Why Rod Dreher's Benedict Option is a capitulation for Christian conservatives
Rod Dreher, Christian conservatism's Marshall Pétain, writes in his post The LGBT vs. Orthodox Christianity War
My friend Ryan Booth speaks my mind on this on his FB page:
That’s part of why I resigned from the Republican State Central Committee and am planning to enroll in seminary.
In other words, he's electing the still-unemployable-Charles-S.-Featherstone-Option. Has Dreher's protege Featherstone found a job yet? If and when he does I'll be happy to update this.
In the meantime, those voluntary Christian unemployables among us are going to need a safety net. What might be another word for such a thing...oh: a big government welfare state. And I'll bet there would even be politicians willing to help out voluntarily unemployable seminarians with extra netting in exchange for their votes.
You go, Ryan. Go to your room like a teenager, shut the door, stamp your feet, and say, "You just wait, mean Mom and Dad. One day you'll get yours. Then I'll come out and it will all be mine."
Except, well, until they (oops, looks now like that won't include you, Ryan) change the Constitution to make the seminaries the levers of government power, then the only people passing laws and filling judiciaries will be the non-Ryan evil Moms and Dads. Who may legislate and vote, while Ryan and Rod hide out in their teenage rooms, to change the tax status of seminaries, making them economically untenable entirely. Or in their absence legislate and vote on any number of other anti-Christian things.
And, hey, get this: the only culture sure to collapse by the voluntary resignation of Christians from the public square is Christian culture. Or do you subscribe to the psychotic delusion that anti-Christians will lovingly maintain Christian enclaves among them at their own expense like little tanks of sea monkeys?
To put this in some perspective, just try to imagine an Islamic Benedict Option:
"Verily, my brothers and sisters, even though we are a dominating presence there, I fear all our lands of the Levant as well as Europe and even Dearborn, MI will inevitably be lost to the Infidel. I know, who are you to believe? Me? Or your lying eyes? Trust me, not your lying eyes. All is lost. Let us be happy in our prayers and in our delicious hummus. By the way, my new book, The Hummus Option, will be available from Amazon.com Monday."
But maybe I'm being too short and too cruel and taking Ryan out of context. The Facebook page Dreher excerpts ends
And we can’t show people the life-changing power of Christ if we’re fully enmeshed in the culture. If our lives don’t look any different than those of non-Christians, then why would anyone decide to become a Christian?
Gee, I don't know. Why would anyone decide to become a Christian? Anybody know? Maybe if we all wore Mohawks (you, too, Diane) even more people would want to celebrate us and and join us. Because of our cool differentness.
Dreher migrated out of political arguments in his blogging into ultimately now this pseudoreligious I Am the Eggman Generic Mahdi Tune In Turn On Drop Out Maharishi guru babblelogue of his Benedict Option because, frankly, cogent, coherent political arguments are harder to make than it is to play the mystical neo-Benedictine guru to the easily cowed and easily suggestible types who get approvingly "curated" into his blog.
The problem is that the fantasies of developmentally-arrested adolescents* like Rod always tacitly assume that the behavior of Mom and Dad will remain the same, unchanging indulgent supportiveness they've always known while they're petulantly sulking in their room, that they won't crack the door and find out, dang!, Mom and Dad have said good riddance to Rod and Ryan, sold the house, and moved to Fiji with the proceeds, leaving R & R faced with flipping a coin to determine who will have to kill little Skippy the hamster with his bare hands if they're going to eat that night.
I know, I know. The narrative Dreher's surfing is that the Benedict Option he has now appropriated as his own supposedly has a legitimate and venerable pedigree in Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue.
“We are not waiting for Godot, but for another—doubtless very different—St. Benedict.”
Read all of Goerke just to scratch the surface of the difficulties of translating that sort of romantic academic apocalypticism into practical action for everyday people. For example, in a recent post, The Accidental Benedict Option, Dreher had originally concluded with
"I’m taking my stand there. I have made more progress towards healing and wholeness in the past two years at that mission than at any time in my life. St. John the Theologian Mission really is a “school for conversion,” to use St. Benedict’s phrase from his Rule. Without even knowing what we were doing, and by following standard Orthodox liturgical and spiritual practices, we have build a community institution that, in my view, keeps its members focused on what the church is for.
If you’re Orthodox or Orthodox-seeking, and looking for a solid parish in rural America for Benedict Option reasons, come see us."
When updating it, Dreher removed that last paragraph, and for practical good reason: how many people can really move to a rural parish in south Louisiana before it becomes exactly like the place they're fleeing? We can think of this as the Tragedy of the Benedict Commons.
And, as I pointed out previously here, implicit at the heart of Rod Dreher's Benedict option is the savage misanthropy of the petulant, passive-aggressive adolescent ("Oh, I wish a post-Enlightenment apocalyptic breakdown would just wipe them all out!"):
At some point on our journey through the logic of the Benedict Option we really do have to ask: if all society but the cells of the Benedict Optioneers themselves collapses into chaos and barbarism, that is, into that seed bed now fertile enough for the Benedict Optioneer to finally re-emerge - what sort of Christian does that leave the Benedict Optioneer being himself - if any sort at all? Everyone else finally in misery, so he can finally triumph. Exactly what sort of Christian is that?
Until then, who wants to juggle the emperorography of presenting himself as that another—doubtless very different—St. Benedict?
Why, probably someone who has this as the formative, enduring focus of his world view:
*When I think about the bullying I endured in high school, the most indelible image on my mind is being pinned to the floor and tortured in a hotel room on a school trip, and the two adult women chaperones in the room literally stepping over me, lying there screaming for them to help me, as they left the hotel room.
Like the special snowflakes of academia, all Rod Dreher wants is some other, adult to provide a safe place for him where he can be whatever he wants to be, without criticism and without fear of anyone being mean to him. But to render that psychological obsession objectively legitimate, he needs you to believe in and create a functional Benedict Option for him - so he can then write a book about it and sell it back to you.
To cut to the chase, for the adults reading, here's our real Option, or at least the non-emperorographic basalt bedrock upon which it must be built: the Constitution of the United States of America. There has never been anything like it and there probably never again will be.
There's only one problem. You can't be Christianity's or conservatism's very own passive-aggressive special snowflake like Rod Dreher or Ryan Booth and operate it. It just won't work for invertebrates of that sort. You have to assert your rights under it.
Actively. Politically. Yourself.
As for "The LGBT vs. Orthodox Christianity War"? Unless you're a socially and politically passive Christian conservative like Rod Dreher, perched on your hands and knees, simpering back over your shoulder in the hopes of selling a Benedict Option book based on that posture, there isn't one.
Instead, like Kevin and Crystal O'Connor of Memories Pizza you're already exercising what I'd like to call...let's see...oh, I know - The Christian Option.
Loving. Treating everybody equally, under God and under the Constitution.
Uncompromising with respect to your Christian principles. Unmovable.
Not whining, "lying there screaming for them to help me".
Selfless and generous. When other Christians come to your aid, sharing the excess with those even worse off than you, not filling your belly at Galatoire's or sucking down oysters like the Sun King.
The Christian Option. Sort of has a ring to it, doesn't it? Sort of old-timey, some might even say authentic, yet at the same time, timeless.
But, darn. Somebody beat me to it. There's already a book out about it.
UPDATE (as they say): More David French
Although I know nothing about Rod Dreher and the Benedict Option beyond what I read here, I don't disagree with what you're saying. Unfortunately, not even the Republicans in Ohio want my vote anymore.
ReplyDeleteYou may not like my obvious answer: you may be the Republican you've been wanting to give your vote to.
DeleteRod Dreher amplifies:
ReplyDeleteMaybe this kind of thing will make some people’s faith stronger. But we should not be eager to be put to the test. None of us know for sure how we would bear up. As an ardent Catholic, I really did believe that nothing could make me lose my faith in Catholic Christianity. I learned otherwise the hard way.
And, as the Good Book teaches us, Man is made in the image of Rod Dreher.
Thus spake the Generic Mahdi (have book proposal, will travel) we've all been waiting for.
As an ardent Catholic, I really did believe that nothing could make me lose my faith in Catholic Christianity. I learned otherwise the hard way.
DeleteThis makes me barf for so many reasons. E.g.: I recently learned that Rod's pet Met, the former Metropolitan Jonas, colluded in a rather stunning coverup and sat back in silence as the perp retaliated against the victim. I believe Rod was made aware of all of this -- and dismissed it with his usual vicious nastiness. I can't say any more at this time, and I really don't know all the details. But I believe they will eventually come to light.
My Androgenic Alopecia prevents me from producing a Mohawk.
ReplyDeleteFortunately the way I try to live my Christian faith is more like this than any kind of Bunker Option. Of course I don't always live up to it; I'd like to say I'm batting .300 but I seriously doubt it.
It's interesting to note that Christians have barely ever come up with brand names or labels. We let Antiochians come up with our name and we let it stick. "Martyr" originally meant witness, "sacrament[um]" originally signified an oath of fidelity sworn to ancient Roman leaders, etc. All these concepts developed organically, so to speak. These ideas, virtuous in themselves, were purified and brought to flower within Christianity.
I have a hard time believing that even Dreher is so naive to act as if hatred of Christianity is all based on "Christians behaving badly". Christians being too worldly, Christians being stuck-up, Christians falling short of perfection. The essence of the Gospel message infuriates some people and they lash out at Christians because they don't have Christ to beat up on.
DeleteThese people are part of the mystical body of Satan, as Fulton Sheen described them, and the ones who are part of the LGBT "community" have placed one foot in hell already. To ignore this is to give in to a materialistic and purely political view of good and evil.
Yet this is what the Bunker Option is based on. The belief that what is wrong with the world can solely be laid at the feet of Christianity as practiced by most Christians. It's childish; that's why Keith's image of adults behaving like petulant children is so apropos.
In complete contrast to the truly Christian way outlined in the Letter to Diognetus, nothing quite as perfectly reveals Dreher's BO as the apotheosis of his Narcissistic Personality Disorder as his most recent closing argument I quoted just above.
DeleteDoes not Mankind not know that he is the One True Generic Mahdi, self-healed guru master of his own viral mono affliction? Should not the sick and the lame and the weak and the fearful everywhere look to his mystical emperorographic teachings and his guidance to bring wellness, order and direction into their own lives?
Will his bringing us the Big BO on tablets of Apple prove to be the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal?
(Ooops, double negative in my previous comment)
DeleteAssuming Dreher isn't directly reading and replying to our arguments here as we make them right now, he's already received or anticipates receiving some major pushback against the impossible contraditions already hollowing out his Big Narcissistic Bunker Option and is trying to head them off emotionally here and here, even to the point of turning the term capitulation I used first on its head.
Don't be naive, Christian conservatives, the One True Generic Mahdi tells us, you are every bit the same faithless weakling Dreher confesses to be, and so his Big Narcissistic Bunker Option is your only hope.
Predatory demagogic cultthink mongering really doesn't get much more pure and virulent than this.
But as long as Dreher's cynical pandering enables him to extract additional book sales moola from someone buying into it, like the Dante cure who really gives a flip if it really works or even makes sense at all?
Lol. Whenever he realizes he's scuttling about on weak knees, Dreher responds by transcribing entire post length comments as "Updates" to his original post, like a toad inflating itself to appear more menacing. But the same comment one can just turn the page and read verbatim in the comments really isn't an update to the post at all, is it.
DeleteWhich leads me to a totally irrelevant question: who owns the copyright to the comments to Dreher's posts? Can he unilaterally appropriate the words of others as part of his own copyrighted material? What would happen if someone objected? Would he have to delete such an "Update" from the post?
The belief that what is wrong with the world can solely be laid at the feet of Christianity as practiced by most Christians.
ReplyDeleteExcept for that teeny enlightened coterie, those happy few, basking in the holy and mystical glow of Dreher's homemade church.
If it's any consolation to anyone who needs it, just remember that, at the end of the day, Rod's writing on his Big Narcissistic Bunker Option has as its sole and exclusive purpose creating another Rod Dreher book for sale and will probably not affect your life in any way whatsoever, unless you happen to belong to that group who needs to read his books for emotional reasons.
ReplyDeleteAs Dreher's thoughts on his BNBO "evolve" into the inevitable mare's nest of internal contradictions, never forget how his Dante book "evolved" from his initial claim that Dante cured his mono with a working title at that time of "How Dante Saved My Life" to its final equivocating form of "How Dante Can Save Your Life" (and if it doesn't, it's your fault because you did something inexplicably wrong).
The next year will offer the same process of focus-grouping the "evolving" BNBO into the optimum theoretical mash for the best book sales: just this much fear-mongering, just that much dismissal of existing practical alternatives (even today he's pre-throwing Bobby Jindal under the bus), like an arms merchant setting up the perfect market for defective and obsolete weapons, just the right sort of warmongering to leave the natives helplessly dependent on his armamentarium alone.
Of course, Dreher himself will never fully implement his solutions on himself and his family. He's the author, you're the reader; he's the doctor, you're the patient; he's the dealer, you're the junkie.
Aanother observation which might be made about a "Benedict Option" book is that it will represent a huge step backward in writing content quality. I mean, think about it, the content of Ruthie Leming was far better than the inchoate ideas in Crunchy Cons, and the Dante book will arguably be his best yet because it will contain numerous quotes from a classic book which is famous for a reason. I am not personally going to waste my time on it, but if I had to pick a book by Regan Arts or one by Dreher to read at this point I'd pick the Dante book.
ReplyDeleteThe BO book would be a visit back to the vagueness of Dreher's mind-life and the pessimistic dreariness of Crunchy Cons. We'd get a lot of scolding from imagined moral high-ground and supposed insights from fake-sounding anecdotes. It would probably be insulting to all the Christians with a normal spirituality or those without the means to do home-schooling and build a church in their backyard. Part of me wishes he'd write it because it would cause a dip in his popularity; maybe that's me being naive now.
I think the final form of the book can only be interesting, to say the least. As I mentioned above, given all the trial balloons we've already followed on his blog this far, the BO theory will end up like some sort of Kraft product flavoring, fine-tuned from panel test after panel test after panel test. "Let's see, a little more cinnamon, a little less oregano, a little more snot. Ah, perfect!"
DeleteBut David French has already noticeably rocked Dreher back on his heels with his "Wait just a damn minute, baby boy". Dreher gave him a token purr and a lick in the post I pulled the Ryan Booth quote from as well as plaintively responding "I did post something on it yesterday" in an NFR when someone pointedly asked him about it, but I think someone of French's profile not simply swallowing whatever emperorography Dreher decides to mewl on about next jolted him as something of a novelty in the universe I've complained about previously: no one wanting to appear like they might not be a conservative team player, and so letting Dreher spin his cobwebs of narcissistic self-objectification in any corner of conservatism he can creep into.
Want to know what Dreher's BO resembles most saliently historically? The Jewish strategy in Europe around 1939.
"Look, people, if we just keep to ourselves, don't make any trouble, we'll get by."
"Juden! Look vaht vee haf made for you in Warsaw: a Benedict Option community where you can practice your Judentum all you vahnt. And after vee haf destroyed ourselves vith our post-Enlightenment Nazi foolishness, you can come out and take over everything. 'kay? Meanwhile, Netflix and oysters for everybody! Yay!"
Which merely points up just one of the irreconcilable contradictions in what is at heart, as I say, a psychological narcissistic self-objectification on Dreher's part masquerading as social-political theory by capitalizing on the fears and weaknesses of others.
If we really are in the sort of culture war Dreher keeps beating the drums about, then the last response we want to mount is his retreat-to-the-fainting-couch-and-wait approach. If we're not, if instead we're simply not asserting rights easily at hand from the First Amendment to EEOC, do Christian conservatives really want to mount a high profile, belligerent political offensive just so Dreher can sell another book based on anecdotally cultivated Internet commenter fears?
That's why the O'Connors' struck me as not only the most real responses of real people (rather than hyperbolic Internet writers flogging a commercial agenda), theirs struck me as the quintessentially American, constitutional response as well. But there's no dramatic book or promotion to Thought Leader of Our Time to be had there. Just ordinary, everyday, constitutional Christianity.
I guess we'll see.
In addition to David French, I see that Instapundit has been on the Dreher beat yesterday and again today, each time pointing out that Dreher is being chickens#!t on the law-professors-backing-down-on-religious-liberty issue.
ReplyDeleteTo quote him:
I say, punch back twice as hard. For Jesus! And, yes, I’m totally serious.