As someone with not just one, but two vocations - I'm both a mime and a barista - I want to applaud our speed bag Rod Dreher's recent post on manly men not laying about like those layabout men who write while living off dwindling surpluses do.
I also invite you to join me in a mystery game of trying to identify just which of Rod's most regular commenters most closely fit the description he's denigrating. Think of it as "how many animals can you find in this picture?" My money would be on those protesting too much, quoting Marx, or both, but you guys might have tells of your own.
We also learn from a subsequent, highly crafted piece of work that Rod currently has a cold, reminding us once again of the first principle of learning to blog like Rod Dreher. Aw...feel better, Rod, and here's to your speedy return to that thankless assembly line soliciting tax-deductible contributions to fund posting the never-ending tsunami of VFYTs always threatening to overwhelm you.
The remarkable thing about the top page of comments (I couldn't take any more) is that nearly all commenters completely ignored the point that Dreher raised (as in the title "Family Decline is the Undoing of Men"), and indeed raised pretty directly as compared with most of his output.
ReplyDeleteThe commenters instead run on about whether being a layabout is necessarily a bad thing, or ought to be sympathized with, or isn't their fault but that of The Man, etc. So it is hard for me to come up with a particular tell that singles out any one of them.
Pik, for myself, I thought that was because the commenters for the most part saw the post as I did, a fluffy coconut-meringue wrapper about family decline intended to elevate the creamy center where Rod gets to explain why, because of the time and place he was raised, he is morally superior work-wise to the laid off steelworker he targets. Sort of like here, where his post is grandly about the obscenity of a film he hasn't gotten around to seeing yet.
DeleteBut mostly what made me laugh about this post is that Rod's responsibility for his family has for some time now been far more in the hands of fortune than any morally righteous dedication on his part.
He ran away from a good, solid job in Texas because he was too obtuse to see that there were going to be no layoffs in his editorial area, the mouthpiece of the paper whose only purpose is as a mouthpiece for its owners. Then he lands a solid job with the Templeton Foundation, but pretty obviously loses that because he can't be bothered even for the sake of his responsibility for his family to simply follow the corporate rules he signed up for. Then his sister dies, and - BAM! - a book pitch offered with a speed that clearly indicates some prior cynical contingency planning finds a home and offers him a lifeboat - which he immediately rows to Paris for a month to eat oysters.
So I'm thinking, there but for the grace of God and rich patrons like Wick Allison goes drug-dependent Dreher, not exactly perched on a pedestal high enough to be lording it over anyone for any reason.
Maybe steelworker guy should just follow Dreher's example and find an imminently late relative to e-publish a book about. Anyway, that was my take.
Keith
Yeah, maybe I fell for it again.
DeleteBut I wouldn't think that the commenters are so onto the scheme that they blow through the wrapper and jump immediately to the payload as they did. It instead seems that the readership of "The" "American" "Conservative" is just predisposed to be moral relativist (given the isolationist bent).
Oh, I'm by no means dismissing either the plight of men or the decline of the family, Pik, although in typical Dreher fashion he gets it precisely backwards: it's the plight of men which has led to the decline of the family, not vice versa (unless they're predominantly auntie's boys, like him).
DeleteI was merely pointing out yet another instance of Dreher tarting up his drehery, rodent-like hectoring of the world not Dreher outside himself in pretentiously grander clothes.
Keith
Ruh-Roh...when the going gets tough, the tough get going.
ReplyDeleteCommenter obijuan reports
Alan Beggerow published 2 things on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=alan+Beggerow&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Aalan+Beggerow
Rod tapes up and delivers the knockout:
[NFR: So? Self-publishing ebooks is easy. How many has he sold? -- RD]
Take that, self-published steelworker wussy-boy!
Nowhere near the number of books Rod's sold, I'll bet.
So, um, how many copies of CC and TLWORL has Rod sold? Well, we at least know that his TAC boss Wick bought 60 TLWORLs, and I'll bet Cousin Ken up Monroe way bought a few, too.
And Pauli bought one to review it.
So how many books have you sold, Rod?
Keith
I had to ask but does Dreher's recent post on "manly men" somehow relate to the "Rise of the Bronies"?
ReplyDeleteThe other thing that really gets me is why, oh why, does anyone think that RD is some kind of "expert" on the Catholic Church? Stuff like this is nothing but fluffy codswallop. But I guess there are people silly enough to buy into it.
The other thing that really gets me is why, oh why, does anyone think that RD is some kind of "expert" on the Catholic Church?
DeleteIt gets me too, Oengus. I mean, why doesn't he comment on something some Orthodox bishop or metropolitan or whatever they call them said? That's his religion now. He has utterly repudiated the Catholic church by leaving it. The only reason I can think of is that no one cares what Orthodox hierarchs say. On the other hand, people do care what the Pope says, or what Phil Robertson said, or what Billy Graham said, etc.
It seems like Dreher has joined a "bunker mentality" church, but he longs to be part of a church which is no in the bunker but part of the fray.
BTW, I absolutely agree with Pope F about clericalism. So does Opus Dei.
This gets to me, too. Why does he not SHUT UP already about the Catholic Church? It is none of his freaking business. I didn't see this latest, but I did notice recently that he was bashing that monsignor who was cleared of coverup charges. Apparently even being cleared by the legal system is not good enough for Dreher. And yes, meanwhile, he neglects to say word one about issues in Orthodoxy. Recently several Orthodox and ex-Orthodox have told me that the level of abuse (incluing sex abuse) and corruption in the Orthodox Church is HUGE, yet it gets swept under the rug and never sees the light of day -- unless the civil authorities somehow get wind of it, and even then the Dreherrites refuse to report it. His communion has a big honkin' problem, and they are doing next to NOTHING about it, so the coverups continue...yet Dreher keeps targeting the Catholic Church, even though we actually are doing something about our problem. I know I've said this many many times before, but it just goes on and on and on. What is this creep's problem???
DeleteDiane, I think you've just explained the craft of his problem: "Look over there".
DeleteThe more Dreher's communion abuses money and children, the more he has to keep peoples' attention elsewhere.
This is another reason I think someone other than me needs to keep a religious counter-focus on him in the blogosphere and in search engine hits, not because he's an expert on Catholicism but because of the way he uses and abuses Catholicism along with anything else he fancies to selectively promote his own personal interests.
Keith
not because he's an expert on Catholicism but because of the way he uses and abuses Catholicism along with anything else he fancies to selectively promote his own personal interests.
DeleteAnd since bashing Catholicism is widespread in the media hardly anyone notices.
Whatever genetic potential it turns out Ray and Dorothy Dreher have blessed us with, it's pretty uncontestable that their girl child Ruthie was a perfectly ordinary tomboy country girl while their ostensible boy child turned out to be a quite unordinary tomperson with all sorts of interests. Let joy be unconfined.
ReplyDeleteThe funniest thing is, given all the hectoring tomRod lays on other about the decline of "culture", he's the most joyous when celebrating the absence of any gender norms he might otherwise find himself being held to and having to shoulder. Thus, instead of taking care of his own business when assaulted as a young man, he wails about the failure of others not to protect and nurture him the way a girl would expect to be treated. Maybe not a girl like Ruthie, from whom you could probably bet on a set of knuckles in the windpipe. Cultural archetypes are for the rough, little people.
Is sexual dysphoria the root of Rod Dreher's problems, including his self-announced drug dependency? Not enough public evidence to diagnose that definitively. But, c'mon: at heart he's pretty obviously a suspenders kind of guy. Speaking with a stiff upper lip, of course.
Keith
. . . the game of football doesn’t interest me much . . . .
DeleteSome people buy tickets to the baseball game; we buy grass-fed brisket and good beer. . .
I’m not a baseball fan, so I’m going to start the copy of A.J. Liebling’s The Earl Of Louisiana . . .
. . . I have killed a deer, and squirrels, and felt deep revulsion at myself for it. To be clear, I do not believe hunting is wrong, or meat-eating is immoral. Yet I lack the moral courage to kill what I eat. . .
Diane: "What is this creep's problem?"
ReplyDeletePikku: "I lack the moral courage to kill what I eat."
I think that Pikkumatti has concisely captured the very essence of RD's writing.
When I look at the fluffy meringue Dreher actually writes, I cannot detect any "moral courage" about anything. To me, It all looks like shtick, fluff, codswallop, or whatever happens to send a tingle up his leg at the moment, or whatever contributes to the snobbishness. Even the "Benedict Option" has turned into a joke because it's forever optional.
Maybe that's the whole entertainment value of Rod Dreher's oeuvre? It gets to be so absurd and so ridiculous that it amounts to a kind of gassed up clown posse, with its merrily dressed up harlequins, with their grease painted faces and the big noses, running around honking little horns and doing pratfalls, and making balloon animals.
Me: "I think that Pikkumatti has concisely captured the very essence of RD's writing.
DeleteBetter than that, Pikkumatti was actually quoting Dreher's own very words, which may be more truthful than Dreher realizes.
Oh - you're saying Rod Dreher is this guy.
DeleteKeith
Keith: "you're saying Rod Dreher is this guy."
DeleteKeith, I am not that familiar with what's on the BBC (other than the few times watching Mr. Bean or Hyacinth Bucket), but I assume you're saying that watching the Graham Norton Show is like watching a whacked out clown posse do its act.
Not exactly, Oengus. I'm saying you're saying Rod Dreher is like watching fruity, babbling BBC talk show host Graham Norton.
DeleteIf Rod Dreher was like a whacked out clown posse, he'd be these guys and the FBI would be designating his crunchy Juggalos a gang.
Keith
Keith: "I'm saying you're saying Rod Dreher is like watching fruity, babbling BBC talk show host Graham Norton."
DeleteAlthough I was thinking more along the lines of goofy circus clowns instead of the more sinister Insane Clown Posse, indeed, yours might be the better analogy for what I am saying. Dreher's writing is "fruity" and "babbling" like some kind of frivolous talk show host. Clowns and talk shows might be entertaining in their own ways, but sensible people know never to take them seriously.