourgeois trumps bohemian at every turn. And we admire Russell Kirk for having been a bohemian Tory, which means we can’t help but also have some reservations about his competence or prudence. We even admire BEATNIKS—such as Maynard G. Krebs—who graced the fifties and but were commodified by the late sixties. That also means we don’t like Red Tories or anyone who takes the colors red or green too seriously. Ted shows us the real issues that surround being a leftover in a world otherwise so well described by modern science. He could be clearer that our alienation—what ails us as persons—couldn’t be cured by going back to the farm.