The science of the Benedict Option
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| Hidden meaning transforms unparalleled need to publish. |
Scientists find a link between low intelligence and acceptance of 'pseudo-profound bulls***'
Defining bulls*** is a tricky task, but Pennycook and his team tried their best in the paper.
As an example, they gave the following 'pseudo-profound' statement: "Hidden meaning transforms unparalleled abstract beauty."
The paper says: "Although this statement may seem to convey some sort of potentially profound meaning, it is merely a collection of buzzwords put together randomly in a sentence that retains syntactic structure."
"Bulls***, in contrast to mere nonsense, is something that implies but does not contain adequate meaning or truth."
If someone can find an example of a typical Rod Dreher idea salad post about his Benedict Option that deviates from the description given in this article, by all means give us a link.
As for the individuals browsing and consuming Dreher's Benedict Option salad bar themselves, given the findings of the article that is just one more reason we give thanks for a merciful God.
H/T: AOSHQ
It's been pretty quiet on the BenOpt over at the Dreher blog in past days. Don't know whether the fad is fading, or if he's just moved on to current events.
ReplyDeleteRight now he's even (sort of, in Dreher fashion, but still) sticking up for the NRA, so props for that, anyway.
On the other hand, we have this from Dreher today.
DeleteIt would seem to me that the only place in America safer* than Liberty University would be Liberty University with a good number of students who are armed. So to answer Dreher's question:
... who wants their kid going to a university where any number of the students could be armed in the classroom and on the quad, at the explicit encouragement of the administration?
Many, likely to include the parents of current Liberty U. students.
*In the traditional sense, not in the "safe space" sense.
Is it a Dreher post or is it a story from the Onion?? These days its impossible to tell. THe man is a parody even og himself.
DeleteIn between educating mankind as to why Russia (rather than Dante's Italy) is the wellspring of alt-Enlightenment culture, Rod seems to be engaged in an activity known in non-professional circles as "sucking up to whomever will have him" via explosions of proxy-populist outrage of the obvious: kids on campus are crazy right now - check. NRA is not a terrorist org - check. Anyone who would drop a kitten in acid is a monster - check.
ReplyDeleteThis is why you can talk to Rod Dreher: like you, he believes one shouldn't drive a screwdriver into one's ear with a hammer - a somewhat low mountain range to concord to be crossed, to be sure, but, still.
1) Rod Dreher is the wave of the future. I'm serious - he's pretty much completely crossed over into "emota-blogging", letting his gut, his "truthiness" guide him more completely than ever before. Consistency, logic, common sense, whatever, they just get in the way of Rod's mission to construct a Cosmic Safe Space for himself. And thinking about gay sex.
ReplyDelete2) That's what the Benedict Option has devolved into - oh, sure, he namechecks MacIntyre (I still have seen no evidence he's ever read anything but the last pages of "After Virtue"), Jonathan Haidt, and Philip Rieff. Wendell Berry's made it back into Rod's pantheon - again, with no evidence that Rod publically disavowed his work a scant two years ago because his idol disagreed with him. The Benedict Option is in an Eternal Now, I suppose - no past, no future, just what Rod wants, right here, right now.
Which would be a pathetisad display on its own, worthy of pity and references to good psychiatrists. But it impacts real people.
Take Rod's church, for instance. A week or so ago, after years of triumphalist, smug assurance that his little tax dodge... sorry, church would withstand the forces of evil all by itself, he says that his church is in dire financial straits. Apparently, they've been losing people (shocking, I know - people choosing not to associate with Rod?), and their priest has several kids to support on his salary from the church, now including a special needs kid. So Rod posts a public appeal, and another public thank you for the thousand dollars his readership has kicked in.
Here's what nobody has asked yet (or maybe they have and Rod just didn't put the comments through) - why couldn't Rod have used the money he spent on his Big Gay Adventure in southern Europe this year and given it to his church, his personal outpost of the Benedict Option? Doesn't Rod go on and on and on about this sort of thing when it comes to anyone else? Nobody sacrifices anymore, nobody is willing to suffer, everybody's unwilling to do the hard things except Rod, yadda yadda yadda? So why couldn't he have foregone his gay romp this year, stayed home with his wife and kids, and pumped some of that sweet, sweet blogging money and speaking fees into supporting what he proclaims is the last stand against Ultimate Evil?
Rod, if you're reading this, and I suspect you are, what's the deal?
I've always thought of Rod and the Benedict option as exemplifying the Dunning-Kruger effect. This is the social psychologica; process whereby persons of modest or minimal talent vastly overestimate their ability land the significance of their work. Rod may think the BO is profound but its quite dervative and downright pedestrian. Its the same thing the social justice warriors hve been saying about "safe places" on campus with the same anxiety ridden terror of anyone who has teh temerity to think or act differently. Same idea, same emotions driving it, same dead end solution to the problems of living in the real world.
ReplyDeleteAmen!!! Well put indeed.
DeleteRod may think the BO is profound but its quite dervative and downright pedestrian.
DeleteI can't ever read his chicken little, the sky is falling, screeds anymore, even for amusement. Every post is either "read this it's important", or "it's coming, believe me". It's all just traditionalist apocalypse porn.
I remember a reading a blog comment critical of him a couple of years ago that said Dreher really wasn't even termpementally conservative, he's a Romantic (of course in the philosophical, rather than erotic since). His overtly exaggerated, emotive freak-outs at the slightest perceived anti-Christian microagression are the antithesis of the well tempered moderation in thought and action that is called to ones mind by the very word "conservative".
Heck, even his latest Deep philosophical musings about the fate of the West are nothing but riffs on the counter-enlightenment of the proto-Romantic Sturm und Drang movement and the later Romantics. Neither he, nor any "deeper" thinkers he's latched onto (like the intellectual leech that he is), has said anything that isn't an inferior restatement of what Novalis ( Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg) wrote in "Christendom, or Europe" in 1799
-Anonymous Maximus
What Dreher doesn't realize, because he's too ignorant, is that, from Romanticism on, a very great deal of the "modernity" he rails against incessantly has been defined by efforts to counter the excesses of the Enlightenment. There's nothing the least bit new about the Benedict Option. Half of modern art and culture since the later 18th Century has consisted of efforts to re-enchant a disenchanted post-Enlightenment. I'm sure the novel Laurus is a fine book, but it says nothing that novelists haven't been saying since Sir Walter Scott and the poets haven't been saying since William Blake. Dreher would know that if he read more than one novelist or poet a year. For all his recent huffing and puffing in defense of the liberal arts, his is no more open, informed, or cultivated a mind than those of the Social Justice Warriors he decries. Dreher is absolutely nothing more than a reactionary SJW with poor social skills and a troubled sexuality. Outrage porn and apocalypse porn are very apt terms for the smut in which he traffics on his blog.
ReplyDeletebut it says nothing that novelists haven't been saying since Sir Walter Scott and the poets haven't been saying since William Blake
DeleteThank you!!!
Typical Dreher. He stumbles across an idea that's been known by well-read people for a couple hundred years, but believes he's made a new discovery in "the life of the mind".
DeleteI saw what Rod's offering up this morning, and it's as if he's purposely demonstrating the precision of these comments by Anonymous Maximus (8:14am) and Anonymous (10:11am).
ReplyDeleteYou may study history and read more than one novelist and one poet a year, but Dreher has YouGov, man. His post on YouGov.com's "shocking numbers" will show you what's what. (How far is Rod from promising us "one weird trick" to Benedict our Options?)
Apparently, this boost he perceives from YouGov has re-energized his self-image as the mastermind of the counter-cultural movement that will save the day.
- Somenonymous or Other
For those old enough to remember "The Al Franken Decade" from the original (funny) Saturday Night Live"
ReplyDeleteThe last decade was simply 10 years of people thinking of nothing but themselves. No wonder we were unable to get together and solve any of the many serious problems facing our nation. Oh sure, some people did do some positive things - like prayer - but always for the wrong reasons, for their own selfish, love of their neighbor.
Well, I believe the future is gonna have to be different. I think that people are going to stop thinking about themselves, and start thinking about Rod Dreher's Benedict Option. That's right. I believe we're entering what I like to call the Rod Dreher Benedict Option Decade.
Oh, for me, Rod Dreher, the future will be pretty much the same as the past.
I'll still be thinking of my Benedict Option. But for you, you'll be thinking more about how things affect Rod Dreher’s Benedict Option. When you see a news report, you'll be thinking, "I wonder what Rod Dreher’s Benedict Option thinks about this thing?", "I wonder how this inflation thing is hurting Rod Dreher’s Benedict Option?" And you women will be thinking, "What can I wear that will please Rod Dreher’s Benedict Option?", or "What can I not wear?", or “Would he actually prefer traveling through Europe with a hairy dude?”
You know, I know a lot of you out there are thinking, "Why Rod Dreher’s Benedict Option?" Well, because I thought of it, and I have a blog and a literary agent, so I've already gotten the jump on you. So, I say let's leave behind the fragmented, selfish past, and go into the future with a unity and purpose. That's what I think. I'm Rod Dreher’s Benedict Option.
-Anonymous Maximus
The YouGov data reflects traditional christian values within the American context. Christians living in a secular nonsectarian republic founded on Enlightenment values have to make the creation of vibrant communities and institutions outside of government a priority. The 19th century midwest was filled with communities founded by various religious sects. Our government by its very nature must be nonsectarian and the rights of religious groups have usually been respected up to the point that the exercise of those beliefs impinges on the rights of others. There is nothing surprising about the YouGov poll. It reflects traditional American religious values.
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing surprising about the YouGov poll. It reflects traditional American religious values.
DeleteAgreed. And it has exactly nothing to do with the Benedict Option.
Right. But Rod couldn't be more tickled that the YouGov site specifically used his BO brand name in its post.
Delete- Somenonymous or Other
Right. But Rod couldn't be more tickled that the YouGov site specifically used his BO brand name in its post.
DeleteThey also referred to him as a "conservative intellectual" which, while probably making him giddy for weeks to come, is troubling for the denizens of Remus Michigan. You know, with all the spinning noise that will be coming from Russell Kirk's grave
Anonymous Maximus
Since the vast majority of Christians in this country do not and have never cared about the culture war, culd someone expllain why this "withdrawal" from the culture wars is even noteworthy. I remember the days when even southern Baptists were adamantky opposed to any alliance between church and state. The political radicalization of some elements in American Christianity s an aberation historically. THe BO represents a return to pre1980s religious values. Nothing special about it at all.
DeleteI did not realize that a BA degree in a VoTech subject like journalism from a SEC party school and NO graduate training of any kind makes one a "conservative intellectual"
DeleteLSU is *AN* SEC party school, not *A* SEC party school. If you're going to be a Yankee snob who denigrates journalists, proper grammar would help your case.
DeleteI am a southerner who don't need no stinkin grammar!! :) I just like the NFL way better than college ball but since the topic has been brought up ... Roll Tide
DeleteRoll Damn Tide!!!!
DeleteIt seems that ever since the death of his father the Working Boy has become a poor parody of the Nature Boy.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.baconsports.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/ric-flair-woo.jpg