Shoring Up the Ruins

What it looks like to build a conservative culture worth supporting

Photo by Library of Congress on Unsplash

In my post from Friday outlining my case that, contra David French, voting for Kamala Harris will not “save conservatism,” one of my main conclusions was that conservatism can’t be saved at the ballot box, but only from within, from its culture. And so I called for “cultural renewal,” but I did little to describe what that exactly entailed. This was an intentional decision on my part to focus on French’s argument and not get sidetracked by what could be a book-length argument. This may in fact become a book-length argument for me in the future. We shall see. But quite reasonably, a few readers called me on this point, most notably, my faithful reader E.L., who commented:

While you also say that voting for a 3rd party candidate who probably won’t win, you mention at the end, ‘long difficult work of cultural renewal’ - what does that look like to you? Personally? As a human, brother, father, husband, professor, writer? I would love to hear what you personally can do in your little circle to renew culture?. . . I am so tired of seeing Christians stick in Christian bubbles of friends, community, academia, seminary, its is so hyper incestuous - it’s no wonder there is a lack of cultural renewal! Maybe you could give us a few point to consider what that renewal looks like for each of us in our suburbs, neighborhoods, PTA’s and towns!

What I’d like to do here is briefly explore what I meant by cultural renewal. What kind of deep work needs to be done to accomplish the kinds of revivifying of morality and principles that French and many of us are longing for on the national political level?