Rod Dreher's Benedict Option lies
One of the tell-tales of a larger fraud like the fraud with which Rod Dreher is currently trolling Christians with his protean and chimerical Benedict Option is the trail of smaller deceits it leaves like turds along its way.
 |
| Rod Dreher addressing Noah Millman's Benedict Option post |
One such turdlet of truthlessness is this classic small boy squirmer, one of Dreher's "NFR"s in response to commenter Maxine pressing him on the question his colleague Noah Millman got deleted for asking originally (as usual, because we are dealing with items that have a habit of mysteriously disappearing when they prove embarrassing to Rod Dreher, the screen capture of this comment may be found here):
[NFR: I just now realized that Noah posted today about the Benedict Option. I had not seen that post; I thought you were referring to the post back in May. Noah’s post today has not been deleted; here it is. I will answer those questions. But you know what? I’m really tired of your gripey, hostile attitude. I don’t understand why you read this blog, except for the sake of liberal outrage porn. But I don’t have to waste my time with your constantly kvetchy comments anymore. — RD]
Let's unpack these casual, pathological untruths one by one, shall we?
I just now realized that Noah posted today about the Benedict Option
No, Rod, you didn't. "Today" would have to be July 9, 2015, the date stamp of the post. Google's cached version of Millman's post is two day's earlier on July 7, 2015 at 16:01:33 GMT. You did not realize that Noah posted today about the Benedict Option.
Noah’s post today has not been deleted; here it is.
No, Rod, it has been deleted. Your "here it is" link goes to the same "Not Found" page it has been doing for the last three days now, the same "Not Found" page it has been going to when you declared I have no idea why Noah’s article is not here anymore (screen capture here). You are lying either by saying that it has not been deleted when you know it has, or by attempting to deceive your readership by blindly throwing a link up you calculate few will follow, simply trusting your word about it instead.
But let's be as charitable as possible; after all, no matter Rod Dreher's actual calendar age, it's pretty obvious we are still dealing with the mind of a child habituated to reflexively throwing out any answer he believes might get him off the hook when cornered and confronted by a grownup.
The only way Rod Dreher, self-appointed Christian prophet and impresario of his so-called Benedict Option could be telling the truth is if he has no real knowledge of his TAC colleague Noah Millman's recent and incisive critique of his Benedict Option at all - not when it was originally posted, not that it was deleted, not that it "has not been deleted; "here it is", not what it asks answers to, nothing, nada - , a critique, moreover, that raises, not one, but three questions while quoting from Ross Douthat, a columnist Dreher admires greatly and quotes from frequently himself.
To be innocent of lying Dreher must be entirely innocent of any knowledge of the recent Millman post as well.
We must believe Rod Dreher has had absolutely no interest in this recently deceased Millman piece critical of his Benedict Option, not when it was originally posted on July 7 (or earlier), not that it had been deleted, not that he could as easily have pointed his commenter Maxine to the cached Google version just as we do - none of that.
In a post entitled "Critics of the Benedict Option" constructed of Rod interviewing himself as a way of responding to their questions, our most charitable alternative to seeing Dreher as a childlike, pathological liar is to presume his response to his critics has no real interest in any real world, actual critics asking concise questions, particularly those who work for the same publication he does.
Behold your prophet, fellow Christians. Follow this dissembling little boy at your caprice and at your peril.
The term "Bullshit" also applies. In that it doesn't matter to Dreher whether what he said is true, it only matters that he said it.
ReplyDelete". . . or by attempting to deceive your readership by blindly throwing a link up you calculate few will follow, simply trusting your word about it instead."
ReplyDeleteDemonstrably not blindly. Earlier in that same comment thread, Maxine had posted a link to the cached article--a comment and link that Rod posted to the thread and to which he added an NFR. It was in response to that NFR that Maxine triggered Rod's "you're too kvetchy and hostile" reflex).
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/critics-of-the-benedict-option/comment-page-3/#comment-7514796
I have two words on the subject of Dreher's honesty: "Muzhik" and "closet."
ReplyDeleteToday, Dreher goes back to the well of straw-manning criticism of the BOp. But more children are pointing out the Emperor's nakedness:
ReplyDeleteFrom one "Eamus Catuli": (first emphasis in original, second one added)
Look, when you propose doing something, people assume that if it needs to be proposed, then it’s not something that’s already obvious. So they think you must mean something that not everyone is already doing, that some people would even resist doing. But nobody would resist “strengthening our own institutions, and commitments to them, and to our communities, as a stronghold within which to grow in knowledge and love of our faith.” That’s what people think they’re already doing!...
So, in the absence of a proposal that sounds to people like something they’re not already doing, they project such proposals into the BenOp, recasting it as a call for things they’re not already doing — hiding out in bunkers, for instance. They’re not already doing that, so they think that must be what you mean. Because they are already (they think) trying to strengthen their communities and grow in their faith.
This is a really simple, easily understandable dynamic that you ought to come to grips with. (Or not! Maybe you’d rather keep writing exasperated posts like this one.)
No "NFR" in that one, but our Cub Reporter's temperature begins to rise after some of the later dissidents chime in, leading to this purging of the proletariat:
[NFR: You have a point. I’m going to start pruning these Benedict Option threads. If people want to know what I think about it, I’ve explained and explained it. They can bloody well do the research. — RD]
There you go -- if you don't understand what the self-described-undefined BOp is by now, you're not invited. And if you insist on dissenting anyway, then Dreher will "bloody well do [his own] research" to level an ad hominem attack, as in this comment, which is reproduced here in its entirety:
Bobby says:
July 10, 2015 at 9:13 pm
I’m with Eamus on this one. I’ve read dozens of these BO posts, and can’t figure out what this looks like at a boots-on-the-ground level.
To many of us, this just looks like the young kid who didn’t get his way and is now threatening to take his toys and go home. Of course, many of us suspect that this is something of an idle threat. From what I can tell, conservative Christians aren’t really looking to go all Benedict; instead, they just want us to reinstall them to their previous position as the culture’s overlords.
[NFR: Fine, you don’t get it. You have told us that you are “queer,” but you want to marry a woman, maybe. You are a deeply confused person. I counsel you to quit reading and commenting on these Benedict Option threads. You don’t want to understand. I get that, and that’s okay. But stop talking about it. — RD]
Dreher is a coward and a bully.
Although he might have originally held out dreamy hopes for grander things, envisioning himself as the natural successor to Alasdair MacIntyre, Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, and who knows else all rolled into one, Dreher really isn't doing anything that wasn't already in the cards from the beginning, that is cutting out and defining a cult-herd of beef on the hoof sufficient to support the writing of a BO book.
DeleteShorter: Dreher is this year's David Koresh.
Just as astronomers get excited at being witness to the birth of a star or a solar system, I'll admit to enjoying a little increased pulse rate at having a ringside seat at the formation of a demonstrably neurotic, pathologically lying, solipsistic cult leader personality.
As with all ruthlessly managed cults from Jonestown to Heaven's Gate to the Benedict Option, prayers are in order for the hapless without the faculties to know better.
Don't forget...with his Dante book he published his notes extensively for weeks on the blog. People read and discussed them at length. What happened with his book? It sank like the Bismark.
DeleteNo now is agent is telling him to quit talking about the BenOp and write the book. So the door is officially closing, save for this continued intellectual hand-jobs about people who agree with the need for the BenOp, but always closing with "and the book will be out soon".
Marketing 101 - create demand and then drive that demand towards a product.