Brendan Eich on the Benedict Option
Brendan Eich is quoted here refusing to play the victim. (I capitalized the Theological Virtues; I don't think Mr. Eich will mind.) Excerpt:
On Obergefell and the inevitable SSM story, I do wish Rod [Dreher] would not drop my name so much, because while I did lose my job, and also FYI I did have to face a blackball-dropping event at one other Valley big company, I’m not a martyr. We should all pray for greater Faith, Hope and Charity, and stop whinging about SSM or the US-based global elite that’s pushing it as just one step along a revolutionary road. More and worse is coming, and complaining is far from being ready. Pulling out of society also isn’t going to work, or satisfy Christ’s injunction to be “salt and light” to the world.
Emphasis mine. I would like to point out that Eich's attitude is very close to my own, and perhaps he is expressing it better than I ever have when he states "More and worse is coming, and complaining is far from being ready." It's not denial nor defeatism. It's not a shrug nor is it a shriek. It's the happy warrior mentality, and it is attractive and contagious.
“Pulling out of society also isn’t going to work, or satisfy Christ’s injunction to be 'salt and light' to the world.” Loved that remark; frankly I didn't realize that Eich was a Christian. I guess I didn't pay a lot of attention when all that was going on, only to assume that the man was brilliant and wouldn't end up on the street.
I have to mention that I find Dreher's Prufrockian comment about Brendan Eich's view of the Benedict Option totally hilarious, even though it's hardly the first time we've heard it. [H]e’s not a fan of the Benedict Option, though I don’t think he understands what it is." Join the very large club, Mr. Eich. None of us quite understands what it is. We have many divergent theories, all useful to some degree.
"None of us quite understands what it is"
ReplyDeleteAn excuse to travel with an hirsute Italian male and party like it's 1199.
An excuse to be turned on by the "masculine sexual potency" of "Bitch" on the "Sticky Fingers" album by The Rolling Stones while simultaneously seeking to leave modernity and return to the Middle Ages because of homosexuality, which freaks you out so much that you think about it all the time and blog about it all the time, since, by your wife's own admission, "you have no unblogged thoughts."
ReplyDeleteMore Eich:
ReplyDeleteRod, I did not mean to “diss” the Benedict Option. I don’t understand it because it has not been well-defined yet, as far as I can tell — please correct me if I’m wrong.
I’ll wait for your book before saying more, to be fair to anything that might pass under the (catchy) name.
Ich hab Eich lieb.
DeleteEich sounds like he's lit a cigarette, held it close to Rod's butt, and is patiently waiting for him to withdraw his mouth parts and fall off.
DeleteI didnt' understand most of Eich's response, it was mostly tech stuff.
ReplyDeleteAnyone care to guess what he meant by "More and worse is coming"?
What do you mean by it?
Check this out.
DeleteAlong the same lines, some may recall that some time ago Dreher was trying to start a mutual admiration society with the prior of a Benedictine monastery in Chicago. Here's what that prior had to offer on the BOp recently, in the wake of the Obergefell decision:
ReplyDeleteCatholic social teaching depends on a clear sense of a common good, and a disciplined determination to live by it.
Here is where quite a bit of “Benedict Option” language also seems counterproductive, probably unintentionally. It sets the Opting party against the world. The language of separation tends toward a language of rejection. Now of course there are many attitudes in today’s dominant culture that a disciple of Jesus Christ must reject, and sometimes this rejection calls for disengagement from particular social structures. Repentance and conversion require new ways of living, and this means that behaviors must change. Conversion might require me to stop going to bars, or to movies, to the Freemason meetings, to my mistress’s apartment, and even to my place of employment. But the point of this is not to say, “Too bad for you, I’m outta here.” Rather, the penitent is aiming at identifying personal behaviors that are harmful and eliminating them.
If we actually believe in a common good, one of the best things that any one of us can do for others is to live a truly penitent and evangelical life. For when any one of us begins to live more vibrantly in Christ, all will benefit. Right?
And the inverse holds as well. When someone lives in contradiction to the truth, all suffer in some way.
"The language of separation tends toward a language of rejection."
DeleteYes. At that point you then have a fanatic orthodox (small o used purposely) with a moderate mass orbiting it like Jupiter's rings. The moderate mass then finds escape velocity and assimilates completely, leaving a seething resentful orthodox core.
No way to live.
Regarding Taranto's op-ed, I'm not sure what's worse, what Taranto is describing, or his whining. "Why can't they be more gracious in victory?"
This is making me sick.
I like Eich. No whining, no complaining. I am interested to see what he does next. I like Eich - it has a ring. Hmmm.......
The Benedict Option in action. If there has ever been a gayer photograph than this one, then I don't want to know. Paul Lind and Charles Nelson Riley are smiling somewhere. http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/onda-baby-palio/
ReplyDelete