WALL-E Wars The Third: Rod "Crunchy-Con" Dreher and Andrew "Reagan Was Awesome, But Gays Should Have Rights" Sullivan Weigh In

WALL-E, Oh Readers, has clearly pulled off the Cinematic Equivalent of a Hat Trick in Hockey: entertain masses of people, provide an insanely cute robot (the robot is really cute), and touch off a rainbow admix of intellectual, ideological, and political effusions all at the same time.

Saturday, "Crunchy Conservative" Rod Dreher contributed to the WALL-E discourses. If you have never heard of a "Crunchy Conservative" before, he's a good place to start, so they say, although Harrogate wouldn't exactly know, since he's been wondering, as it were, what a "Crunchy Conservative" is for the last several years. Maybe someone else can start with Dreher though, and from there will eventually be able to explain to Harrogate what a "Crunchy Conservative" is. (Surely it's more complicated than, "I support a consolidated media, the elimination of the IRS, the evisceration of public education, and global imperialism--but dude, lay off the trees!"?)

But Harrogate digresses. Dreher's post will be quite interesting to Readers who have been following Harrogate's Pulitzer-Caliber coverage of the WALL-E Wars over the political meanings embedded in the latest Pixar blockbuster. A Snippet from Dreher:

"Wall-E" says that humans have within themselves the freedom to rebel, to overthrow that which dominates and alienates us from our true selves, and our own nature. But you have to question the prime directive; that is, you have to become conscious of how they way you're living is destroying your body and killing your soul, and choose to resist. "Wall-E" contends that real life is hard, real life is struggle, and that we live most meaningfully not by avoiding pain and struggle, but by engaging it creatively, and sharing that struggle in community. It argues that rampant consumerism, technopoly and the exaltation of comfort is causing us to weaken our souls and bodies, and sell out our birthright of political freedom. Nobody is doing this to us; we're doing it to ourselves. It is the endgame of modernity, which began in part with the idea that Nature is the enemy to be subdued -- that man stands outside of Nature, and has nothing to learn about himself from Nature's deep logic.

As for Andrew Sullivan, by now Readers understand that alas, Harrogate subjects himself to Andrew Sullivan fairly regularly. Mostly due to the sacred principle that dictateth: "A Blind Groundhog Will Find an Acorn Every Now and Then."

Whatever shall Readers make of Sully's take on Dreher and, by extension, on WALL-E? Pleased with Dreher's fidelity to "Aristotelian conservatism" (now don't you feel intimidated by the sheer gravity of Dreher's and Sully's intellects, O Readers?) Sully is moved to write:

Like Rod, I keep thinking about the movie. It draws together a lot of amorphous feeling right now - the gnawing sense that modernity has begun to undermine the natural conditions of its flourishing - and focuses it. The two most powerful factors, to my mind, are the confluence of destructive technology and religious terrorism and climate change with highly unpredictable repercussions. It is hard not to feel a Babelian quality about our current moment; and Rod's crunchy conservatism speaks to it powerfully.

Finally, here is one of our own, Amy Reads, pithily encapsulating her WALL-E experience:

Yesterday we went to see Wall-E, which is, in Mr. Reads's words, a movie that will be a favorite for the rest of our lives.