But we're making a statement

Honda makes hybrid versions of its popular Civic and Accord sedans, and given Honda's engineering priorities, it should surprise no one that the hybridized cars are very much like their conventionally-engineered brethren; there are differences in weight and quickness, but they're nothing special on the outside.

Which is why they're being outsold by Toyota's Prius, which doesn't have a nonhybrid cousin: everyone knows the Prius on sight, and everyone knows it's a hybrid. Enter the selling point:

Forget the fact that for the money you spend on a Prius, you could get Toyota's own five-speed Scion xB, with just about the same real-world gas mileage, twice the cargo space, and seven thousand dollars' worth of something else you might have wanted. But the Scion doesn't make a statement, unless "I'm willing to drive something that looks like a refrigerator" counts as a statement.

You might conclude from this that I probably won't be embracing Rod Dreher's "crunchy conservative" shtick, and you would be correct; while much of the movement's manifesto appeals to me, it's simply not that important to me to be making a big-S Statement with my purchases or my appearance or my "lifestyle," whatever the hell that is. Part of this is age and/or crankiness, both of which I have in abundance; but most of it is simple indifference. It doesn't matter to me if you grind your own peanut butter and throw your own earthenware jars to store it; it doesn't matter to me if you buy trans fats from Frito-Lay's back door and inject them directly into an artery; and I can't understand why anyone would give a flying fish whether I do either of these things, or neither of them. Maybe it's just me, but I refuse to check the Official Guidebook before I do something more complex than popping something into the oven.

On the other hand, it's not generally useful to be doctrinaire about this sort of thing, so here's the obligatory joke:

I've switched, where conditions permit, to compact fluorescents. Fewer bulb changes; then again, more difficult disposal. Everything in life involves tradeoffs of some sort, another reason to avoid getting caught up in Movements that expect you to make Statements.

(Suggested, perhaps to his dismay, by Sean Gleeson.)