Patronage and the Benedict Option
Who's the money man behind our prophet of the so-called Benedict Option, Rod Dreher?
Why, the same guy behind this effervescent sibling online option, for those times when your pop-cultural strategic retreat from popular culture has become too strategic and you just need a little sex expo talk to put you back in the mood.
The Benedict Option - just one more exciting contemporary consumer choice brought to you by the man behind the D Empire and The American Conservative.
Like they say, if you can't tell what the product is - in this case, what in the world the Benedict Option might be - you're the product.
UPDATE (as they say): With respect to the book they'll be making out of this movie, Rod's now telling us
[NFR: Well, for the record, my Benedict Option book is going to blow apart any shallow conservative idea that all was well until the 1960s...
Which tells us in no uncertain terms a whole bunch of our churches must have still been all messed up and in need of a good Rod-fixin' long before those first missiles of October, 1962.
Write that book, Rod. The cure can't get here too soon
UPDATE 2: Here's what that patronage buys. Wick Allison buys the Dreher family's health care and the food Rod's meager book sales can't possibly cover. Wick Allison is a long time Obamacon. Rod Dreher feeds from the Wick Allison teat, therefore...
Instead of Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Harry Reid, or any Democrats who actually take money from PP, Rod Dreher calls out Republican John Boehner to speak out about Planned Parenthood - because a staff member of Boehner's happens to have a relative who works for PP.
That's how the Benedict Option works: those with the Benedict Option gold make the real Benedict Option rules.
Hmmmm... I was just thinking that in order to get the living out of the Benedict Option correct, several trips to Europe will be in order. Probably France and Italy, maybe even Belgium and Austria. And maybe Spain as well. Or maybe just an extra long time "researching" in France.
ReplyDeleteAgain, this is mere speculation since we don't know a whole lot of what the book might entail.
There is no need to argue with those who do not already see clearly. The only valuable course left is to journey to those lands where the original recipes originated in order to taste community in its purest, most uncorrupted form. And then to send back plenty of selfies as icons for those unable to make the journey themselves.
DeleteYes, and also there must be communion. Daily communion, with only the finest ingredients available, since purity of palate is as important as purity of mind. Images of these events will also be sent back to the faithful for adoration and imitation.
DeleteThe Other Anonymous
I updated this post earlier today.
ReplyDeleteLet's get clear on all Rod Dreher's Benedict Option really is: ensuring Rod Dreher remains well fed.
it appears that the raison d'être (as our Francophile working boy would say) of The American Conservative, in toto, is to keep Rod fat and happy.
DeleteYou know, kind of like waiting four months after his most recent book has come out to "review" it in a transparent attempt to move a couple of dozen more units before it heads off to the remaindered list.
The other anonymous guy
Yes, TAC and Rod Dreher are now indisputably conjoined twins, which leaves us with some fascinating implications. As TAC's lone star and page view draw, Rod Dreher nonetheless has consistently proved a failure as anything but a sensationalist blogger. His book about his sister, TLWORL, published just a scant 2 years ago this past April, can now be purchased with a child's weekly allowance - in hardback. Its sequel, doubling down on his attempt at revenge against his family, is doing even worse. Which makes his hoped for BO book make or break critical for any future book authoring possibility beyond self-publishing.
DeleteWick Allison would probably just be better off if he cut his ties with TAC entirely and took whatever losses might come with that. Not only can he afford to, the losses themselves would be tax advantageous to him. But there may be logistical problems unloading TAC, and the unknowable pride factor. OTOH, Dreher's BO does have potentially a much larger scale Big Idea quotient to it than the micro-scale TLWORL & HDCSYL, even if vaporous emperorography - even more so as vaporous emperorography - and, as anyone who has perused Allison's D Empire can see, Allison has little care for the content of what makes him money, so, holding out for a possible BO score for TAC makes a certain tactical sense.
Which very well may explain some of the unusual moves the BO has attracted to itself. First and foremost, TAC killing the Millman critique at Rod's request, then, on top of that, outright lying about it: that's a naked bet that potential payoff may be worth the small hit to reputation it cost. Next, this Benny thing, which has all the fingerprints of some professional SEO marketing Dreher probably didn't cobble together all by his lonesome. Add to that a retired Catholic Bishop (Allison is Catholic) suddenly weighing in by typographically treating the BO in a blog post almost as if it were annotated Scripture and there are a lot of interesting TAC or Texas-centric (Allison is a resident of Highland Park, Texas, near Dallas, the D in D Magazine, et all) forces suddenly helping prop up the BO in ways Dreher never seems to have been helped before.
So I wouldn't be surprised to see Dreher carried as far an an ultimate BO publisher - Allison himself or or a fellow publisher owing him a favor - at which time Allison may make his final decision with respect to Dreher. Until then, expect to see the oddest, inexplicable things, anonymous Catholic newsletter bloggers among them.
Until then, expect to see the oddest, inexplicable things, anonymous Catholic newsletter bloggers among them.
DeleteOnly problem is...that's so Old Paradigm.
In the Internet Age, you really can't get away with pulling the wool over people's eyes. It doesn't work anymore. You always get outed. (Yeah, just ask Muzhik. ;-) Or Planned Parenthood, for that matter.)
I know I've said this before, but there's a fascinating movie, The Naked Brand, that's all about how things have changed in The Age of the Customer. It's geared toward marketing people, but it really applies to publishing / communications in general. Just ignore the part about the Occupy Wall Street movement -- that's just silly. But the rest of the film is really very good.
Only problem is...that's so Old Paradigm.
DeleteStill, like the vast and apparently as yet unslaked market for rural veterinarian reality programs on cable TV, there also seems to be a vast and apparently as yet unslaked Catholic market for omnibus Catholic link farm news letters produced by anonymous bloggers of unknown faith, particularly ones who salt their tweets with exclamation points! Just about every one! Because how could you jump start a Catholic's interest in their own faith without one!?!
Now I'll admit, if the Muzhik behind Benny turns out to be a rural vet with a reality TV show, I'm going to be downright sheepish.