Here we go again...

I was reading the Comment magazine post which is referenced by a link Pikkumatti included here when I noticed a little blurb on this page for their next issue. Here we go again, I remember thinking. Looks like more alternative "conservatism", the kind that won't make you unpopular, is completely non-threatening and won't do anything to change the prevailing cultural landscape. No wonder they booked Dreher to write something for the issue.

Here's my, uh, deconstruction of their advertisement:

The Winter 2014 issue of Comment is themed Redeeming Conservatism. Are we out of our minds?

You are out of your minds for publishing a print edition of your rag in 2014. As to your proposed content, you are probably just very confused, arrogant, or both.

If you can't imagine anything good coming out of conservatism, this issue is for you.

There is actually a word for people who "can't imagine anything good coming out of conservatism". That word is liberals. So our guess is that, based on how you are presenting this topic, that word describes most of your readership.

Our hope is you'll discover, first, that conservatism is not what you thought it was ("You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.").

Yes, we saw The Princess Bride many times, too. So y'all are going to explain what conservatism is supposed to be. This should be really instructive. But we could read the Wikipedia pages on it for free—just sayin'.

Second, we hope when you encounter this conservative disposition, you might have occasion to take stock and be surprised to find this names a sensibility you already share.

The disposition and sensibility of this new and improved conservatism you are describing will be so much better because you are going to throw out the views you don't like in mainstream conservatism, i.e., what most people call conservatism.

Our goal is to start a conversation that "redeems" conservatism precisely by deconstructing what we tend to identify with conservatism.

Knew it; told you.

Conservatism, as we mean it, is not a recovery project; it's a preservation project.

Whatever that means.