If you're still taking Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ seriously, now I'm just laughing at you
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| Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ |
In another 3,200-word eruction entitled - what else? - Talking Benedict Option, our favorite tailor to credulous emperors and their courts Rod Dreher does just that, talk, talk, and talk some more about people talking about Rod Dreher talking about Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™.
Here is why I and others are laughing at you: not just because you thought those Shake Weights would knock that spare tire around your middle right down, not because you still want to maintain to your snickering friends that those premium-priced Monster cables deliver a noticeably higher quality audio-video experience, but because you are unequivocally one of these people:
Everyone said, loud enough for the others to hear: "Look at the Emperor's new clothes. They're beautiful!"
"What a marvellous train!"
"And the colors! The colors of that beautiful fabric! I have never seen anything like it in my life!" They all tried to conceal their disappointment at not being able to see the clothes, and since nobody was willing to admit his own stupidity and incompetence, they all behaved as the two scoundrels had predicted.
That's right. You're a goober, a mark, a chump, a sucker, the eager tool of a relentlessly self-promoting impresario who really does nothing else in life but promote himself. Because, bless your heart, that's just how you roll.
But perhaps not all of you. It's statistically impossible for all of you to naturally be that witless. And, moreover, one of the most salient aspects you share with Rod Dreher is the unquenchable need for your own Internet presence to constantly be reaffirmed, particularly by the highest god of the realm you serve, the one whose name also cannot be spoken and which also begins with a G.
In this ghostly, drifting penumbral nebula of cyber-pseudo-Christianity within which you promote yourself, everyone involved clearly understands Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ isn't something to be practiced, it's the Internet that is to be practiced instead.
Rod Dreher invents the Emperor's New Clothes of Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ and wants to get everyone talking about it, because to talk about Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ is to talk about the narcissistic black hole at the center of the Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ event horizon, Rod Dreher.
But if there's something on a trending ballistic within that ectoplasmic cybermist of pseudo-Christianity that defines you, you don't want to be left out, do you? Maybe talking about Rod Dreher talking about Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ will raise your own cyber-pseudo-Christian profile as well. And that will make your great god G very happy.
So for all of you more-than-mere-goobers, Christianity and Christian culture really become the means; mutually and reciprocally talking about Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ as a thoughtful, serious option for Christians in order to raise the Internet profiles of all of you doing so becomes the true end.
And so as you peer into and talk about Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ with a spiritual seriousness either credulous or cynical, the misty abyss of Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ will rejoice and peer into and talk about you. And not only will that flatter you, it will make your great god G very happy.
But eventually, after Rod has landed his Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ book deal - you do understand all of this Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ noise, all of it, is nothing but an Astroturfed buzz campaign to land him a book deal, right? - and after he has sold many dozens of books and garnered dozens of five-star Amazon reviews from those blog followers whose comments flatter him, the hot sun of the real world will rise again, the misty vapor of Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ will lift from your eyes, you will find yourself inexplicably babbling about a naked emperor, and you will sheepishly realize this
“Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air..”
Or maybe you prefer a more contemporary version
All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned...
You can even read all about this orbital ghost realm you and Rod Dreher are cheerfully cultivating instead of Christianity and Christian culture here.
In the meantime, though, I'll just be laughing at you. Because, like the Emperor, his courtiers, and his townspeople, you've worked hard for it, and you've earned it.
UPDATE (as they say): As my colleague Pikkumatti pointed out, in order to avoid the unfortunate fate of busy people referring to Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ as "Rod's BO", our Prophet has now launched on the hilariously entertaining course of recursively micro-branding his original brand. No detail is too small for the Mad Man Prophet. I expect T-shirts any day now.
In this brand-branding establishing post, Prophet Dreher gratuitously inserts the term "BenOp" no less than ten times including title and tags:
"BenOp" "New, Improved Tide"
"BenOp" "New, Improved Tide"
"BenOp" "New, Improved Tide"
"BenOp" "New, Improved Tide"
"BenOp" "New, Improved Tide"
"BenOp" "New, Improved Tide"
"BenOp" "New, Improved Tide"
"BenOp" "New, Improved Tide"
"BenOp" "New, Improved Tide"
"BenOp" "New, Improved Tide"
Hear his offering, Lord Big G, little double o, and reward him with first page recognition!
Go ahead, use our Prophet's hastily fabricated, Newspeak term "BenOp". Represent.
The last paragraph of Dreher's 3200-words-about-others-talking-about-me piece is especially delicious:
ReplyDeleteQuestions to the room: What would you like to see in the Benedict Option? What do you, where you are right now, need from it? What do you need to give to it? What is possible given the limits of your own situation (e.g., personal, employment, etc.)? If someone in your city or town had a meeting like Leah Libresco did, would you go? If you did, what do you think you would say?
P.S. I see it's not the "B.O." anymore, it's now the "BenOp".
LOL! No, try as the Acronym Branding Unit of Dreher, Inc. might desperately want to, it will always be the BO. Sorry, even the completely uninterested aren't going to go to the trouble of referring to the cleaning power of new, improved Tideular. But perhaps BO vs BenOp will become a shibboleth separating those who choose the red pill from those addicted to the blue.
DeleteBut let's also sample this deliciousness in greater detail. Let's say there was someone who had appointed himself the Advertising Rep-Prophet of Christian culture because he thought it had fallen on hard times and could only be rescued with his help.
Naturally, our Ad Rep-Prophet's first instincts will be to retool the problem brand and give it a broad, new snappy appeal. We might then hear a focus group pitch something like
What would you like to see in Christianity? What do you, where you are right now, need from it? What do you need to give to it? What is possible given the limits of your own situation (e.g., personal, employment, etc.)? If someone in your city or town had a meeting like Leah Libresco did, would you go? If you did, what do you think you would say?
That's all the BO is, an indeterminate, inexplicable gray mist of something in the process of cynically and, as we can clearly see, explicitly being kneaded, and shaped and focus-grouped into a product Rod Dreher can sell in the marketplace in order only to put money in his pocket.
And, as you can see, there's a good reason they're called Mad Men.
If people are looking for something more concrete than pure emperorography to try to wrap your brain around with respect to Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™, here are a couple of additional definitions that might fit:
DeleteRod Dreher's Benedict Option™ is what you take up when actually doing the everyday prosaic work of being a Christian has become no longer stimulating enough for your decadent, modernist sensibilities, where ostentatiously reminding others you stand up praying for three hours at a stretch might give you some retro hipster cred but where you find volunteering at your local Food Pantry or Clothes Closet insufferably tedious and draining and not nearly as much fun as a $135 (plus fee) Christian-themed coctail party, bourbon-tasting, and crawfish boil people can credit you with. Much more rewarding to retreat into the self-affirming cozy corners of your mind.
Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ is Cosplay for Christians: as you D&D your way through the infinite, protean possiblities a Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ could be - everyone's a hero! By battling the Forces of Darkness as a Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ Warrior instead of being stuck in that dull, boring Food Pantry where there's not even any free WiFi, how can you lose?
Dreher is BenOptimus Prime.
DeleteObi-Wan "BenOp" Kenobi.
DeleteDreher and Eve Tushnet are a great combo. Dreher left the Catholic church because gay priests were molesting boys. Tushnet is a self-identified "gay Catholic" who is staying in the Catholic church in attempts to make it more gay-friendly. But she's down with the working boy and is trying to help him with marketing; that's all that matters to him.
ReplyDeleteOne interesting thing was Eve Tushnet’s observation that many of the Catholics at the BenOp meeting were gay, Jewish, or in recovery. (Tushnet herself is all three.)
DeleteOkay, I'll add another to my definitions of Rod's BO: It's a self-help support group launched by a former mental patient who has recently declared observing "latent autistic-spectrum tendencies within myself manifest more acutely".
Let me be the first to declare that if there is a widespread need for these sorts of self-help support groups among fragile or damaged Christians like Tushnet and Dreher, more power to them. Just as they're never confused as any sort of spiritually serious, real world defense of Christian values, culture, and political rights.
I think we can mark today as the definitive day Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ made its soaring, self-parodying arc over the shark.
ReplyDeleteNothing says "cultivating and defending traditional Christian values and culture" quite like the breezy, throwaway "BenOp". "Twitter", maybe, but Twitter was taken.
Re: acronyms . . .
ReplyDeleteI like "BOppers," a term one of you (sorry; can't remember who; too lazy to look it up) recently used for BOp enthusiasts. "BOp" as the acronym for Benedict Option brings so much to the party.
In his BenOpt-brand launch post, Dreher again quotes Father Longenecker at length.
ReplyDeleteThe only problem is, as Tom, I think it was, first hinted at, Longenecker's laments seem like nothing so much as a President or Congress lamenting that, to get things done, it really needs to elect a new people.
How can dedicated BOppers like Dreher and Longenecker expect to defend Christianity on blogs everywhere if they're stuck with the sort of suboptimal human riff-raff they're finding in their churches so often these days?
A new, movement-improved race of blog-educated BOpper Christians is clearly called for if the mission is to succeed.
Interesting. I haven't trusted Fr. Longanecker or Eve Tushnet for years now.
ReplyDeleteI've avoided getting engaged in the Benedict Option debate until now, even though I'm actually a Benedictine monk who happens to like A MacIntyre. But yes, I also think that the whole concept is quite vague. I suspect, maybe fear, that what are needed are monks and nuns; I'm not sure how this works in parishes and whatnot. Anyway, I've decided to weigh in because it seems like a way to discuss some aspects of Benedictine monasticism that are misunderstood; to wit, the idea that 'strategic withdrawal' is always somehow unChristian and a dereliction of duty to the alleged unwashed unfortunates. This kind of language I take as a personal and institutional affront. So here's the first post for anyone interested:
ReplyDeletehttp://chicagomonk.org/about-us/the-priors-blog/the-benedict-option-why-no-benedictines/
I've avoided getting engaged in the Benedict Option debate until now, even though I'm actually a Benedictine monk who happens to like A MacIntyre. But yes, I also think that the whole concept is quite vague. I suspect, maybe fear, that what are needed are monks and nuns; I'm not sure how this works in parishes and whatnot. Anyway, I've decided to weigh in because it seems like a way to discuss some aspects of Benedictine monasticism that are misunderstood; to wit, the idea that 'strategic withdrawal' is always somehow unChristian and a dereliction of duty to the alleged unwashed unfortunates. This kind of language I take as a personal and institutional affront. So here's the first post for anyone interested:
ReplyDeletehttp://chicagomonk.org/about-us/the-priors-blog/the-benedict-option-why-no-benedictines/
I think it would be great for Catholics, and for Christians generally, to be more familiar with Benedictine life, spirituality, and charisms.
DeleteIf Benedictines have to mention "the Benedict Option," however, then I recommend they do so in terms of contrast between the Benedictine way -- which is an actual thing that's been around for fifteen hundred years -- and "the Benedict Option" -- which is a catch-all term for anxious people to dream about.
Father, I don't think any of us means to insult Benedictine monasticism, the monastic charism, the contemplative vocation, or even the monastic fuga mundi. I think we're just saying that it's primarily designed for monks and nuns, not for laypeople.
DeleteTrue, there are lay associations that live quasi-monastically, with or without jobs "in the world"; I once knew a small community of (female) Focolarine who did just that. But these associations are usually canonically "legit" and under official Church oversight, which helps keep them sane and healthy IMHO.
OTOH when people dream of following a self-appointed prophet to set up loosey-goosey para-church communities off in the woods or wherever, well, IMHO that's a lot less sane and healthy. In fact, it's a recipe for trouble. Just my humble two cents' worth.
And oh yes--what Tom said.
I second what Tom and Diane said, Father.
DeleteOn Diane's point, it is safe to say that our criticism of Dreher's so-called "Benedict Option" is directed at Dreher's version (i.e., at the source), and certainly not directed at the Benedictine way.
So I think that Dreher's appropriation of "Benedict" in his option has caused confusion in the marketplace (part of my law practice is in trademark law, so forgive me for this). From here on out, I'll use BenOp or some other reference to refer to Dreher's whatever, so as to avoid any confusion with the Benedictine way.
And I enjoyed your blog post. This passage struck me in particular (emphasis in original):
That is to say, if someone comes to the monastery primarily because he seeks to do something culturally useful like erecting survival cells for the coming dark ages, he may well not last. People come to monasteries to seek God alone.
Seems to me that this will be the important distinction between the Benedictine way and a "BenOp" or whatever that is seeking to preserve someone's taste preferences in the world etc. I'll stay tuned to your blog for updates.
P.S. For readers here, there's an update already. Here's the intro, read the whole thing:
One of the criticisms of the so-called Benedict Option that comes up regularly in discussions is the fear that those who take it will turn their backs on society, drop out of political engagement and so on. And this at a time when our current Pontiff is urging Catholics to go out, not to remain, much less make a deliberate choice to be, narcissistic and inward-turning.
Our monastery would seem to be a contradiction in this case. We discerned a call to live the Benedictine life, but in the heart of the modern city...