Washington Irving embedded a comical criticism of the way people in modern society uproot in his classic story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:
There is no encouragement for ghosts in most of our villages, for, they have scarcely had time to finish their first nap, and turn themselves in their graves, before their surviving friends have travelled away from the neighborhood; so that when they turn out at night to walk their rounds, they have no acquaintance left to call upon.
I submit than when conservatism becomes primarily about a certain ideology and not about unique, longstanding, commitment to a location and its traditions and well-being, it ceases to be conservative and has already passed on into liberalism. There is no metanarrative of conservatism; there are only local expressions.
Stay put, and have a chat with the ghost of great-great grandpa.
(Added: Which is not to say, of course, that all conservatives who move are automatic liberals. I’m talking about the Limbaugh-trajectory of conservative thought in general which has abandoned family, community, and tradition in favor of anything that makes money or looks like the so-called “American Dream.”)
