Mark Shea on the Benedict Option

Since my friend Joseph is always bringing up the somewhat relevant Catholic author Mark Shea, I thought I should check out what Mark Shea recently had to say about the Benedict Option:

Instead of withdrawal from the world, how about sharing the fruits of prayer and contemplation with the world? God did not so love the world that he hunkered down in Fortress Katolicus seeking the perfect liturgy, scrutinizing people for heresy, and repelling everybody who sought him as an invader.

The world is to be loved, not feared or worshiped. Father Dominic got this.

Seriously. Who at this point hears Benedict Option and doesn't think "bunker"? If the so-called Benedict Option was truly a strategic withdrawal then no one would even know about it as I've said before. Conceding defeat in the war of ideas isn't strategic. How can you even purport to be a standard-bearer for Burkean ideals and leave the fight?

Shea and I disagree on many things and his reflexive moral equivalency in the political sphere is tiresome, but we agree (along with Tom) that the so-called Benedict Option isn't to be considered either because it isn't really Christian or it doesn't really exist. Or... maybe a bit of both.

An Option to the so-called Benedict Option?

While Dreher has spilled a tanker-load of virtual ink over at his blog about his so-called eponymous "Benedict Option", he hasn't yet figured out what he means by it.  OTOH, our discussions have identified at least two salient characteristics:  it's self-promoting if not self-aggrandizing (Dreher being the "self"), and it is essentially rolling into a ball and letting others do the fighting.

But just like the question of what the Repubs in Congress are going to propose in place of Obamacare should the Supreme Court (rightly) drive a stake into Obamacare, it is a fair question to wonder whether there are any options to the utopian Dreher Bunker Option.  Only here at EQE, unlike the weak-kneed GOP leadership in Congress, we're going to try to answer that fair question.

Some time back I linked to a blurb of a new book by Charles Murray, author of Coming Apart (which I highly highly recommend) and co-author of the much-discussed The Bell Curve.  The new book is By The People: Rebuilding Liberty Without Permission:

In last Saturday's Wall Street Journal, Murray contributed the Saturday Essay (read the whole thing, as they say -- no paywall) in which he summarizes this promising concept. Here are a couple of pull quotes:

It was our boast that in America, unlike in any other country, you could live your life as you saw fit as long as you accorded the same liberty to everyone else.... Americans were to live under a presumption of freedom.... 

We now live under a presumption of constraint....The number of federal crimes you could commit as of 2007 (the last year they were tallied) was about 4,450, a 50% increase since just 1980.  A comparative handful of those crimes are "malum in se" -- bad in themselves.  The rest are "malum prohibitum" -- crimes because the government disapproves....

Whether we are trying to raise our children, be good stewards of our property, cooperate with our neighbors to solve local problems or practice our religious faith, the bureaucrats think they know better. And when the targets of the regulator state say they've had enough, that they will fight it in court, the bureaucrats can -- and do -- say to them, "Try that, and we'll ruin you." 

For example, see the sub-headline here :

"relatively unregulated, but that could change".  I bet it could, and I bet it will.

So what to do?  Here's his proposal:

And so my modest proposal:  Let's withhold that compliance through systematic civil disobedience. Not for all regulations, but for the pointless, stupid and tyrannical ones....

The risk in doing so, of course, is that one of the 70-odd regulatory agencies will find out what you're doing and come after you.  But there's a way around that as well:  Let's treat government as an insurable hazard, like tornadoes.

Sounds promising.

At the nudging of others (thanks!), I'm about to start reading Murray's book on the subject.  I'll drop a post here every so often during the process for comment if you are so inclined.  No, not in Dreherian canto-by-canto-Dante style so you can tell me how awesome I am.  Nor will I be fishing for a publishing deal on my book about how someone else's book helped me deal with (sorta, kinda, but not really) my peculiar problems that others caused me.  But maybe, if this makes sense, we few -- we happy few -- can find a way to take action instead of heading to the bunkers.

Stay tuned.

UPDATE (already) :  Great minds ... etc.  Pauli's contemporaneous post immediately below hits this very same point at the very same time.  This passage he quotes is right on point with the above:

...the Catholic enclaves will have to be defended by Catholic lawyers and political activists.

The reference to Catholics is because the piece quoted was written to Catholics.  But as we of course know from history and as Murray notes above, it isn't just the Catholic enclaves that will have to be defended, but the founding idea of the Nation.

UPDATE 2nd:  Thanks, Pauli, for pointing out that I omitted the title of the Murray book.  Fixed that above.

Selective Timidity

It is gratifying that David French decided to flick Dreher and his Bunker Option* off like flies. Just a quick requote of a couple paragraphs from his piece:

I’m sorry, but I have a real problem — in an era when Christians are getting their heads sawed off in the Middle East — with the idea that, say, an American sociology professor feels to scared to proclaim his real beliefs on a liberal campus. I have a real problem — in an era when young Americans have been dying by the thousands in Afghanistan and Iraq in defense of liberty — with the idea that Americans on campus are too timid to even attempt to exercise those blood-bought freedoms. I have a problem with Christians — despite the example of Christ and the Apostles — who are too fearful to share the reason for their eternal hope. No one’s asking you to be a street preacher or some kind of unthinking loudmouth, but you should be ashamed of your timidity.

Every single person who is a Christian who stays “in the closet” — who’s timid about his or her faith — provides fuel to the PC fire, contributing to the notion that there really is something to be ashamed of, that what he believes is somehow wrong.

David French is correct to call Dreher's behavior timidity. The TIME piece was plaintively timid, first explaining that non-Christians should understand that Christians don't see not baking a cake as equal to lynching blacks in the Jim Crow south, then going on to use the analogy of racism himself and include lines like "It is understandably offensive to have a baker refuse on religious grounds to make their wedding cake." This is pure concession and surrender. It should not be offensive to them. That's the real point here. It is no wonder that liberal TIME magazine hand-picked Dreher to write this weak-tea, weak-kneed response in their gay issue.

But here's the thing about Rod Dreher's timidity. It is very, very selective. Dreher is all for "standing up" if he is "stand[ing] up to people like Governor [Scott] Walker." Being outraged that someone doesn't share your high value for a liberal arts education is fine. But let's stay in our bunker over religious issues. Being outraged at your family, dead sister and all, so much that you tell the story over and over again is fine because they didn't like you enough, and they didn't run anyone out on a rail when you got a couple wedgies on the field trip and wouldn't eat your French fish soup. No turning the other cheek for those atrocities. But if some gays are upset about a baker or a pizza place or who knows what other humiliation, well... that's understandable, everybody. After all, we heterosexuals wrecked marriage by getting divorced. (We did? Oh, yeah, some of us did. That's the "Royal We", sorry.) Let's be wiser in choosing our battles, people.

Rod Dreher has a history of showing no timidity when he "stands up" to people like Rush Limbaugh, Ted Cruz, Olympian Michael Phelps (no, really), etc. And of course those horrible Catholic Bishops.

He has always had a softer touch for cases like Andrew Sullivan, Brian Williams, Dan Rather, etc. And, of course, Russian Orthodox pedophiliacs.

Certainly it is almost impossible at this point not to be able to predict how Rod Dreher will react to any event based on a small number of factors. He will come out of his Bunker Option to shake his fist when he perceives that conservatives have behaved badly. He will go back into the Bunker Option to read his Bible where it won't offend gays and atheists. And he will come back out again to take food selfies until it's time to cut the grass and he is taken back to the Bunker Option on a stretcher.

What an unreliable moral guide. Only a Judith Regan would look at this guy and see a Virgil.

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* - I refuse to take St. Benedict's name in vain on the Pope Emeritus's B-day.