What is Rod Dreher's Benedict Option good for?
Academic Christian logrolling, of course.
Let's imagine you're Rod Dreher's close friend Patrick Deneen and you establish something called the Tocqueville Forum at your university, Georgetown, in order to raise your profile and prestige above that of the other academics employed there. Helpful come salary review time, true, but there's also a cost: now you have to feed your new pet, and it eats content.
On the other hand, let's imagine you're Rod Dreher, also seeking to raise your profile and prestige by trying to montgolfier a phrase called the Benedict Option into The Religious Question of Our Time but, above all else, into a book you desperately hope might sell this time. You, in turn, need a friendly forum to act as if your idea had intellectual importance so a publisher, any publisher, will take you seriously this time.
Academic Christian forum needs content-fodder to legitimize and justify its existence. Vaporous Christian-sounding phrase needs academic Christian forum to legitimize and justify its existence.
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| Academic Christian means meets academic Christian ends meets... |
Patrick, Rod. Rod, Patrick.
Tocqueville Forum, Benedict Option. Benedict Option, Toqueville Forum.
Excellent. Now, who will be discussing Rod Dreher's Benedict Option at the Tocqueville Forum?
Who cares? Just as who cares that the Benedict Option itself is a no more than a completely elastic, indeterminate, all-inclusive tabula rasa? Both are entirely secondary concerns. The one and only important thing is that each serves as the mutually beneficial means to the ends of the other.
We anticipate including some thoughtful, constructive critics of the Benedict Option as well.
Of course we do.
But first, let's review our Christian priorities in play here. An indeterminate academic Christian forum of as yet non-existent panelists is already set for an all day discussion of an inchoate phrase of indeterminate intellectual and practical dimension.
What's important is that both parties are gainfully employed in support of one another. All the rest, including any Christianity involved, is merely detail filler. Have your disciples contact my disciples.
Mark Perkins says:
July 19, 2015 at 12:42 pm
Intriguing. Alan Jacobs or Ken Myers speaking?
[NFR: We haven’t nailed down the line-up yet. Watch this space. — RD]
Yes, we know that. We already understand the line-up is only of trivial, derivative importance relative to the joyful, transcending congress of forum-to-be-filled and filler-to-be-forumed.
Guess who won't be in the line-up?
Rod Dreher's TAC colleague Noah Millman.
His "Three Questions"? Not only is that piece still dead, deliberately deleted and suppressed by TAC for being thoughtfully and constructively critical far above and beyond the call of duty to Rod Dreher, but now TAC has deliberately contacted Google and had Google's previously cached version wiped as well.
So much for TAC's cover story of just a little "technical turbulence". And, obviously Georgetown, Patrick Deneen, and his Tocqueville Forum have no problem with a little TAC wet work of that sort in service of the greater cause outlined above.
John Zmirak Nope, neither thoughtful nor constructive. Obviously not enough tongue. Definitely not.
Dr. Adam A. J. DeVille Nada. Too thoughtful and constructive.
Alasdair MacIntyre, author of After Virtue, whose prestige and utterance of the term "Benedict" is the only concrete element in this whole charade.
You're joking, right?
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| Patrick Deneen, far right, and Rod Dreher exercising a strategic Benedict Option withdrawal at New Orleans' legendary Galatoire's |
Still, with any luck, both Dreher and Deneen will successfully manipulate your angst about the times you live in into another wonderful meal at Galatoire's like the one they enjoyed above this past March.
You, of course, won't be invited, nor would you expect to be, huddling in your own strategic retreat from life, nibbling a Ritz cracker, and grateful to the both of them for showing you the Way.
Well, men can't have babies. They have to do something.
ReplyDeleteLOL, I've been to Galatoire's a/k/a La Touriste Trappe. Many moons ago. Wonderful food, but the culinary experience is somewhat compromised by the fact that they make you sit on really uncomfortable chairs. I think that's a French Thing -- you're not really savoring the gourmet experience in all its exquisiteness unless you suffer for your dinner. Or something. Anyway, from my very limited experience, it seems that the higher the prices the more uncomfortable the chairs. And the smaller the portions. But hey, at least Gallatoire's doesn't stuff you silly the way Brennan's does when you do that Breakfast at Brennan's Thing and then feel too full to even look at a beignet for the rest of the day. :p
ReplyDeleteYou laugh, Diane, but I think that photograph communicates something important for all of us considering the Benedict Option, namely the Sign by which one logrolling academic Christian BOpper will recognize another in the wilderness of the culture of common proles surrounding them.
DeleteThat Sign, as Dreher and Deneen both clearly demonstrate, is this: the right hand, loosely curled shut as if grasping fork or spoon, held near the mouth as if feeding oneself.
Things are becoming ever clearer, by the day.
Astroturfing the Benedict Option, A.D. VII.MMXV
ReplyDeleteFWIW - Patrick Deneen is no longer associated with the Tocqueville Forum.
ReplyDeleteOTOH- According to Google Maps, his office at Notre Dame is only a four minute walk from MacIntyre's; so he could just take a stroll up there and ask him what he thinks of "The Rod Dreher Benedict Option"
-That Other Anonymous Guy
Thanks for correcting my regrettable oversight, TOAG. I had just assumed that Deneen would still be at Georgetown, holding a chair there and having founded the Tocqueville Forum and all.
DeleteHere's Deneen explaining the reason I ended up being wrong:
There are two main reasons for my decision. The first reason broadly concerns the sense of my place at Georgetown. In the seven years since I joined the faculty at Georgetown, I have found myself often at odds with the trajectory and many decisions of the university. In 2006 I founded The Tocqueville Forum as a campus organization that would offer a different perspective, one centered on the moral underpinnings of liberal learning that are a precondition for the continued existence of liberal democracy, and one that would draw upon the deep wisdom contained in the Catholic humanistic tradition. The contrast between its reception by a large number of students, on the one hand, and my colleagues has been striking, revealing, and often disappointing. In spite of its extraordinary programming and national reputation built over the past six years, it has never been embraced or supported by the university. Its events – greeted with enthusiasm and robust attendance by students – have rarely been attended by colleagues, whether faculty or administration. Indeed, its presence and achievements have never been privately nor publicly acknowledged by the university’s leadership. This would not have been a bad situation in its own right, as I did not seek nor expect the support of the University’s leadership. However, over the years, it has been increasingly evident to me that I have exceedingly few allies and friends elsewhere on the faculty to join me in this work, and dim prospects that the trajectory of faculty hiring will change. I have felt isolated from the heart of the institution where I have devoted so many of my hours and my passion. Over time, I discovered that I was lonely at Georgetown.
Notre Dame has recruited me explicitly because they regard me as someone who can be a significant contributor to its mission and identity, particularly the Catholic identity of the institution. While the administration and faculty at Notre Dame was strongly enthusiastic about the prospect of my joining their ranks, the response of the Georgetown administration toward retaining me was lukewarm. It has been a hard and disappointing conclusion to acknowledge that my work at Georgetown was more appreciated and supported by the leadership and a broader swath of faculty in the Notre Dame community than by that of Georgetown.
Hopefully my mistake will yield a silver lining and this new information will shed additional light on the confluences of Rod Dreher, Patrick Deneen, Georgetown, the prestigious Tocqueville Forum, and its all-day hosting of Rod Dreher's Benedict Option, but having just made one mistake, I'm hesitant to leap in and risk another right off the bat.
Still, Deneen's TF host Dreher's BO has some residual significance. From all we know at this point about Deneen, Dreher, the TF, and the BO, though, what do some of the rest of you think?
Still, Deneen's TF host Dreher's BO has some residual significance. From all we know at this point about Deneen, Dreher, the TF, and the BO, though, what do some of the rest of you think?
DeleteIn the meantime, let's review the updated facts we now know.
- The Tocqueville Forum was founded at Georgetown by Patrick Deneen.
- According to Deneen, the TF was never supported by the faculty or administration, although the kids liked it.
- Deneen, feeling lonely at Georgetown, ultimately decamped from both Georgetown and his TF.
- The nature and degree of support the post-Deneen TF now enjoys at Georgetown, from whom, is unknown (to me).
- The TF is now run by someone other than Patrick Deneen who, at least at the moment, doesn't suffer from Deneen's loneliness.
- The non-lonely, post-Deneen TF leadership has selected Rod Dreher's Benedict Option over other alternatives including vacancy to fill its October 10, 2015 needs.
- As of yet, no similar invitation has been extended to Dreher's BO by Notre Dame
"It has been a hard and disappointing conclusion to acknowledge that my work at Georgetown was more appreciated and supported by the leadership and a broader swath of faculty in the Notre Dame community than by that of Georgetown."
ReplyDeleteThe misunderstood intellectual. How Dreher-esque. How narcissistic.
When I saw that picture, I thought to myself, "we've seen this before." At that time, the Vanguard of the Revolution believed it deserved the class-oriented benefits of a "classless" society because, well, it was the Vanguard of the Revolution. Thus was born "dollar stores" only for the elite in the domain that Putin now rules.
In an even earlier time, men who viewed themselves as Successors of the Apostles lived like medieval royalty while their charges, both clerical and lay, lived in misery.