I sense a pattern here...
I posted this two years ago today. It was in the midst of the famous Topix flare-up. It may be a good idea for anyone new to the Benedict Option discussion to review this. Or anyone wishing to meditate further on the Platonic ideal of chickenness.
Especially note Jonah Goldberg's remarks on the archived link from that post. I believe they apply to the Benedict Option just as well as they describe Crunchy Conservatism.
I don't believe Crunchy Conservatism exists. I think it is Rod's invention. I don't think there is any body of thought, serious or otherwise, that is "crunchy conservative." I think Rod points to things he agrees with or likes and calls it crunchy and conservative when often they are one or the other. I think Rod's taxonomy is entirely artificial. And I think the word "crunchy" and the props used to support it are not only superficial, but they smack of precisely the kind of branding and marketing outlook Rod decries. Yes, yes, yes: There are people out there worried about the ravages of the free market and modernity who are conservative. Some of them dig organic food and open-toed-shoes. Some of them do not. I do not see what is to be gained by dividing people who agree on important things by concentrating on unimportant things.
Try it out, unless you fear that you may become a dreaded Benedict Option Denialist if you read it. But it is a good question to ask. Is the Benedict Option proposal "dividing people who agree on important things by concentrating on unimportant things"?
I think this is about right; we've seen this movie before, with an extra large tub o' granola and some kale squeezins.
ReplyDeleteThe way one can tell is this: it would actually be possible to construct a logically coherent, historically rooted concept of a Benedict Option if that were one's true goal.
The two main problems with doing so, however, are these.
First, it requires conceptual thinking, not writing, as one's leading skill. Rod Dreher, unfortunately, a glib and facile writer, to be sure, bears the same relationship to a thinker that a typist bears to a writer. Even worse, as I've mentioned before, at just about any time over the last twenty years ago Dreher could have remediated that defect with additional education - his current armamentarium is a B. A. in Journalism from LSU - but that would obviously have cut into the cooking, eating, and eliminating time and money budgets. And one's destiny is always carved from one's priorities.
Second, a conceptually specific and logically sound Benedict Option would necessarily end up having limited application, but successful book selling in today's world requires far more than that, virtually an infinitely open-ended readership market. Hence Dreher's vulgarly debasing Dante into I'm Not Okay/You're Not Okay-Chickensh*t for the Soul pabulum: one could care less if the purchaser ever actually intersects with Dante; merely being distempered but able to read while moving one's lips is the only market target.
With Adam DeVille's post I think it's probably time to recognize we've already hit peak "Benedict Option" (although there's always a perceptual lag in these things, isn't there) and so I think Roland de Chanson's recent comment is quite timely.
Time to begin referring to the ineffable bouquet of Dreher's BO by what it truly is, the Dreher Option, or more specifically, the infinitely refriable greblets that originally made up Crunchy Conservatism.
Here, for example, is an example of an anti-Jonah Goldberg or, as I, the sub-optimally irenic Keith might put it, a fellow Christian with all the curiosity of an eggplant, despite being "...a teacher, and historian. Professionally [having] taught courses ranging from modern European history to medieval history to Christian worldview...[whose] interests lie in the history of Christian political thought, American church history, and the history of Christian libertarianism."
ReplyDeleteHe further recognizes "Rod Dreher has caused a firestorm of conversation within conservative Christian circles over his “Benedict Option” in recent weeks and months, especially in the wake of Obergefell v. Hodges." Certainly, one would think firestorms would cause the investigative fibers of even an eggplant to crackle, but our vegetable only seems to blame himself for his misunderstanding. He links to Dreher enjoying some free publicity on a friendly radio program, and that puts an end to the possibility of any further eddies in the cerebral cortex.
"Dreher seems to emphasize especially what it means to preserve orthodox Christian teaching and values among Christian children who are growing up in a culture dominated by media and educational influences that are antithetical to Christianity."
But our eggplant can't be bothered to even review readily available information on the place the Rolling Stones hold in the Dreher household and as musical role models for Dreher's children.
The point I'm trying to make is this. At some point Dreher himself can no longer be blamed for his fraudulent predations, any more than one can blame the hyena for its habits. At some point the blame must fall like a rotten limb from the treetops squarely on the heads of those Christians who, for whatever reason, willfully choose to face the world like naive kittens, fear in one paw, hope in the other, wondering when, oh when, the next saucer of milk is to be delivered.
This just in: Do not cuddle your chickens!. Platonic or otherwise.
ReplyDeleteOMG, it's free-range salmonella!
DeleteYes, people, please maintain a purely platonic relationship with your chickens.
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