Wednesday, May 25, 2016

What could possibly explain Alasdair MacIntyre's regret?

One of our faithful Anonymous commenters deserves recognition (although he/she obviously doesn't want any) for linking to an interview between a liberal protestant theologian, Stanley Hauerwas, and someone from Bruderhof a quasi-commune of sorts. My main interest is the exchange right at the beginning:

Peter Mommsen: You’ve written extensively about how the church should respond to the “end of Christendom” – the fact that we no longer live in a culture whose ground rules stem from Christianity. What about the “Benedict Option” proposed by the writer Rod Dreher? He argues that Christians should respond to secularization by following the example of the early monastics, withdrawing from a heathen civilization to build alternative communities where Christian virtues can be nourished and passed on. Is he right?

Standley Hauerwas: This Benedict Option idea comes from the last line of Alasdair MacIntyre’s book After Virtue, in which he observes that the barbarians have been ruling us for some time and that our future is “no doubt to have a Benedict, no doubt a very different Benedict.” Here’s the problem: Alasdair once told me that this is the line he most regrets ever having written! He wasn’t advocating some kind of withdrawal strategy – he was only pointing out that we can’t be compromised by the world in which we find ourselves. I don’t think your community, the Bruderhof, takes a withdrawal strategy, for instance.

I think it is appropriate to underscore MacIntyre's entire disapproval of the Benedict Option as well as his recognition for what it is, in the words of his theologian friend Stanley Hauerwas, "some kind of withdrawal strategy." Everybody using common English parlance recognizes two things: one, the intention of Alasdair MacIntyre's quip in After Virtue was not a fugit mundi and two, Rod Dreher's Benedict Option—if it is anything more than hashtag Christianity or fodder for a grad school mint julep fueled bull session—is most definitely a flight from the world, albeit with a few oddments crammed into one's pockets. Examples of the oddments would seem to include Diamond Dogs by David Bowie, Bitch by the Rolling Stones, a bottle of trendy French wine and a cell-phone photo of a one-legged stripper. Among other things.

Somewhere on the internets there is an article by a Benedict Option devotee wondering in print if MacIntyre was ever going to "break his silence" on the whole Benedict Option concept. I think the silence spoke loudly enough that, in the words of T. S. Eliot, it had the equivalence to a "That is not what I meant at all; that is not it, at all", and the development of the quasi-monastic lifestyle choice called the Benedict Option was based on a misperception of his original words. To put it mildly.

....What they set themselves to achieve instead—often not recognising fully what they were doing—was the construction of new forms of community within which the moral life could be sustained so that both morality and civility might survive the coming ages of barbarism and darkness. If my account of our moral condition is correct [one characterized by moral incoherence and unsettlable moral disputes in the modern world], we ought to conclude that for some time now we too have reached that turning point. What matters at this stage is the construction of local forms of community within which civility and the intellectual and moral life can be sustained through the new dark ages which are already upon us. And if the tradition of the virtues was able to survive the horrors of the last dark ages, we are not entirely without grounds for hope. This time however the barbarians are not waiting beyond the frontiers; they have already been governing us for quite some time. And it is our lack of consciousness of this that constitutes part of our predicament. We are waiting not for a Godot, but for another—doubtless very different—St. Benedict. (Source.)

Each Christian man or woman of good will must ultimately judge whether this paragraph has anything to do with the upcoming book about craft beer, communes, trips to Italy, photos of restaurant tables and thick glasses lying on stacks of books, etc. Personally I think MacIntyre would join the chorus of other thinkers we've noted—Bruce Frohnen, Joseph Shaw, John Zmirak (several times actually), Brendan Eich, Austin Ruse, William Briggs and Father Richard Heilman—and shout in unison: "BATS AREN'T BUGS!"



Well, if he were a shouting type of guy. By the way, yYou can add my voice to the mix as well if you'd like. That's my original thought on why we don't need the Benedict Option, or already have it and just don't use it enough.

It is worthy to note that the Bruderhof community is exactly the kind of group that cracks me up as much as Rod Dreher's silliness does. At one and the same time, they publish left-wing condemnations of private property as evil in and of itself and boast of the prime real-estate they own on their web-site. It's a cushy life-style; it reminds me one of my favorite scenes ever.



"You don't care about money because you have it."

30 comments:

  1. Regarding "You don't care about money because you have it.", I saw this piece today, entitled "Things the World's Most and Least Privileged People Say". Check it out.

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  2. And on the main point that McIntyre himself disavowed the intellectual premise of the BenOpt, Dreher probably figures that's a feature, not a bug: it just shows the originality and genius of Dreher's BO.

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    1. It's kind of a "cake-and-eat-it" deal for Dreher. MacIntyre is the intellectual heavy who suggested it (except he didn't) and Dreher is the evangelist carrying the torch and showing everyone the way.

      I see a lot of the groups in the Catholic church as fulfilling AM's call for "local forms of community." The marriage prep group we're involved in, for example. The parent-run school we send our kids to, for another. And on and on.

      What there is not room for in my world of communities is a quasi-home/church replacement structure called "The Benedict Option". The whole thing is either far too one-size-fits-all to be considered any type of conservative solution or too nebulous to even be discussed rationally.

      But we've laid all this out many times before....

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  3. Enjoyed the "Aviator" clip.

    The Bruderhof isn't my cup of tea but I don't share your low opinion of them. (Rod probably wouldn't last a month there. For one thing, they'd make him work.) Be that as it may, I certainly agree with your main point about Rod misapprehending (mis-appropriating, name-dropping) MacIntyre. So I offer this movie clip, of which I never tire (go to 1:45 if you're short on time):

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXJ8tKRlW3E

    You also remind me of this article from last year, which I wish got a lot more attention from those interested in the BenOp:

    http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Item/4027/would_alasdair_macintyre_live_in_a_benedict_option_community.aspx

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  4. To put in in Dreherian terms; the Benedict option is to MacIntyre as the Burger King Croissan'wich is to French pastry.

    MacIntyre writes of a "doubtless very different" Benedict and Dreher's first instinct is to read the Rule of St. Benedict and jet off to Norcia. Because postulating a different Benedict would imply some creative thinking on his behalf - he's a quoter, not a thinker.

    -Anonymous Maximus

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  5. Really, Dreher's admissions in this post that his foremost interest in the BO is extracting a book out of it is as Clintonian as Hillary's admission in the IG's report that her foremost reason for her private server was to keep her emails off the record.

    One of the most delightful things to watch with respect to non-fanbois of Dreher is how politely they treat him, gently and lovingly snugging his helmet strap. Will be interesting to see if or how Hauerwas ever responds to Dreher's mincing, passive-aggressive advance.

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    1. One striking thing (among several) to me from Dreher's post is the beauty of Dreher's positioning while he is pre-book. For example, Pluff magazine asks Hauerwas this (emphasis added):

      What about the “Benedict Option” proposed by the writer Rod Dreher?

      Yet Dreher is able to deflect criticism by this mechanism:

      It will be a very good thing when the book finally comes out next year, and I can argue with people over things I actually believe and propose, not what they think I believe and propose, or that someone told them I believe and propose. I don’t really blame Hauerwas or anybody else who doesn’t read me regularly for not getting the nuances of all this. Still, it’s frustrating. Hauerwas says “maybe the Benedict Option should be rethought,” but nobody has set down the thinking concretely yet!

      Man, that's beautiful! He's getting credit for "proposing" the BO, yet can duck all criticism by saying both that it hasn't been defined yet, and also that the critic doesn't get all the nuances of it.

      P.S. I'm unfamiliar with Hauerwas, but he comes off poorly in that interview.

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    2. Nutshell Dreher: "Like Obamacare, you'll have to buy my Benedict Option book to find out what's in the Benedict Option I'm nevertheless currently arguing you're completely lost without. Pre-publication acquiescence based solely on your personal faith in my charismatic personality alone is an obvious sign of intelligence and serious Christian commitment. I don't really care what people I'm name-dropping for cred actually said; I'm forging a new paradigm for sainthood here."

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    3. I predict that Hauerwas considers that he has probably already responded to this and is done.

      I agree that this is delightful to watch. When Dreher resurrected the whole Benedict Option thing, what was it? 2 years ago? I remember that I couldn't believe what a gift it was to his detractors (i.e., us. There was link to EQE in a recent comment on the Unz site which called EQE an anti-Dreher site. Sure, I'll own that...) But it's a gift because it showcases his incoherence. If the Benedict Option was just another charism in the church like the Charismatic Movement or religious orders or Opus Dei or Regnum Christi, etc. then it can't stand up to any of those seriously established things. But if it is this "new paradigm" for the church it is nearly impossible to sell to anyone but a small group of wild-eyed fanatics and fan boys.

      So either way he loses. The only way to have a chance to win is for it to be both ways at once and seven other things and the only path for the survival of Christians and accepted by non-Christians (esp. in the media) as cool as well.

      Pure incoherence. The Benedict Option cannot have any meaning. At all.

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    4. Most of Dreher's current BO headiness is predicated on having finally landed a book contract - no fantasy can proceed without one - as well as vanity projects like the APL* he's currently filling with its requisite filling filler.

      Its biggest driver, though, is the confidence that no one will finally point out Dreher's capering about sans any intellectual pants at all, lest he smite them by falling at their feet into a full retard dark wood while foaming at the mouth a little.

      But writing things down can be a dangerous thing, as Jonah Goldberg long ago demonstrated with his devastating critique of the first iteration of the Crunchy Con Paradigm ("All kindsa people doing all kindsa stuff randomly collected and given a catchy name!").

      But, sooner or later, some kid with a six gun is gonna come to town and point it out - dude ain't wearing no intellectual pants.

      Which then, of course, once someone dabs the foam away, allows Dreher to pivot to Son of Dante, and we're racing around those hairpin turns through the hills of Italy once again.

      *"THE ACADEMY OF PHILOSOPHY AND LETTERS was founded in recognition that the direction of society is set by its most deeply held beliefs and aspirations", an insight first arrived at by Bob the Bonobo on the south bank of the Congo just after his breakthrough observation that fruit falls DOWN!

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    5. All of these BO events and talks, like that before the APL, may have the effect of preconditioning the reception of the eventual book. Those who skim the book as a favor to Dreher (as happened with the Dante book) will write something nice, based more on the preconditioning than on the ideas presented in the book itself. Those few who actually critique the book and its ideas, once written down, will be drowned out.

      Mission accomplished, from Dreher's viewpoint -- some sales, nice trips on an expense account, blog clicks, and an entree to the next book deal for regurgitating Crunchy Cons. The accountability for the validity of the BO will be shouldered by those unhappy souls who changed their lives in reliance on it.

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    6. That comment by "dfb" linked by Keith above is delicious, as is the childish response from Dreher.

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    7. And that reply you note is exactly the kind of thing he does, constantly, that makes me so sad when he goes on and on in the posts about how great Orthodoxy is. I'm Orthodox. I know how hard it is to rein in one's urge to snark and attack when irritated by someone, so I'm not saying I'm better than Rod. But anyone who takes it upon himself to write publicly about the virtues of his religion would do well to avoid undermining those claims by the mean, bullying streak that is so well-established in his replies to readers. You know, at least try to hold back on the snark.

      So how's he going to conduct himself in meetings and ordinary conversation with people who disagree with him in his little Ben Op community, should it ever become a real thing?

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    8. "So how's he going to conduct himself in meetings and ordinary conversation with people who disagree with him in his little Ben Op community, should it ever become a real thing?"

      If his behavior in social settings is anything like his bloggiing, I suspect that he will either act in a socially inappropriate way or skulk to a dark corner and mutter third rate plagerized intellectual nonsense while blaming others for persecuting him. Of course, he sees microaggressions everywhere.

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    9. One Anonymous said:

      But anyone who takes it upon himself to write publicly about the virtues of his religion would do well to avoid undermining those claims by the mean, bullying streak that is so well-established in his replies to readers.

      Exactly. Had Dreher simply told us of the many blessings he and his family received from his conversion to Orthodoxy, without the constant Catholic bashing, I for one would have been happy for him. But sadly, it's seldom that.

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  6. The accountability for the validity of the BO will be shouldered by those unhappy souls who changed their lives in reliance on it.

    Bingo.

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  7. [NFR: I think you’re on to something. I see over and over that some people — not all, but some — especially Christians, are wanting to argue with a distorted version of what I actually believe and defend, because, in my estimation, if what I say is true, then they have to change their lives. I would suggest too that folks like Hauerwas, Wendell Berry, and even Alasdair MacIntyre are made really uncomfortable by the fact that right-wing people are taking their ideas to advance a conservative cultural position. — RD]

    The ego on that guy never ceases to amaze me. It's like he's the self absorbed brat at the children's table who believes been sat there so he won't show up the adults.

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    1. It is quite a phenomenon to behold, that ego allowed to blog to its heart's content.

      People whose intellect and life experience and knowledge of church history and contemporary ecclesiology, THESE people criticize Rod just because "if what [he] say[s] is true, they might have to change their lives." Rod! *slap, slap* Get over yourself!

      It would take way too much time for Rod to actually read even a representative percentage of what these thinkers have written. He's not about to. Let's turn his egotistical claim around and note that: if Rod actually read and understood what these men have written, he'd have to change his life. By ceasing to write his self-involved books.

      So, MacIntyre, Hauerwas, and Berry all cowed by Rod's powerful insight. Rod's audacity and absurdity leave me shocked every time.

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    2. "I would suggest too that folks like Hauerwas, Wendell Berry, and even Alasdair MacIntyre are made really uncomfortable by the fact that right-wing people are taking their ideas to advance a conservative cultural position. — RD]

      I think it is more likely that people whose educational achievments, intellectual rigor, and capaciity for critical thinking find Rod's half-baked ideas idiotic. As a social scientist myself with a Ph.D., 2 Masters degrees, and a string of publications to my credit, I think I know far more about social and cultural processes than Rod could ever hope to understand. From my perspective, his blogging is like reading an incoherent mass of poorly formed thoughts punctuated by hysteria, bad Orthodox theology, a fetishization of persucution, and extreme morislism.

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  8. What Hauerwas, Berry, MacIntyre, and, let's not forget, James K. A. Smith are made uncomfortable by is having their ideas appropriated by a nitwit who doesn't know what he - or they - are talking about, because he's too busy live-blogging his narcissism to read books all the way through, unless they're books that he himself wrote.

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    1. Exactly. And I so hope that MacIntyre publishes a good, long review of Rod's book when it comes out. Hauerwas has spoken, and as suggested above, he may not feel any reason to give more attention to the matter. That's reasonable, but I still hope he publishes a review, too. As for Berry, I can't imagine him seeing any point in giving Rod and his books any attenton whatsoever. I can't imagine that he'd finish one of Rod's books if he started it. Berry knows a total waste of time when he sees it.

      On reading books all the way through, has anyone just straight-up asked Rod how many Walker Percy novels he has finished?

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  9. Dreher's never read one of Walker Percy's books. If he had, he'd know that they're not about crawfish and juleps.

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  10. Percy wasn't a foodie. Dreher reduces him to cheesy sidebar fodder for Garden and Gun. It makes me sick.

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    1. Dreher has a knack of ruining things we love.

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  11. Andrew says:
    May 27, 2016 at 9:14 am

    Rod, I’d love for you to comment further on MacIntyre’s disavowal of the last sentence in his book. Does that change anything in your view?

    [NFR: No, at least not based on what I know at this point. If he’s elaborated on it somewhere else, please let me know. In any case, MacIntyre is not my guru. I’m trying to build something on his analysis. If he disagrees with me, or it, I have no problem with that. — RD]

    ...

    I think one of the least examined, let alone criticized aspects of Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ is the way it blithely hijacks Catholicism's St. Benedict for - as its inventor himself explicitly states - entirely novel and unrelated ends.

    Like Keith's Godly Potato Chips* - made 100% with Idaho potatoes (thus, well, sorry, 0% God; do the math) - attaching the branding label "Benedict" assures the maximum positive psychological draw associated with the saint's name (as well as with any lost and confused fans of Benedict Cumberbatch) while explicitly dismissing any and all substantially Benedictine or otherwise Catholic content as irrelevant and unnecessary is an overtly cynical and calculated marketing move.

    Had Dreher really wanted to live anything remotely related to St. Benedict, he could have - could even now - have become a Benedictine oblate.

    He wanted his own Option instead, one with minimal impact on his lifestyle, but the Dreher Option - clearly and honestly both non-MacIntyrean and non-Catholic - just sounded so, well, drehery.

    In the 30-minute program, one of the guests says that it’s hard to overstate how much the West owes to the Benedictine order. One of the guests, a medieval historian, said:

    Monasteries provided a space for culture to survive at a time when it was really in danger. But monasteries also provided schools, hospitals, and large numbers of the poor are fed at monastery doors each day.

    Yes, this. How can we live out something like this as lay Christians, serving the world even as we provide a space for Christian culture to survive at a when when it is really in danger?


    Benedict, Benedict, Benedict - it's a stimulus-response invocation, nothing more, and now all your Benedict belong to Rod, the cowbird, who has successfully laid his very different egg in St. Benedict's and Alisdair MacIntyre's nest.


    *Incidentally, a reader writes, "Keith, will Keith's Godly Potato Chips improve my chances of getting into Heaven?"

    Absolutely, reader. As a matter of fact, buy several bags, perhaps a case, and give them to your friends. After all, it's not so much what we do for ourselves that counts with Him, it's the sacrifices we make for others.

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    1. Thanks for this. His pastry-brush application of "Benedictine" to sweeten up whatever comes un-examined under his "small-o orthodox Christian" category heading deserves a whole lot more interrogation and analysis. I'm plenty comfortable with ecumenical efforts, but not downright obfuscation, especially when sharper questions and doubts are regularly met with schoolyard-level snark.

      "Had Dreher really wanted to live anything remotely related to St. Benedict, he could have - could even now - have become a Benedictine oblate."

      Too hard, too anonymous. So "Benedictine" Oplate it is instead.

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    2. Had Dreher really wanted to live anything remotely related to St. Benedict, he could have - could even now - have become a Benedictine oblate.

      Not without a book deal in place he couldn't. His upcoming summer vacation, I mean pilgrimage, yeah that's the ticket, to Scotland doesn't come for free my friend.

      And that's, ultimately, my main problem with him. If the Benedict Option is so important to saving orthodox Christianity in these troubled modern times, then write the book without a contract in place. Blog about the details. Heck scream your message from the rooftops. Christianity is at peril, Rod has the answer, but you only get saved if you plunk down $24.99 for the hardback (Kindle purchasers have only a %65 chance at redemption, and if you wait until the book is remaindered, your children will loose their faith and probably marry a trannie).

      -Anonymous Maximus

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