Front Porch Fools

A friend of mine informed me of an excellent profile of the vague family of farm-friendly fetishists known as localists which have been all the rage among conservatives:

I dislike them.

I gre up in a proud (post) industrial area; the ruralism which predominates contemporary conservatism is alien to me; which is to say that it does not make sense.

I grew up in an area that was (and I think remains) proudly industrial. The lament and nostalgia for some kind of "small town" or agricultural ethos is not a way of life which appeals to me.

That gets to the heart of the matter: localism is related to something other than easily definable political viewpoints. The conservatives who appeal to Wendell Berry should recognize that localism is diverse and captures - and excludes - more than its proponents may want.