Effete Elite conservatism vs. "Happy crazy hair smiles"

Sistah Raccoon is at it again. I think I'll just post her entire communiqué to the good people of St. Francisville, Louisiana. I will even include her signature remark to Baby Raccoon with which she always closes these missives.

Well I understan now why you peoples have all them famly conflicts down there in you deep dark woods. Lil Ray he be talking about you all a time. All a time. He even lead off he whole big new magazine article wif a rehash a Lil Ruthie an all her faults. Lil Ray say he say

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articl...

"Years ago, when my wife and I first committed to homeschooling our kids, we caught hell from my sister, a public schoolteacher. Most of her objections were familiar to us, and we had answers for them. One we didn’t see coming, though: her utter lack of sympathy for our interest in a pedagogy that focused on the classics of the Western tradition.

This surprised me because my sister was a conservative, like most people in my hometown. My conservatism is primarily cultural, social, and intellectual. Hers was also cultural and social, but it was more temperamental than intellectual. In fact, though my sister was a math instructor, and a good one, she had a reflexive disdain for intellectualism. She saw it as an effete indulgence at best, at worst a rationale for exploiting the common man. For her, the culture war was really class warfare—and her brother was on the other side of the trenches.

It didn’t matter that I had forgotten more political theory than she ever knew. What mattered was that I was a city dweller who shopped at Whole Foods and didn’t care for Sarah Palin’s style of politics. That marked me out as a traitor to the tribe."

Now I dunno if Lil Ruthie ever did any such thing at all mind you. Jus what Lil Ray say. Poor Lil Ruthie dead now. Can't say for herself no more.

So the conflict mus be Lil Ray he be a "elite conservative" save by he Dante sav and he internet life style who be "forgotten more political theory than she ever knew" while a res a you folks watch that Duck Dynasty and smile you happy crazy hair smiles. An even wif you WFHS an all. No wonder you need you Lil Ray Dante Sav Benedict Option Healing Center. Heal you right up.

Peoples an they airs. You ain't nothin but a Raccoon Baby an don't you ever forget it. Thats right Baby. Good enough

There is a lot here for all you wild creatures of the forest to feast on.

Latest reaction to my Ruthie Leming book review

I think it's cool when people leave comments—especially positive ones—on my book reviews. Here's the latest comment in its entirety which was left on my review of TLWoRL:

This is a very perceptive review. At times, we tend to take what authors write at face value but you have read between the lines and looked at what was left unsaid as well. In life, over-analysis can be a curse and as someone once rightly said: the unlived life is not worth examining.

Whoaa... "The unlived life is not worth examining." I had never heard that little juxtapositioning. I have a feeling this will inspire some thoughts from people over here.

Two New Reviews

One of the casualties of the exciting Dante project which we are chronicling here is that the new proposed book will draw a lot of attention away from The Little Way of Ruthie Leming. This is really too bad; this monumental tome needs to be read and appreciated by all those interested in the life and times of Rod Dreher and will forever stand as an inadvertent exposé of his high self-regard, his vindictiveness against perceived enemies, his insufferable contempt for those not sharing his patchwork political ideology and his tendency to use other people as objects.

So it well to look at two recent reviews which are not meant to pan the book or dismiss it, and yet do not read like book-club cheerleader effervescence. They are also short and to the point, which is a positive feature in any review. The first was from August 13 by a reviewer named Kim Strong.

This book inspired me to want to love others more selflessly. Ruthie, though not perfect, was a good example of living the Christian life. I marked it down slightly for portraying her brother as a serious student of the Bible, but he didn't seem to grasp it well.

I suppose the author of the book might point out that, well, she has obviously bought into the idea that "there is no conflict between being a faithful Christian and living within the American system" unlike the enlightened Americans (of means) who are able to jet over to Florence for a cultural-political chinwag and have pictures taken of them putting food into their mouths. That's why Ms. Strong wouldn't recognize him as a student of the Bible as she (and practically all normal Christians) have understood it.

Here's the most recent one as of this moment, from September 12 by Bruce L. Taylor.

I know this is based on a true story so I wish the story of Ruthie's life would have told in more detail, emotions, etc. I wanted to know her better. We are told over and over what an amazing person she was but the personal touch was missing. I felt I never got to know her the way I wanted to so I could feel the difference she made in everyone's life. Something was missing in the story that I needed to draw me more personally into the story.

Something was missing. I agree; in fact, I'd point out that there was a lot missing from many of the episodes in the story that would have explained said episodes better. Oengus pointed that out about the bouillabaisse incident—that was the one about the time Rod made bouillabaisse at a family dinner and Ruthie not only refused to eat it, but persuaded everyone else in the family to abstain from it. Oengus spoke my thoughts in his comment:

I kept getting the feeling that RD had left out some critical piece of information which would have explained the motives that the other people had. It is easy for me to imagine that had I been there I would have come away with a different impression of why what happened happened.

I also remember pointing out somewhere that the first story in the book about Ruthie was missing something. This story—the first "proof" of her saintliness—was about how, when they were children, she wanted to take the punishment for something that her brother was about to be punished for. We're never told about the nature of the infraction because Dreher claims to have forgotten what it was. But I'm not so sure about this. It's nice to be the one to write history. Mr. Taylor's review received one comment.

I found that he was too wrapped up in his own experience which blocked his depicting Ruthie in a personal, real way. Perhaps that's what was missing?

Perhaps.

Around the internets, Vol. 1

A quick digest of stuff which I've seen, read, noticed, thought "Gee I ought to blog that", etc. over the last 4 or 5 months. Maybe I'll make this a regular feature.... Please don't hold your breath.

There's an interesting albeit rambling post on the Ochlophobist blog in which our friend Diane really shines in the comments. I like reading Owen's stuff; he's a lot more "picky" than I — for lack of a better word — that is why it's sort of interesting that he became Catholic, left the Catholic Church for Eastern Orthodoxy for 10 years, and has now sort of come back to here comes everybody, but admits he still might receive communion at a Greek church. Which I don't really get, but I'm me and Owen is more fascinating that way. And plus I get the feeling that he is a genuinely good person who knows what he is doing even if I don't get him.

In the hilarity department we have this from Kathy Shaidle, her rather deprecatory take on our favorite (snort) book, The Little way of Ruthie Leming. Here's an excerpt from the aptly-titled "Why not just accept that your family are jerks and tell them to drop dead?":

“When I was younger, I left my hick family in their hick town and went to the big city where no one would laugh or yell at me for wanting to make something of myself.

“A family tragedy forced me to go back home, where my family and I were reconciled — which is what I thought I wanted cuz I read it in a book somewhere.

“Better yet, I got a book of my own out of it that sold a ton of copies.

“But now I’m miserable again because it turns out that my family is still a bunch of assholes.”

Last but not least, our favorite Paleo-Paleo-Conservative, Thomas O. Meehan, reports on the quest for meaning and purpose on the part of "The" "American" "Conservative".

The American Conservative has a reader survey up at the moment. Have they finally noticed their own pointlessness? Once an dreadnought of Paleoconservatism, they degenerated into a ship of fools in search of a heading. It's telling that a magazine founded by people with adamantine convictions should now be reduced to asking the readership what it wants to hear.

I encourage all readers to rush to the TAC site and put in your two cents. I did. Of course, I asked them to get rid of the most egregious barnacles (Dreher, McConnell) and stowaways, (Millman). I also added that they can do without the children they recruited (Coppage, Olmstead). Of course, I also suggested that they might return to the Paleoconservative roots from which they sprung. Finally I suggested that they try breaking some news rather than merely mooning over events as they do now. Phil Geraldi is the only one at TAC who tells readers things they don't already know.

It is important to recognize this survey for what it is. TAC realizes that having purged actual conservatives in order to forge some sort of new conservatism, they have created an amorphous symposium of nothing in articular. The point of conservatism is to preserve the best, even if unpopular. Nothing speaks more of TAC's lack of Conservatism than its flailing about for direction in this way.

At first I thought Mr. Meehan meant to write "an amorphous symposium of nothing in particular". Then I realized that the word articular refers to joints in a skeleton. So maybe he meant to write that, pointing out the lack of any specific structural shape. Every other analogy in it is naval, so the jury's out. Keith referenced this piece in a recent comment, but I always enjoy good ol' Odysseus on the Rocks so I thought we'd RTWT together. When this TAC ship finally sinks we'll consult Mr. Meehan's blog again to find out news regarding flotsam, jetsam, life rafts and especially whether any of those cool old brass telescopes were found.

LOL, "egregious barnacles"....

Reanimator

Straight from Miskatonic U. (not to be confused with Wossamotta U.), proof that hooking up the jumper cables to Sis's rotting earlobes is always worth a shot at another tinkle of paperback sales.

When The Dead Come For You

Read the whole thing, or, you know, just take my word for it and spare yourself another episode of this banal little horror show.

Could gay terrorists be suppressing sales of Dreher's Ruthie Leming book?

Are gay terrorists working secretly behind the scenes to suppress sales of Rod Dreher's The Little Way of Ruthie Leming? We know from Rod's own lips that sales have been disappointing, if not disastrous, and his fragmented tour of odd and isolated venues only confirms that. What other explanation could there be?

I saw this hysterical post on Dreher's blog today, and I immediately thought what he was desperately hoping to be was Bluto rallying the troops in Animal House:

Maybe it really is over, ya mo-rons. Maybe this time Wermer really has dropped the big one.

The only problem is that corporations, even liberal outfits like Mozilla, just don't work that way: it simply isn't the case that a few rinky-dink protests pop up on social media, and the board of directors then gather, pull their knives, and put Caesar down to please Pinkus, the one gay Roman who thought he dressed unfashionably.

No, in the real world populated by critically reasoning adults (which may, admittedly, exempt many of the adjunct professors populating Dreher's blog) this sort of action, reaction, and follow through only really happens if things are much more problematic at Mozilla and the gain from pleasing Pinkus is already greater than or at least equal to the loss from sacking Eichus Caesar.

So who wins with Eich stepping down? Everyone, probably Eich most of all.

For this to ever have come close to happening, Eich would have had to have been on thin ice as CEO already, for whatever reason. Corporations just don't change CEOs the way Dreher changes religions; they are actually too valuable to them to add or subtract frivolously. But now Eich can leave as a martyr instead of as a publicly humiliated failed CEO. Mozilla wins by looking even more progressive. And Pinkus wins by walking away with the delusion that his robe stayed on the floor where he dropped it because he commanded it to. Pinkus may come to learn that things don't always work that way.

And how does Dreher win with this post? Obviously it's good red meat, always good for blog hits. But in the time-honored Dreher tradition, it's also something else: the wrapper concealing a different payload.

Despite Dreher claiming "Yeah, it’s personal for me", it's nothing of the sort. He's already retreated back to his boyhood home, a boomerang child with jarringly age-inappropriate thinning hair, where no one can get to him to pull his pants down, and he's already abandoned any real interest in corporate journalism with his confessional wildings on his TAC blog over the past year. But most of all, as we've all pointed out here time and again, Dreher has never gone fully on the record against SSM in any way that could seriously get him in trouble: he already carefully OKCupids himself in advance of every blog post.

If you are already good with first getting the permission of others before speaking freely as the passive-aggressive Dreher does - the assumption underpinning this whole post - you are already their bitch.

Willingly.*

So how does Dreher win? The subliminal, implicit payload inside the wrapper.

This Eich thing is so historically hideous, second only to the fall of Constantinople - no, wait, the fall of France is a much better analogy - that it can logically only be the tip of the iceberg, so there's probably already a vast Pink Illuminati stalking Dreher in order to thwart everything he attempts.

Which is the only way to explain the inexplicable. Given his obvious talent as a writer and the obvious draw of spilling the beans on his dead sister, the poor sales of The Little Way of Ruthie Leming can only be explained by mystical evil forces implicitly, invisibly already at work.

And Eich's resignation is why you should begin to think so. Dreher doesn't need to tell you so outright; you can already figure it out for yourself, ya mo-rons.

Because it's only logical.

*Keith's Law of Permitted Free Speech, minions. Spread it far and wide throughout all lands. I'm a little behind on the internet meme-coining scale, you know.

A narcissism so pure, so breathtaking

Given His resume, we might understand God being this narcissistic, but then we remember all that stuff about sacrificing His only begotten Son, so that then leaves us with the second runner-up, the one who wrote it.

1. People say to me a lot, “I have a book in me.” No, I want to say, you probably don’t.

I agree. I absolutely have nothing in the way of a Crunchy Cons or a TLWORL in me. Nor, as far as I can tell, any human bot fly larvae or anything else of the sort.

Most people lead perfectly ordinary lives. Or, to put a fine point on it, the lives most people can recall having led are perfectly ordinary, because most people are poor storytellers.

There's an arbiter for the good storytelling we need instead. Can you guess who it is?

I’ve been bored out of my skull listening to someone drone on about some adventure they had in an exotic locale, and I’ve been utterly captivated by someone talking about an ordinary event in a quotidian life. The difference is not the locale or the character of the event; the difference is in the discernment of the storyteller. You have to be reflective, and know how to tell the difference between meaningful details and mere clutter.

Most importantly, and none of us at this point can argue with the inescapable logic we've just been dealt: you have to be able to do this at the level of captivation, discernment, and reflection that have produced those two touchstone works of storytelling by the arbiter of storytelling himself, Crunchy Cons and TLWORL.

Someone here in my town expressed displeasure with The Little Way Of Ruthie Leming, saying that they expected it to be a book about Ruthie, not a book having much to do with me. I explained that in order for the power of Ruthie’s life and example to be made clear to readers who didn’t know her or have reason to care about life in our little corner of the world, I had to demonstrate the effect Ruthie had on those around her — her students, her friends, her neighbors, and most of all, her brother, who was very much unlike her (and whom she didn’t much care for)...

Because what sort of history would we have now if it were told by anyone other than the victors?

And now that Rod has given us his story of Ruthie filtered through a lifetime of their sibling distemper - a book deal that seems to have been being pitched before she was even cold in the ground - what are the chances we might get a second, different, possibly even more truthful and compelling look at the life of Ruthie Leming?

That's right: fat chance, dude. That's why some critters plug the female permanently shut after mating, so that what he wrote will be all that's ever wrote.

But of course you wanted to know, so here's how the magic happened:

The life I’ve lived — leave home, see the world, achieve worldly success — is the standard American narrative of our time. Ruthie’s life — stay at home, build a world on the foundation your family gave you, achieve within those bounds — is not. That I was able to see the true value of Ruthie’s way of life, and that her narrative had, in her death, enough power to trump the narrative I (and many, many Americans) embraced — well, that’s the real story here. That’s how Ruthie’s story becomes relevant to people who never knew her. She lived modestly and unfussily, but she had such an impact. You couldn’t look at Ruthie’s life and think of it as the kind of life that would make a dramatic story, standing on its own. The real story was the revelation, through her suffering with cancer and her death, of what kind of impact her modest, unfussy, but generous and constant presence had on her community and the people who lived in it. To have written a standard biography of Ruthie would have been possible, and would have meant a lot to the people who knew and loved her, but it wouldn’t have grabbed the attention of many people beyond our part of the world. In short, I told a story that helped people know about my sister’s character through the effects she had on the people around her. That was what was essential to her character, and her character was indeed her destiny.

Really, who but Rod, who lived apart from her antagonistically for most of their lives, could have told the story of Ruthie Leming? Her husband Mike? Her daughter Hannah? Any number of the students and others she touched so directly and importantly? Come on, really, having read Rod's account so far, why would anyone be so foolish as to think anyone else living in the wattle-and-daub village he now sounds as if he hails from can even read?

The only recourse is to call the one and only Village Scribe. Or, rather, don't make any sort of trouble that might be blogged around the world - in his words only - while the one and only Village Scribe proceeds to call himself. And, ultimately, how could anyone but Rod have written the story of Ruthie Leming that contained the appropriate amount of Rod?

Sadly, we'll probably never get a chance to know now. The one whom we can only hope will one day be seated somewhere far to the left hand of the Father, ideally well behind the heavenly potted parlor palm, next to the rest room, goes on the explain why, although it's important to refer to the writing of Homer, Plato, Tom Wolfe, Walker Percy, and Rod Dreher interchangeably in the same post, the last one still remains for the time being only potentially a Homer, Plato, Tom Wolfe, or Walker Percy

Wolfe is so, so right about learning to write by getting out into the crazy world and seeing what you see. That’s not the path I followed, by the way, because it was not the path open to me.

Because, naturally, it was not the path open to him. Wait...really? Why not? Because right up above Rod's already told us the big difference between him and stay-at-home Ruthie - who, unlike him, achieved nothing, nothing beyond the bounds of the foundation her family gave her - was that he instead left home, saw the world, and instead achieved worldly success.

(Make a note of this one: "path not open to you". I can guarantee you that when it's mid-August and it's both cool inside and there's something cold in a glass and something good's playing on the big screen and my girlfriend wants me to mow her yard, there will be a path, around and around and around, simply not open to me. Sorry, hon'. Path just wasn't open to me.)
 
Of course

...my success as a writer came not as a reporter, which I never really learned how to be, but as an interpreter. I’ve been a critic and a columnist most of my career. I happen to live in one of the most interesting parts of our very interesting country, but it is hard for me to get out of my armchair and go see what there is to see around here, and write about it. Part of it is my chronic illness, but if I’m honest with myself, that’s only a small part of it. Mostly it’s because I’m a contemplative by nature, and because I’m lazy. Put another way, I’m far more inclined to be Plato, a contemplator of ideas, than Aristotle, an observer of phenomena. We need both, of course, but if I could get off my ass and be more of an Aristotle, I’d be a better writer. Heaven knows there are so very many great stories all around me, waiting to be told.

Including, no doubt, Ruthie Leming's, but that chance has already been pissed away on a quick and dirty "interpretation" for some much needed cash.

Now Rod's chronic illness, which, depending how open you as a reader are to suggestion, has plagued him either since birth or only in the last few years not counting Dante-relapses, has played a small part. But most of the reason seems to be because the would-be storyteller is, by his own account, a failed reporter content for year after year to have been a lazy, self-absorbed interpreter of reality as he encountered it on that basis. The important question: will Matthew McConaughey be available for the biopic?

Ah, Ruthie Leming, you lived and died, and it's almost a drop dead certainty we hardly knew ye, and probably never will. But just look at what we got in your name instead.

This Way to the Egress

P. T. Barnum, author of the subject line, was obviously the first person who came to my mind upon seeing the latest addition to The American Ideas Institute/The American Conservative CEO Wick Allison's Texas stable, none other than hactivist group Anonymous' spokesman Barrett Brown, currently jailed among other things for threatening an FBI agent and his children.

Given that recaps of a reality show named Courtney Loves Dallas are the consistently highest drawing posts on Allison's FrontBurner blog, I'm now putting my money on Bert and Ernie becoming Rod Dreher's blog mates over on TAC any day now, offering their unique perspectives on fleece, flock, flannel, friction, and other conservative LGBT puppet issues crucial to TAC readers.

Speaking of Rod Dreher, is the polar vortex still keeping you and the kids trapped indoors? If so, here's a quick and inexpensive game to help break that cabin fever: Rod Dreher Twister.

What you'll need: a used shower curtain, a large permanent marker, and a large round Styrofoam dinner plate.

Now, first, take the dinner plate and the marker and draw 4 rows of 6 circles (or, if you're a rebel like Barrett Brown, 6 rows of 4 circles).

Then, in each one write one of Rod Dreher's long ago exhausted memes, like "kale" or "The Little Way Of Ruthie Leming" or "Dante".

Finally, inspired by Rod Dreher's penchant for mindlessly connecting his obsessive memes merely to produce page fill for gullible college sophomores, challenge those bored kiddos by successively calling out random combinations of your 24 choices, like maybe "Pope Francis" and "The Little Way Of Ruthie Leming", or "Dante" and "kale", or, if you're really wicked, "Dante" and "Phil Robertson" and "kale" and "The Little Way of Ruthie Leming" and "Walker Percy", just to see if the kiddos are up to using their heads.

Good clean fun for the entire family!

A bonus bleg: in comments, help list the 24 circle memes needed.

Let's learn to blog like Rod Dreher

I know there are a bunch of you out there asking yourselves, "Why am I busting my hump working at a real job when I could be making money telling the world all about myself online instead?"

Well, today's your lucky day. Today we'll learn step by step how to blog like Rod Dreher using a tutorial post he's generously provided for just that purpose.

Now, if you're going to edit, notate, and "curate" your blog and its comments - because, in the final analysis, how much different is Rod Dreher's blog (or yours!) from a museum like the Louvre when it comes to "curating"? - first and foremost you're going to need a naturally docile and slavishly sympathetic readership. So the first thing to do is to establish yourself early and often as an existentially victimized object of perpetual sympathy for the widest possible audience. You, grasshopper, are a slice of soft, white bread a-sail on the seas of sympathy gravy. You sop, therefore you exist.

It really doesn't matter what that victimizing factor is: a religion that failed you, a mysterious malady that provides you with regular cat-naps, a childhood penpal friend who dies, even a close family member who departs at an extremely opportune time. The important thing is that you leave no quarter for any existing shut-in Great Aunt Gertie, her GG bosom powdered to avalanche danger, or her petulant, failed-to-launch 36-year-old grand-nephew Wurlitzer, or Wurlitzer's tenure-free adjunct Professor of Verbiage Loris, or Loris's understandably yearning wife Almond, or any other remotely emotionally trigger-happy creature to escape every possible opportunity to feel sorry for you, wish you were better, and thus naturally want to do anything to help to make it all better for you. Like, for example, blindly acceding to the rules of your universe and all the thinking that governs it. Others, be gone. Did you get a boo-boo today? Blog it.

The next step is to constantly work topical material into your act, the more provocative the better, regardless of whether or not it's in any way pertinent or germane to anything you're saying. These days, for example, anything "Duck"-Robertson will do. In our tutorial post, frankly, an arbitrarily chosen Willie would have served just as well as the arbitrarily chosen Si (Gertie has apparently become temporarily weary of Phil), but Si has more of that Phil-as-not-Phil gravitas you wanted to push, so you used Si. And of course - a fundamental principle in its own right to never forget - it's not as if anyone can prove anything you're blogging didn't happen just as you say it did. This is also why you curate an obeisantly sympathetic readership: it would be a matter of being just plain mean to an obviously suffering person (you) not to believe any event you relate at face value. So they will and do. And therefore your reader will readily believe on his own accord that Si rather than Phil or Willie must have come up in some unblogged part of the blogged conversation, because no reason to mention him is given in the blogged part.

Now it's at this point that things may get a little technical, but if you want to become a blogger like Rod Dreher rather than working for a living you'll hang in there. It involves something we could call auto-deep-linking (like auto...whatever): in this case, linking back into a previously published post in your own blog so as to provide it with hits again from a different source and to tie both posts together.

In this post, Miriam dies tragically, far too young, from breast cancer, and her verbosely blogged death serves its greater purpose, lining your readers up in the milking shed. However, in this, our tutorial post, Miriam is now not only already dead, but also already sympathy-blogged post mortem. So what purpose other than redundancy does another mention of her serve?

Ah! I see you're beginning to catch on, grasshopper. As the Big Lebowski (long may he abide) would say, she becomes the rug which ties the whole room together. Her function as an auto-deep-link is really secondary: her primary function is to become the reason for the Facetime conversation (if it even ever actually happened, and no sympathetic reader would doubt it did) to have occurred at all. Without Miriam, no trifecta Facetime conversation which reprises sympathy, deep-links to a previous post, and miraculously offers up another conveniently gratuitous serving of Duck.

Why Si? At this point, really, why not?

So this is how you blog like Rod Dreher: sympathy, gratuitous topical references, unfalsifiable narratives, recycling and re-purposing the dead, and auto-deep-linking rugs to tie the whole room together.

Oh - I also threw a tag in for TLWORL on my post here for none other than the same reason Rod pulled Uncle Si (rather than Phil, Willie, etc.) out of thin air: so that anyone searching on that phrase might be baited into clicking on my post.

Ruthie Leming: Low in openness

Our favorite backbiting coward Rod Dreher, fresh off the sting of having to take his kids to see the Duck Dynasty Robertsons instead of vice versa, turns to writing expert Will Wilkinson to once again drag his dead sister Ruthie's name through the mud now that she is safely beyond being able to talk back to him or otherwise stand up for herself

This Wilkinson graf, I think, explains why my sister had a permanent chip on her shoulder about something as trivial as my food preferences:

     My best guess (and let me stress guess) is that those low in openness depend emotionally on a sense of enchantment of the everyday and the profundity of ritual. Even a little change, like your kids playing with different toys than you did, comes as a small reminder of the instability of life over generations and the contingency of our emotional attachments. This is a reminder low-openness conservatives would prefer to avoid, if possible. What high-openness liberals feel as merenostalgia, low-openness conservatives feel as the baseline emotional tone of a recognizably decent life. If your kids don’t experience the same meaningful things in the same same way that you experienced them, then it may seem that their lives will be deprived of meaning, which would be tragic. And even if you’re able to see that your kids will find plenty of meaning, but in different things and in different ways, you might well worry about the possibility of ever really understanding and relating to them. The inability to bond over profound common experience would itself constitute a grave loss of meaning for both generations. So when the culture redefines a major life milestone, such as marriage, it trivializes one’s own milestone experience by imbuing it was a sense of contingency, threatens to deprive one’s children of the same experience, and thus threatens to make the generations strangers to one another. And what kind of monster would want that?

Well, there you have it, expert writer Will Wilkinson's best guess - until the next random opportunity presents itself.

More Topix Action

There has been a lot of action over at the famous Topix post hilariously titled "Rod Dreher is on the cover of the latest Greater B. R. Business Report" on page 6 and page 7. The most recent accusation toward Billfr and me is that we are the same person. Here's part of my response, which you can read in its entirety on page 7.

His over-sharing of these kinds of things is nauseating to normal people, yet he is praised by many for being a courageous and creative journalist by many. And yes, I admit that he had many fans, and many people who believe him to be a wonderful and insightful writer. So the least that people like Countrylad can do is admit that there are *MANY* people – more than two — who find him disagreeable and obnoxious when he bashes the Catholic church, for example, or when he goes ballistic over Mark Levin's slip-up, or when he over-capitalizes on a family tragedy, or when he goes on about the "platonic ideal of chickenness" (feel free to Google that phrase). A lot of these people have found a home at my blog to vent about the content and style of his writing and there is nothing "circular" about their reasoning and there is nothing ad hominem about their criticism.

Now I know that a lot of people here believe that Countrylad is Rod Dreher. I'm going on the record now suggesting that it is not. I know he sounds like Dreher often, but I think he is just another local log-rolling partner of Dreher's. The more I read his weak stick apologetics for Dreher by attacking the opposition the more I feel like I'm doing the right thing by continuing the steady drumbeat of criticism.

And while we're on the topic, check out this recent one-star review of The Little Way of Ruthie Leming:

Embarrassing, condescending, passive aggressive backbiting
August 23, 2013 by hallowmetrop

I bought this book because of my interests in localism, the alternatives presented by small communities in contrast to metropolitan areas, family, the South, and religion. But it was an unpleasant read, because Rod Dreher is just not a pleasant traveling companion.

Little Way is weighed down with the author's bitter grievance toward his late sister, whose great and unforgivable crime, it seems, was to roll her eyes at the fact that her brother (the author) is a pompous and prissy character enraptured by his own voice. Again and again, the book goes out of its way to paint the late sister as cruel or rude or simple or thoughtless or otherwise unappreciative of Dreher's very special talents. Dreher seldom misses a chance to condescend to his late sibling. All in all, the book comes across as driven by a deep-seated selfishness - the late sister's life is reduced to a vehicle for the author's own personal growth story: "How All the Bad Things My Sister Did to Me Made Me a Humbler Man."

On finishing this book, the predominant feeling I had was one of embarrassment at Dreher's oversharing, and sorrow for the poor sister and her kids, whose family life has been so thoughtlessly hijacked and publicized by Dreher.

The author's conversation with his niece at the end of the book captures this all too well. In talking to this teenage girl, who has just lost her mother, the author cannot refrain from losing his temper because the little girl won't side with him, Rod Dreher, in his resentment-fest against her own late mother! It's hard to believe any grown man could be so mean to a teenage girl who has just lost a parent. Any reasonably decent adult would subordinate their own ego to the wellbeing of the kid at such a moment. But for Dreher, of course, the real wronged party isn't the deceased or her daughter, but always and eternally him. This book struck me as having a deeply bitter core, and shot through with passive aggression. I went in expecting to like it, but found it unsettling and unpleasant, and I would not recommend it to anyone.

I suppose that Countrylad thinks that this was written by Billfr, Pauli, Kathleen, Keith, Pikkumatti and Diane since we're all the same person.

LMC is disappointed

Here's LMC's review of The Little Way of Ruthie Leming: A southern girl, a small...life:

Disappointed

I live in Baton Rouge and visit St. Francisville often. I particularly love Star Hill because of its scenic rural beauty, and I ride my bike and go for walks there often. So, I was excited to read this book (especially given the great reviews it received). I have to say I was very disappointed. It felt more like a college essay rather than a professional novel. I'm really puzzled as to why it received so much fanfare. Furthermore, I am left with a sour feeling that the author is lying [to] himself by trying to rationalize why his sister plainly did not like him.

Lmc doesn't say, but appears to think it is clear why Saint Ruthie didn't like her big bro.

Oy, talk amongst yourselves. I'm too verklempt at the moment to say anymore....

Helping Wikipedia keep current

I was over at the Wikipedia page for the famous public person, Rod Dreher, and I noted that the article was woefully behind the times. Since it is a locked article, I could not edit it myself, so I did the next best thing and left a helpful criticism on the "Talk page". It reads as follows:

Incomplete / out-of-date

The article states that the subject is a past contributor to the American Conservative, but he is now a full time blogger at that web publication.

The manner and order in which this article is written makes it seem like the most significant thing the subject has done is to leave the Roman Catholic church and criticize that church for abuse of children by homosexual clergy members. I am not sure the subject would agree with this characterization.

The article doesn't mention the subject's newest book, The Little Way of Ruthie Leming, either. This was written about the author's dead sister. Instead it mentions a proposed book titled The Benedict option which has not been written yet.

Of course, we have numerous sources to see absolute everything that is going on with the subject including his wonderful TAC blog, our own articles here at Est Quod Est and Topix, not to mention the Bonnie Blue Review. I'd think that his new publisher would at least want to update his Wikipedia page with the info about The Little Way of Ruthie Leming: A Southern Girl, a Small Town, and the Secret of a Good Life. But maybe they know that people who look up things on Wikipedia don't read books like that. If you give an author a million dollar advance to write a book you obviously know your business better than I do.

More material documenting combox Nazism at The "American" "Conservative"

Speaking of comments not being approved over at The "American" "Conservative", a blogger named Thomas O. Meehan has posted numerous examples over at his site Odysseus on the Rocks of his comments not being approved by Rod Dreher and others. Mr. Meehan is an interesting example to me because I think he's much closer to Amconmag's way of thinking on certain foreign policy issues than I am. But, like us, he is utterly perplexed at how they can continue to advertise themselves as being conservative after displaying so much Obama-love and espousing so many liberal views. He writes this:

I was going to post something later on the President's faux impromptu speech to the White House press corps. And then I noticed an almost giddy puff piece in TAC by some kid they recently hired named Jonathan Coppage. Let me say that this is just the latest signal from TAC that they no longer wish to be considered Conservative in any way beyond their masthead. Along with Coppage's love letter to our mulatto messiah, there was a piece by Goldman attacking the 2nd amendment, a piece by Jacobs in the same vane and a really shameful piece by Millman whining about Human Bio-Diversity. So It's official, TAC is now a sham. It has devolved into a spineless exercise, a hermaphrodite among the journals. It is neither really conservative or left. It is a talking shop for those worshiping at the plastic shrine of the goddess NICE.

[Nota bene, I try not to use the term mulatto even as an adjective, but Kurt used it as a noun, so it probably can't be racist.]

Meehan's entire post is worth reading. I don't know if they published this comment, he doesn't say. Someone else can do that research if they wish. While you're at it, find out if Amconmag has any openly gay traditional religious conservative bloggers yet. They're due for a token of that important conservative voting bloc.

The way I discovered Thomas Meehan was through a snarky comment of his that was published on Jeremy Beer's review of The Little Way of Ruthie Leming. It's a short comment which I would be proud of writing, subtle but deadly:

This is a very timely and necessary review given Dreher’s extreme reluctance to publicize or advance himself in any way.

Isn't that good? See, that's the trick you need to use if you want a chance at getting a comment approved. He begins with perceived flattery: "This is a very timely and necessary review", but then he packs the business end of his argument in the subordinate clause. It's the Trojan Horse model, and it worked in this case.

Here's another interesting post from about a year ago about comment approval over at Amconmag.

A comment of mine was "excised" by Wick Allison over at the American Conservative last week. Excised is his term for his culling of comments that violate his criteria for respectability. An informed source tells me that Allison is the censor for all comments, without reference to the wishes of the writers. Curious that, considering they pay people to write but don't trust them to manage their own comments. Well, at least they're honest about it.

This is another step in the devolution of TAC from it's nationalist/traditionalist beginnings to something lesser and disappointing. TAC has come to suffer from a form of multiple personality disorder. It still publishes Pat Buchanan's and Jim Pinkerton's articles but it also publishes the work of Kelly Vlahos, resident harridan at the left wing Antiwar.com. Rod Dreher is on board writing from deepest, darkest Louisiana representing the childish crunchy-cons while Daniel Larison does a grand job deconstructing Republican talking points in the manner of a dissertation defense. He also does a very creditable job as agent of the vast pan-slavic mind view. That is, the Russian government ought to pay him. I'm not suggesting that they do, but that's how good he is at advancing the let's not be beastly toward the bear meme. Lately, to further extend the big tent into a three ring circus, TAC brought on people like Noah Millman who at least make no pretense at being a conservative.

He claims he has a source for Wick Allison being the main comment censor, and I don't doubt this claim. It rings true because this level of micromanagement is so odd that I can imagine any eye-witness to it would be willing to relate his strange experience. I have the experience of Wick Allison personally returning emails which was a little bit surprising to me.

The thing that is hard to remember in the aftermath of having a comment deleted is that you most likely scored a point. This is because you're irritated that it wasn't published. That means that you have to go and start your own blog—or go to someone else's who shares your opinion—and relate it there where it won't be excised. But here's the thing: this is the mainstream conservative experience in modern America. The mainstream media—which is dyed-in-the-skin liberal to leftist—used to practically control all the information that got out there, and they still control it to a great degree. Then we had the talk radio revolution—spearheaded by Rush Limbaugh, Fox news and the conservative pundits and blogger on the internet. Sites like Washington Examiner provide the counter-balance to WaPo even though they scrapped their print edition. Think of how the liberal mainstream media have tried desperately to censor so many huge stories. Any good news from Iraq back in the Bush years, anything bad about Islam, the Kermit Gosnell case, the dirt on Trayvon and his whacked gang connections, the Benghazi cover-up, etc., etc. But they can't always readily do this, thanks to alternative conservative media.

So the really pathetic thing about Amconmag is that they're doing what the drive-by media does on a tiny little scale. They really aren't much bigger in popularity than someone like R. S. McCain, and they are dwarfed by NRO and Hotair.com (source = alexa.com). By using a fine-tooth comb on comments with which they don't agree, they are just forcing people like Thomas O. Meehan to drop his subscription and to join the chorus of other conservatives in the rest of the world who doubt there's anything very conservative or even American about the "American" "Conservative". And they'll never engage us naysayers directly since they wouldn't want to give us hits, or maybe because their noses are at such a steep angle that they can barely even see us.

---

(Update: I added Meehan's middle initial after finding out he shares a name with a famous comedy screenwriter.)

Winner of "The most helpful critical review"

Check it out. So far, according to Amazon, I have written the "Most helpful critical review" of The Little Way of Ruthie Leming: A Southern Girl, a Small Town, and the Secret of a Good Life. So raise a glass of whatever floats your Cajun Shrimp Boat. "I'd like to thank the academy, God, my agent..." etc. etc....

I'd also like to say thank you to you awesome readers for marking my review helpful. If you have time, please go over and mark other reviews not helpful, especially if they read like this one:

If you have a book club, PLEASE CHOOSE THIS BOOK. The minute I finished Little Way, I knew I wanted to recommend it to my book club. It is a story that is rich with the complex themes of life, and you don't need to have chosen any of the paths Mr. Dreher did in order to enjoy it. I live in a big city, I have no siblings or any kind of extended family, I'm not religious. I loved the book, and I was bursting at the seams to discuss it with other people. My book club read it and you will be amazed at the different ways it reaches people. There are so many discussions to be had--what does community mean? Can one have community in a big city? What is the nature of forgiveness? One aspect of the book which I have never see covered in any of the reviews is the way one deals with the news of cancer. The way Ruthie dealt with the news and how she related it to her children was, it seemed to me, quite different from what is considered the 'acceptable', current approach. That, in and of itself, is a long and thoughtful exchange of views. Really, this book will set a gold standard for group discussion.

Or maybe this one:

I might have finished this tale much more quickly, had I not had to physically close my Kindle in order to halt the uncontrollable sobbing which blurred the words and made it impossible to continue time and again. I did not know Ruthie Dreher, or her brother, until I read his account. I had only briefly met "his tireless Julie" and Lucas in a chance encounter at the Daniel Clinic, but was curiously drawn to her references of having moved back here to be with Rod's family. Later that week I found out from Mrs. Johnette Rettig that Mrs. Dorothy Dreher's back porch was the magical place my 7 year old spoke of so often, where "the Lady with the pet deer" allowed him to feed them from his hands. An indelible mark on my newly countrified son who had recently moved to this small town with his Brother, Father, and I. There are countless highlights in my electronic version, too numerable to list, but suffice it to say that this book moved me deeply. And Christian Daniel Tregle is right...those kind of things do happen here. All the time. I am undeservedly privileged to call this place home.

And especially this one:

What a great story that reminds us about family, faith and love. A great read for all many ages. Wow!

Wow, indeed. If you provide this feedback for so many of the 5-star reviews—not all, but many—you'll be doing a great service to mankind. And you probably have free time on your hands if you're reading this.

Another Little Review of The Little Way of Ruthie Leming

An Amazon reviewer, M. Heiss, recently read and reviewed the Little Way of Ruthie Leming. I was alerted to her review (I know she is female from reading her other reviews) through her positive comment on my review of the book. She states "Thanks for your brilliant review. Wish mine were half so lucid. If I had read your review, I would not have bothered writing my own." I responded assuring her that her review is as good as mine. In fact I think it is much better, and I'm glad she didn't read my review if that really would have suppressed the expression of her opinion. Here it is in its entirety:

A book that doesn't know what it wants to be.
by M. Heiss

Since when are we classifying cathartic musings as biography? This book is not a biography -- slap a "Self-Help" label on this thing.

The book is a mess. I'm sure the author was a mess, given the circumstances. And writing about a messy situation when you're an emotional mess results in, well... a book like this.

Rod Dreher gives you the obligatory 3 parts:

1) Introductions — get to know the family's personalities, the conflicts, the author's response to 9-11 (wait, what?), and the community norms in small-town Louisiana.
2) The diagnosis as a rallying cry — Everybody's personality shines in this section. LOTS and LOTS of spiritual awakening. And LOTS more. And then some MORE.
3) Resolution — no surprises. More catharsis. More spiritualism.

From the title and word of mouth, I thought this would be a book about Ruthie Leming's fight with cancer. Instead, this book was about the author's fight with/against his family and himself. Who wins? Not the reader.

A few things are obvious to me after reading this, and the evidence presented is heartening. The first is that this person probably would have been a "Contra-Crunchy" had she known and cared about the conversation back in 2006. It seems like she had been unfamiliar with Rod Dreher's other writings and his, um, unique stylistic idiosyncrasies before reading The Little Way of Ruthie Leming. She has a normal reaction to seeing bull crap proffered as filet mignon. Her remark "the author's response to 9-11 (wait, what?)" succinctly sums up Kathleen's and our own reactions to his ever-evolving 9/11 narratives.

The other encouraging aspect comes from her beginning sentence — "Since when are we classifying cathartic musings as biography?" This insight demonstrates that there is critical thinking going on in the world, and that at least some of those critical thinkers can and do express their thoughts with great precision. Another thing she pegs is the spiritualism present in the book. Dreher fans might object to this word since most traditional Christians shun attempts to contact the spirit world, and Rod Dreher has always touted his traditional Christian belief and practice in each new church he bounces into every few years. His apologists need to read Dreher's short story A Ghost in the Family if they don't have the time or desire to read The Little Way of Ruthie Leming. That should shut them up if they still don't want to admit that he's into spiritualism.

Speaking of A Ghost in the Family, I was thinking of doing a long form review of this gem of inadvertent comedy here on the blog back in June. But I was too busy at the time. I was planning to also include the background information of how Rod knew Father Termini and his Ghostbuster friends. Maybe another time.

If you think Ms. Heiss's review is helpful in any way, please go over and give it a YES vote. It's already got a down vote; I don't know who possibly could have down-dinged it within minutes of it being posted. But so far it's batting .500.

Now I'm a Bully

The Baton Rouge Business Report Topix forum post has heated up again and I have been dubbed "an out and out bully [who] is obviously eaten up with hatred and jealousy." Someone named Ellen Kennon weighs in with the following:

These posts are beyond rude! Why do you folks posting such hatred insist he wrote this book to make fun of you and the people in this town? I would imagine telling such an honest, raw story would have been very difficult for him. The book is getting rave reviews and help put this town in a good light with a true spirit of community. The person who writes that horrible blog about Rod is an out and out bully and is obviously eaten up with hatred and jealousy. What in the world ever happened to compassion? Surely, we can all agree to live by the golden rule? Good grief.

Then later...

I write with a sense of the friendship I have to date with Rod and feel I am a very good judge of character. I am not interested in predictions of Rod's downfall, but as a resident of SF for 23 years, it's fair to say I claim a certain level of observation. Putting these posts on the Internet for the world to see only makes us look like the "little people" you claim he makes us out to be.

For the record, I have never predicted "Rod's downfall", only that he would move his family again away from St. Francisville. Many others on that post have done the same. If we are proven wrong about this, I'll just shrug and say "I was wrong, we were wrong". I think the man is restless and craves the stimulation of the new and novel.

UPDATE: If you just showed up here, you've got to check out the Bonnie Blue Bullying post. It's an instant Rod Dreher classic.

A Litany for the Little Way of Ruthie Leming

Whatever you do, just read this review.

If you left home for somewhere far away, read this book.

If you left home to "make it" in the world, read this book.

If you left home because you hated it there, read this book.

If you suffer, or ever have suffered, read this book.

If you've ever wondered whether there is any cosmic meaning in suffering, read this book.

If you need to forgive someone, or if you need forgiveness, read this book.

If you love a person or a place but struggle mightily with *liking* him, her or it . . . read this book.

If you wonder whether, indeed, you can go home again, read this book.

If you wonder how you can make where you are now "home," read this book.

Just read this book.

It's not a review really, but I love it. It's great for what it is. I can't help it; I have a soft spot in my heart for buck naked propaganda.

The reviewer, James Freeman, obviously sees the book as a literary Swiss Army Knife. I like how he imperiously adds, "Just read this book" at the end. For all the dummies reading it who haven't gotten the message yet. I thought the last line was sort or unnecessary since "If you suffer, or ever have suffered" is sort of a catch all for, you know, humanity.

My Little Review of the Little Way of Ruthie Leming is up at the Little Amazon.com website

Here it is. I just know that after reading this wonderful little three-star ("It's OK") review of tLWoRL many people will be led like little lemmings to fall over each other to get their little hands on this little book. Luckily big, mean, old Walmart isn't stocking it, so stampedes–big or little–probably won't happen.

Here are the first two paragraphs.

This is a complicated book, and not so much about death and bereavement as one would expect. There's a reason that William Young blurbed this book as a memoir. A memoir is understood to be autobiographical, and this book is mostly so. However there are several interesting passages, and even some laugh-out-loud funny parts made at the author's expense. If someone wishes to understand the continuing development of the author's patchwork political ideology this is a great book. Otherwise time is better spent elsewhere. Also there is a lot of religious discussion in the book which is only obliquely related to the death of the author's sister.

The first part of the book introduces Ruthie as the wildly popular, outgoing, tomboy sister of the author who, being the opposite was withdrawn, bookish and hung out with his spinster aunts and their cats. He was unpopular in school, and kids were mean to him. Reading between the lines, one can discern that he earned at least some of this mistreatment in the vein of "Harriet the Spy". Ruthie eventually became the homecoming queen and had a steady boyfriend pretty early on, getting married soon after school. The author couldn't wait to shake the dust of the town off his heels and move somewhere where people appreciated him more than his family and the benighted townsfolk.

I hope to write a more extended review on the blog here within the next few weeks. It will be longer, of course. But it will still be little, because littleness is my whole thing right now, and because it will be little compared to the big sigh of relief when I finally finished reading the book. I'm reading Sloth right now, which has me cracking up on every page, and not just a little.

Thanks for reading my blog. For current commentary and what-not, visit the Est Quod Est homepage

"Unpleasant and Boring"

Hey, we have two new reviews of The Little Way of Rod Dreher's Deceased Sister on Amazon. Make sure you go over there and throw them an up-vote.

M. Owens writes:

The voice of the narrator is pompous, condescending and pretentious. He uses his sister ...her life, her death, her family and friends, to show you what a good guy he is. I don't like him. I didn't like the book. It is reasonably well written and organized... It supposedly makes a case for community and hometown living which the author left in his teenage years and returns to as a family man with young children...but I doubt he'll last in Louisiana and I'm afraid I pity his neighbors.

M. Owens titles this review "unpleasant". Then Nature Lover has this to say:

This book shares the details, denial, desperation and death of a young mother. Her author brother uses it to justify why he left (bored, didn't fit in) a small town and why, curiosity satisfied and career secure, he returned. It is the story of many families, the details interesting only to those who are close. Fortunately, most families do not have an author with such a need to explain himself.

The title of Nature Lover's review is "Boring". I'm guessing that Nature Lover is female from other reviews of cook books and cutting boards. So these sentiments match those in the last review we posted by Audrey.

I hope to finish my Amazon review today. I have to do it while it's still fresh in my mind.