The sky is falling, and Rod Dreher is selling Benedict Option shelters
Fresh from a feverish week of market-making by seamlessly pureeing everything from Donald Trump to Pope Francis (visually presented as always in a Dreher post as a sappy, goggle-eyed Fred Flintstone) canoodling with Lutherans to the ravages of the Reformation itself into a foaming smoothie of existential angst, our very own Christian Offer Shlomi leaves us with
We live in a society unmoored from our past, our future, our God, and each other. And nobody really knows what to do about it. God knows our institutions do not. But I think most people sense, deep down, that this can’t last.
Red skies indeed. Night is falling. Time to shelter.
Time indeed. Just look at this chart:
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| Act now - BenOperators are standing by. |
I wonder how many Christian marks for Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ ever really realize how perfectly identical his marketing pitch is to the frenzied hawking of precious metals during typical stock market volatility - like, well, like the market we're experiencing right now.
What should you do when you're feeling a financial panic? Why, something radically different, definitely involving a vehicle even its vendor doesn't fully understand, right?
Of course you should. So why shouldn't you handle your faith the same way, with the same emotional, bolt-directly-into-a-door-jamb response?
Of course you should. Absolutely. What if night were to fall on you and your family before you did?
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| You made the right decision, neighbor! You're certainly BenOpping now. |
Now, I know what you're thinking, faithful EQE reader. You believe I pulled this next image just above from a Monty Python skit, right? Nuh-huh. I pulled it from here, from an adoration of a re-enactment of a period before the sacred was supposedly driven from our world.
Fortunately, as I mentioned above, you can re-enact putting the sacred back into your life by doing as your pitchman would like you to do, by committing yourself right now to buy his not yet outlined, not yet researched, not yet written, not yet contracted Benedict Option book so that you can learn what its author hasn't yet either discovered or attempted, how to re-enact your living as if you had been born in a different time and place, within an entirely different physical and historical cultural matrix, complete with entirely different views of everything from the nature of stuff itself to your own natural place in the order of things.
Speaking of your own natural place in the order of things - sorry. Not everyone gets to be the nobleman and own the land, you know. This whole liberty thing is still some years out.
You have to walk behind the horse and give your lord - not your Lord, your lord - a good chunk of what you spend your entire nasty, brutish, and short life producing. And you'll want to have lots of children, not necessarily because you value life, but because you'll bury three out of five and you'll still need a couple to survive as your pension.
Wait...what am I saying? Of course you get to be the lord of the manor. Everyone does. Because this is nostalgic historical re-enacting, the SCCA: the Society for Creative Christian Anachronism, and, like the children of Lake Wobegon, everyone automatically gets to simultaneously be above average.
Better known as Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™.
If you do, you'll automatically become simultaneously above average and re-sacramentalized, too. Charts don't lie.
Still, you'd better not delay. Night is falling, and no one's lived through sunset before.
Act now - BenOperators are standing by.
The Dreher post on the re-enactment of bucolic Tudor serfdom (as in the photo you post) is especially precious. To wit:
ReplyDeleteFunny thing is, watching that first episode made me, a Christian, feel an intense longing for the sacramentalism of the life those people had. Watch the episode linked above and see if you don’t agree with me. What I mean is the sense they had that God was everywhere, and that their lives had real substance because they were anchored in and ordered by the divine.
Sure, as long as you know that you're only going to be there drinking craft ale for the summer. If you have the sense that ekeing out a subsistence while living in pigsh*t is going to be your lot for the entirety of your life (short as it will be) and that of your children, grandchildren, ...., I'm guessing the outlook wouldn't be so rosy.
Dreher apparently gets called on this point, to which he responds with an UPDATE:
UPDATE: Look, if you’re planning to make a remark about how the Tudors didn’t live this way because the show doesn’t re-enact disease and misery, spare yourself the trouble. I won’t approve it. I think we are all grown-ups here, and I think we all know that life in rural England in 1500 wasn’t a hobby farm. That has nothing to do with my point in this post. Furthermore, if you are planning to make a remark about how modern dentistry, air conditioning, and nookie-without-issue, etc., proves that we have nothing whatsoever to learn from our ancestors, don’t bore me with that Whiggish nitwittery. Stick to the subject of this post if you want to see your comment. It is possible to find truth and beauty in the lives of people in the distant past without affirming that they lived in Eden.
Which is, of course, completely contrary to the point he made in the main post, but whatever. Nobody said there wasn't truth and beauty in human life in that age (as it is in all ages) -- but that wasn't Dreher's point. His point was that "their lives had real substance", as opposed to our modern lives, apparently.
P.S. Also of note in both posts you reference, Keith, is Dreher's habit of meta-analysis. He has a foregone conclusion (BenOpt) in mind, and then gathers "data" supporting it. But the data is what others write about their observations (in this case, what others write about what different others write about their observations). That's not data, that's "looking over a crowd and picking out your friends" (as Justice Scalia once wrote) to support your pre-drawn conclusion. IOW, useless.
Sure, as long as you know that you're only going to be there drinking craft ale for the summer. If you have the sense that ekeing out a subsistence while living in pigsh*t is going to be your lot for the entirety of your life (short as it will be) and that of your children, grandchildren, ...., I'm guessing the outlook wouldn't be so rosy.
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing the same thing. But of course, as you note, Dreher snarkily dismisses this very salient point. Man, his nastiness is tiresome.
WRT that image: Those authentic Tudor Peasant Garments look mighty clean and neatly pressed, don't they? How long do you think these LARPers would have remained immaculate and picturesque amid the dirt, mud, and offal of a real Tudor farmyard?
I think there's something even more interesting that this Tudor post surfaces for us that probably won't ever really be discussed, namely, that, agile and facile as our minds may be (witness, for example, science fiction) we really can never escape either ourselves or our selves' embedding in this moment or whatever particular organically inter-knit period of culture-history it is our inescapable lot to inhabit.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, one can never, ever, ever have the peculiar Tudor sacramental view and in that same life have the MRI that save's one's child's life. Never. Each will always belong to mutually discrete multiverses that will never, ever intersect.
It may very well be possible to embrace a sacramentalism within the universe of MRIs, but that explicitly involves embracing the universe that simultaneously contains aggressive transgender ideology and politics, ubiquitous internet porn, etc. - not embrace those elements, to be sure, but fully and enthusiasically embrace the universe which simultaneously contains both them and oneself.
The Benedict Option is precisely the opposite, an artificial retreat into a psychological safe space - an active sociological autism, if you will - not the present day stage set by God, directly or derivatively (e.g., free will), now containing instead of widespread bubonic plague ISIS and Caitlyn Jenners.
The BO will have its takers because there is no shortage of people happy to use their time-traveling (memory, anticipation) mental abilities to attempt to escape their own lives, but if we are to in any mature adult sense embrace the sacred in the world we actually live in it is precisely into the heart of that very same world that we should plunge.
By contrast, the BO is just another iteration of the teachers in that high school trip hotel room from long ago, reconfigured this time to, like Valkyries, sweep the perennial world-victim away to safety.
Well said. And if I may add, it's not to the neighbor of memory or anticipation that Christ asks us to bring the Gospel, nor only the neighbor who shares our memory or anticipation, but also the neighbor who prefers transgender ideology to sacramentalism.
DeleteIn other words, one can never, ever, ever have the peculiar Tudor sacramental view and in that same life have the MRI that save's one's child's life. Never. Each will always belong to mutually discrete multiverses that will never, ever intersect.
ReplyDeleteWell, the historian tries to make this imaginative leap. But of course he or she can never really succeed.
Right. The best we humans can do is communicate across time with language and with our representative culture, but the meaning - what those things are to us rather than to the passing possum - of those things themselves is always in flux as well, as if a ruler were only the same length for a short period of time.
DeleteThe best we can accomplish is to try to abstractly translate what we think was meant then into the terms of understanding available to us now, which may frequently be practically enough for a historian. But unless our goal is to fetishize, incompletely and erroneously, the sacramentalism inherent in another age, the only thing left is doing our own thing in the world we actually inhabit, and in the final analysis aren't we really better off doing so? How does ours become less or more "authentic" than theirs? How is nostalgic vicariousness in any sense sacramental rather than being the most profane (non-sacred) of unexceptional human psychologies?
I think we are all grown-ups here, and I think we all know that life in rural England in 1500 wasn’t a hobby farm. That has nothing to do with my point in this post.
ReplyDeleteNo, Rod, that has EVERYTHING to do with your post. It's like saying "Disregard the veracity of my premise and accept my conclusion because God and I want you to."
if you are planning to make a remark about how modern dentistry, air conditioning, and nookie-without-issue, etc....
See, THIS is my perennial problem with Dreherism. Modern dentistry and A/C are good in and of themselves whereas "nookie-without-issue", i.e., sexual impurity, is evil. So why does he throw it in there? He wants to smear everything about human progress in our time.
Except of course when he jets off to Italy. This is more of the same bad reasoning that started with Crunchy Cons and continues on until... who knows when. He is truly an angry child. Don't tell him bats aren't bugs.
Bingo:
DeleteSee, THIS is my perennial problem with Dreherism. Modern dentistry and A/C are good in and of themselves whereas "nookie-without-issue", i.e., sexual impurity, is evil. So why does he throw it in there? He wants to smear everything about human progress in our time.
Yes, yes, yes. Nailed it.
It may very well be possible to embrace a sacramentalism within the universe of MRIs, but that explicitly involves embracing the universe that simultaneously contains aggressive transgender ideology and politics, ubiquitous internet porn, etc. - not embrace those elements, to be sure, but fully and enthusiasically embrace the universe which simultaneously contains both them and oneself.
ReplyDeleteHumans being humans, there were also injustices and deviations in the Tudor days that must also be included for one to embrace that universe. Things like summary executions, indentured servitude, droit de seigneur, etc. come to mind. Of course there's nothing at all wrong with the Tudor serf cosplay experience, but that sure doesn't make it evidence of how much more "sacramental" life was back then than it is today, as Dreher asserts (much less using reflections of an atheist historian as support).
Lest I bury my lede, that is, what the Goode Folke should occupy Theyre Minde with and Blogge about to strategically withdraw from the world and re-engage it sacramentally instead, the subjects of the last two pages of testamentary posts:
ReplyDeleteEugenics
Trump
Poland
Tudor Folke <-- You Are Here
MLK
Sky Red & Falling
Pope & Lutherans
Scottish Vacation & Oysters
Trump
Trump
Trump
How-To Re-Sacramentalize
Trump
Food Porn
Trump
Trump
Trump
National Review / Trump
Benedictine Beer
Trump
^^^ IOW, imagine the Monty Python skit with the word TRUMP instead of SPAM.
DeleteYou can't make your sacramentalized BenOp omelet without scrambling up some vulgar but mighty tasty and popular political gossip cultural eggs, now can you, comrade.
DeleteAnother Trump piece just hit the top of the stack. It's loaded with schadenfreude, too. I'd think that so much joy in others' misery would be unseemly for a spiritual leader, particularly of a "strategic withdrawal" movement to "thicken" "small-o orthodox Christian culture". But of course this is Dreher we're talking about.
DeleteOTOH, his fixation on Trump is looking a little unnatural. I'm starting to wonder whether he just has a thing for these strong secular nationalist tyrant types.
Our boy a Rod was the first person that came to mind when I read the recent article about Goethe in the New Yorker:
ReplyDeleteYet, far from ennobling its hero, “Werther” is actually a warning against what Goethe sees as a consuming spiritual disease. What kills Werther is not disappointed love but toxic self-centeredness, subjectivity run wild. Whether he is enjoying the sublimity of a landscape or the company of Charlotte, Werther is always really only involved with himself, his own ideas and emotions. “The rich and ardent feeling which filled my heart with a love of Nature, overwhelmed me with a torrent of delight, and brought all paradise before me, has now become an insupportable torment—a demon which perpetually pursues me,” he writes. The fatal complication of his illness is pride. Werther is not just miserable but proud of his misery, which he takes as proof that he is exceptionally sensitive—finer than the world that disappoints him. Having identified himself with the universe, he finds that when he is unhappy the universe becomes a prison.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/02/01/design-for-living-books-adam-kirsch
-Anonymous Maximus
That is a profound, insightful comment IMHO. And yes, that review nails Werther. Hard to believe that so many clueless youths committed copycat suicides out of Romantic identification with Werther. Just shows what idiots young people can be. But Dreher's older acolytes and Dreher himself should know better.
DeleteAnd then today...
ReplyDelete"I am fond of the word “apocalypse,”..."
Yes...much like a six month old becomes entranced when he finally finds his ear. He can't stop playing with it, and everything revolves around the ear for a time. Then another body part (thumb, toe, knee) becomes the "new" toy for a time. Dreher, like a six month old, just can't put down his latest toy.
Meanwhile, Dreher engages in more Francis-Bashing over the pope's projected fall meeting with Lutherans to "commemorate" the Reformation. Never mind that at least two Orthodox prelates will be present at this confab; Dreher can't be bothered with inconvenient challenges to his Catholic-Bashing Meta-Narrative. Noooo, this is papal "insanity," exclusively, and Dreher is so, soooo concern-trollishly sorry for those poor benighted Catholics who have to put up with all this dreadful ecumenism stuff (pay no attention to those ecumenicism-spouting Greek Orthodox hierarchs behind the curtain, please).
ReplyDeleteEven the irenic Michael Liccione has trouble stomaching the Dreherrian cray-cray:
https://www.facebook.com/mliccione?fref=ts
(Hope that link works; if it doesn't, lemme know, and I will tell you how far down to scroll to reach the thread in question. ;))
I must say I love that objections to Dreherrhian Silliness can be raised at Facebook without being snarkily and summarily squelched by the Thin-Skinned One. LOL. As someone pointed out long ago, Dreher still does not GET New Media; he thinks he can command and control, in the style of the Old Media. Not any more, honey. Doesn't work that way outside of your own little sandbox.
Diane, I think you have to be FB friends with Michael Liccione to see whatever it is you've linked to. But please feel free to post any other Dreher criticism ya got that's accessible.
DeletePerhaps Rod is simply, in reality, a transcat. Or, to be more optimistic, perhaps he can still become one.
DeletePauli, I took some screen shots of the post and comments. If I send 'em to you by email, can you post those that you find relevant within this thread? :D
DeleteListen guys...DreRod is in trouble. His "private Church" may close due to lack of money and members. He cannot comprehend why people aren't flocking to his little patch of 19th Century Russia in St.Francisville, La.
ReplyDeleteHis family hates him and we Orthodox basically ignore him.
No wonder he lives in his masturbatory fantasies.
How does that poor priest support his family under those circumstances?
DeleteWell, he told on Donald Trump to the teacher. Shouldn't that count for something?
DeleteDreher goes back to the Tudor serf wannabes today, as a new episode hit the telly. We've got "sacralized time" (time warps!) and "profane time-ordering", "plausibility structure", a swipe at Margaret Thatcher (via an "academic friend"), and all sorts of hijinks. To wit:
ReplyDeleteThere is a line — not a straight line, but an unbroken one — between the disenchantment of matter and the dissolution of gender categories, and transhumanism.
Well, duh.
The problem with the enchantment of matter is, how do you keep matter enchanted the way you want it? 'Cause I just hate it when the pepper shaker starts kickboxing the sugar bowl just because the sugar bowl's a little tubby.
Delete"Earl", I tell it, "you cut that shit out right now, or so help me I'll slap you straight across this room!"
That usually does it.
The comments on that thread are precious.
DeleteOh, the swooning BenOpFans...
Delete"This post just sings, Rod. You are nailing this at such a deep level."
Ugh. This is what the term "barfaricious" is for.
DeleteDid all of you not realize I am living a holier, more sacramentalized, more immanentized, more sacredly fulfilling life than any of the rest of you?
ReplyDeleteIt's true. I just intimated that invisible transcendent truth to you.
It's certainly not my intention to either demote you by comparison or to make you jealous of my superior standing with respect to God, but, hey, sometimes things just are what they are. OTOH, if you follow me raptly and attend to my every utterance there's no reason such gaps should endure. It's really all up to you.
*****
Re: Tudor Farm - hey, it's great to see Rod's getting the Crunchy Con band back together, playing Christian soul on this tour instead of Conservative folk-rock.
Cyberspace, where even Quasimodo could form his own distributed cyber-pen pal club to celebrate the virtues of humps when crossing deserts.
From OpenBlogger at AOSHQ:
ReplyDelete"Forty-five years. It has been forty since the last time a human being (Harrison Schmitt) has set foot on any rock other than Earth.
"Forty years in the past, the first world was the place where miracles of science coupled with indomitable spirit to do the impossible lifted the hopes and dreams of the human race.
"Forty years ago, the apolitical scientific method for empirical studies of chemistry, physics & math based on actual data still trumped the politicized sciency-tific madness of psychology & climatology & math based on fabricated data.
"Now we spend our resources chasing rainbows and unicorns..."
And not all of these rainbows and unicorns are progressive. But for the effete, bored, SOCON pseudo-intellectual, they suree are fun. And no icky dirt or life-threateningness.
And if you were embarrassed reading the "Peak Dad" post, get a load of this one. Complete with a photo of a tombstone cross with the Japanese Imperial War Flag painted on it, to insult those of us whose fathers served in the Pacific Theater.
ReplyDeleteDreher's haiku is so perfect, to boot. Utterly lacking any poetic device, but loaded with name-dropping to show he's in the know.
Now you've gone and made me respond with "barfaricious" to Rod's dreck (and his sycophants' drecky dreck) twice in one thread.
Delete