One of my favorite TV shows has long been King of the Hill, which went off the air 15 years ago. Now it’s back, with the brand new Season 14 streaming on Hulu/Disney+. Everyone is 15 years older: Hank, Peggy, Bobby, the alley guys, me, and the culture that everyone struggles to make sense of.
But that’s not what I want to discuss, though you can feel free to comment on the series if you want. In the course of a review of the new King of the Hill at National Review, Raleigh Adams, herself a young conservative at Yale, makes the following observation:
“Today’s young conservatives find themselves pulled between two competing instincts: the temptation to infiltrate and reform elite institutions from within, and the desire to withdraw from them entirely in favor of a return to local, rooted life.”
I’ve witnessed that pull with many of the students I’ve worked with. I would just say that much of the way our life unfolds is out of our hands. It isn’t easy for a conservative or a conservative Christian to infiltrate elite institutions, much less reform them. And returning to a local, rooted life, may not be possible for you, especially if you lack those local roots. It’s a matter of vocation. Go where God places you.
But the larger question affects everyone dissatisfied with the status quo. As a Christian, do you take the Benedict Option and withdraw from the depraved culture, tending your own garden to make your little corner of the world better? Or do you try to work within the existing system in order to change it, as many conservative and conservative Christians are trying to do, with occasional success?
Which is the better strategy for cultural conservatives? “To infiltrate and reform elite institutions from within” or “to withdraw from them entirely in favor of a return to local, rooted life”?
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In