Religion as the opiate lithium of the Working Boy

On the eve of the birthday of Jesus Christ Our Lord and Savior it probably really is fitting if still ironic that our Working Boy in this almost perfect post to that end uses his unique gift for words to explain over and over again the absolutely wrong way to relate to Christianity and to God: as a mental patient undergoing psychological therapy.

The evidence for Dreher's fundamental misunderstanding here isn't to be had legalistically in any particular lines or paragraphs this time, which is why I'm not excerpting any and why in this case, seriously, you really do need to read the whole thing.

Instead, this time the evidence is to be found in the whole, what the Germans refer to as gestalt. As exquisitely laid out throughout the entire post, Dreher simply reveals no grasp at all that religion in general and Christianity in particular has any role other than setting the disordered psyche right again.

There isn't any "spiritual sickness" at play here, at least none distinguishable from psychological woes, no independently spiritual crises of faith itself, certainly no objective demonic possession. For Dreher, then, God and Christianity, particularly through the sled work prescribed by his Orthodoxy therapist, thus becomes the apotheotic nostrum - the ultimate cure for what ails ya, a way to generate a virtual private psychological Innernet network wormhole through the ordinary psychological storms of everyday life in the world outside, the sort others routinely master but which will always threaten to consume him.

(There is, of course, a Hail Mary insanity plea to be raised: that Dreher has deliberately sculpted this heartfelt post in the way he has solely to promote sales of his forthcoming God-through-Dante-as-salving-self-help-book. Not really sure how that helps.)

In Dreher's particular case his psychological disorder begins and, frankly, will probably never end with his fraught relationship with his family and the community of his birth. As he makes abundantly and tragically clear in every line in this Christmas post, though, he seeks relief from his torment in religious process as psychological therapy with exactly the same immature confusion in which an adolescent pursues love through sex.

Maybe there's a moment somewhere over the years where Dreher has sought to serve God rather than vice versa, endlessly pursuing Him as prescription or therapist in one utilitarian form or another. Show me.

Unlike Ambien, God, even through Orthodoxy, isn't supposed to be the cure for what ails ya, Rod. And while both religion and sex can be mistakenly utilized as therapy, it's ultimately an immature perversion of both to do so. And, finally, no, Dante's Commedia is not the ultimate self-help book, a High (Falutin') Medieval Italian Brodo di Pollo per L'anima.

Or at least until now it was never, ever supposed to be.

The war on the police

I've noticed a number of articles by liberals since the double assassination which downplay any type of danger to police from these protestors in New York and Ferguson. Dan Gainor corrects this notion. Excerpt:

The same sentiment spread on Twitter as some were gleeful about the murders. One asked: "Am I the only one happy about this breaking news 2 cops getting shot"? She wasn't. The hashtag #F---12 overflowed with hate for #pigpolice.

Now, many protesters, like White House favorite and MSNBC host Al Sharpton, claim they aren't anti-police, they are pro-justice. 

They lie.

Union organizer Robert Murray was "arraigned on charges of assaulting an officer, resisting arrest, rioting and obstruction" for an attack on two New York police lieutenants during one "justice" protest two weeks ago, according to CBS. Two Bronx public defenders appeared in a rap video with the lyrics, "For Mike Brown and Sean Bell, a cop got to get killed." In Philadelphia, a paramedic posted a photo showing two black men pointing a gun at a police officer and describing police as "our real enemy."

All this acting up and foul rhetoric bespeaks a desire to be at war, to make war on the police. There's a propaganda aspect where anything good the police do goes unreported and every time they screw up the incident gets relentlessly trumpeted. The media are complicity in this. Fortunately it seems like there is an effort on the part of many other media groups, albeit smaller outlets, to report good news about things that policemen do to save lives and protect the citizenry. However, this is only a "hedge" if you will; most people know that police aren't evil, vicious murderers longing for the chance to kill someone.

This movement won't end until it runs out of steam and funding like the Occupy crowd did. I hope it happens soon. Of course it would be great if the people at the top were arrested and jailed, but I'm not hopeful of that.

Party Responsibly

Bo Dietl: "Big Bird de Blasio needs to go back to Cuba"

They got what they wanted. Dead police officers.

The voice of the Satanic mob. "What do we want? Dead Cops! When do we want it? NOW!"



Here's the petition asking Bill DeBlasio to resign as Mayor. I don't see why you have to be from New York to sign it. As long as you believe in the restoration of order you should want this man to step down and go teach at a university or do basket-weaving seminars.

Kim Jong-Workingboy

TAC's Dear Thought Leader, Kim Jong-Workingboy

Do those glasses make me look fat? Discuss, but let's be civil to one another here north of the 38th parallel, gang!

Nothing more perfectly exemplifies TAC's hypocritically cynical flea market approach to selling off whatever contemporary culture it can lay its paws on than it's own premiere special snowflake, the one writer there who brings the eyeballs to everything else. Yes, I'm talking about our own favorite Kim Jong-Workingboy, moderator of all civilly appropriate thought.

The richness of this irony reached a frothy boil recently when Our Working Jong threw down a snappy series of posts bemoaning "special snowflakes" on various college campuses. Not that the targets may not easily have deserved the criticism.

No, the irony was who was pointing the finger: the most fragile, delicate snowflake to ever drift from the heavens to moisten the blogosphere with his inescapable woundedness.

Anyone who has wasted more than two or three attempts at posting anything more than the spongiest of softball critiques of KJW's aesthetic sophistries already knows the criterion used to silence criticism of Dear Working Jong is seldom "civility", the excuse de la maison at TAC.

But that's the beauty of the comment you can never see: you'll never know what it really was, so all you do get to read are those comments selected by Dear Working Jong himself to best pair up with the post he has graciously prepared for your carefully curated consumption.

One can best think of this as the subtle, nuanced gourmet cooking of a fine meal - made with people!

And never a dissonant flavor note to spoil the happy meal.

So, before we bitch and moan about some petulant special snowflake from the Hermit Kingdom intimidating us into stopping ourselves from watching even a sophomoric Franco-Rogen comedy, let's not forget the many little Hermit Kingdoms we already build for ourselves to inhabit everyday.

We far too often compete to become the geese we ourselves eagerly stuff with the liver-fattening grain of humble obedience for chefs like Kim Jong-Workingboy to work their magic on.