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Rod Dreher and the “Benedict Option”
This past week, Rod posted a remarkable bleg over on the website of the American Conservative. Because Rod’s premise is so arresting–he believes we’ve about reached the point at which good and decent people need to drop out of American society to form their own counterculture–and because Rod himself is such a sweet writer, I thought I’d re-post his bleg right here.
To wit:
You who have been following my work for years know that I keep coming around to this idea of the “Benedict Option.” In short, it means this: At what point do the conditions of moral breakdown and atomization become such that people who want to live out the moral life in community realize that they have to secede from mainstream culture in a serious way? The idea comes from MacIntyre’s final paragraph in After Virtue:
“A crucial turning point in that earlier history occurred when men and women of good will turned aside from the task of shoring up the Roman imperium and ceased to identify the continuation of civility and moral community with the maintenance of that imperium. What they set themselves to achieve instead…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, we ought also to conclude that for some time now we too have reached that turning point…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 quite different — St. Benedict.”
I’m working on a piece right now for the magazine [the American Conservative] on the feasibility of what I call the Benedict Option for our culture. That is, what “new forms of community” might we realistically construct for the purpose of living out our faith and moral values together, against a hostile culture? What I’m not looking for is any manifestation of radical separatism. Rather, I’m looking for real-life examples that conservatives, religious and otherwise, are doing, and that might be an option for others.
For example, I spoke yesterday to the abbot of the Clear Creek Abbey in rural eastern Oklahoma, and am going to make a visit there soon to talk to people in their community. Since that traditional Benedictine congregation started building its monastery in the late 1990s, a community of Catholic laity who wanted to settle in the monastery’s shadow and participate in its liturgical life have relocated there. I’m interested to learn how they’ve done. The abbot told me that many of them live in material poverty, but spiritual joy. I’d like to see for myself, and the abbot very kindly invited me to come for a visit.
I have other, non-Catholic examples in mind. Please send me your own suggestions.
What are we to make of this, Ricochetti? Do you accept Rod’s premise–that is, that it’s high time to consider the “Benedict Option?” And if you do, what suggestions would you offer to Rod?
Published in General
Why do Republicans not think about agitating for two governments? What is wrong with the “radical separatism” mentioned? What do we gain from community with Democrats? Nothing but considerable angst, or am I wrong?
I have read recently that the United States was the only country that needed a great civil war to end slavery within its borders; every other country did it by mandate and compensation of slave owners. Might we not rectify that history, and have an end to the majority indenturing the minority into its causes against its will, by peaceful separation. Separation in place though. Not geographically.
Look at a paper ballot. Look how thin it is. Then look at two stacks of 50 million other of such. Throw your ballot on either pile. Does it make a difference, really? Surely not. There is no real choice for individuals in regards to what government they get each election.
Now, let Republicans advocate for “Real_Choice”. Of two governments, each person chooses one to affiliate with. Once a year, maybe at tax time. Republicans pay the flat or slightly progressive, simple income tax, and the Demons get to keep (and pay for) their Obamacare. Etc. What’s_wrong with_such_a_world?
Manfred,
You know the problem with that is that the Left would never allow it. People always forget that the Left are the aggressors.
Ok Pseud, I will take your name, but you must create a new avatar and remain unknown , but present.
It was bad enough when Claire faded away, but she was getting paid. At least you;re not getting paid !
Now, to the faux society. bitcoin was the most apt hint so far.
and Lois Lerner is without a job, so we can probably expect her to show.
Me ? I still have voracious consumerist models (16 yr old girl) in the house.
My chances are nil. My support is overwhelmingly from a Presbyterian, which is an underwhelmingly thing to be.
Will Obamacare be forcing late term abortion onto the community or just threatening them with other ploys ?
…
Now, let Republicans advocate for “Real_Choice”. Of two governments, each person chooses one to affiliate with. Once a year, maybe at tax time. Republicans pay the flat or slightly progressive, simple income tax, and the Demons get to keep (and pay for) their Obamacare. Etc. What’s_wrong with_such_a_world?
Nothing wrong with it. It just won’t happen. The Left requires our participation. It will never leave us alone.
In many ways we have that already. Culturally, there are those who measure their worth by pop culture standards and those who unplugged from pop culture when they canceled cable TV.
There are non-taxpayers who feed their children by sending them off to the public school living alongside families who pay for all of that on top of paying their own children’s tuition. And meals.
There are countless ways “being American” is no longer a shared experience. And much of that division is de jure. The Left absolutely opposes our right to opt out of their mandates — they’d sooner destroy us than let us stop paying in.
Before I bowed out of Ricochet I started a piece called “Benedictine Optimism” describing a belief that this society will die / has died; but with the optimistic hope a new ascendance will come. The most positive activity in this time is to preserve as much knowledge and material as possible to survive the dark age and to make the darkness as short-lived as possible. We cannot make our time better, but we can make rebuilding easier.
Where’s that Saturday night bar thread? I could use a drink.
I didn’t know about Rod Dreher’s writings on this, but I’ve been expressing similar sentiments at least since June.
To wit:
I get that Dreher is asking for practical advice. My comment above came about due to a discussion with my sister about my brother, who, although an evangelical Catholic (yes, “evangelism” is a Catholic term!), has attached himself to the Amish, both in his work and socially. He finds much more kinship with the Amish than he does with even the Christian “English” with whom he also works. The Amish have adopted him, and made him an honorary member of the clan.
It’s a rich and satisfying life (he calls it God’s “landing strip” for him). And his basement would make most preppers green with envy. He has tools and skills which would be highly valued in a collapsed society.
It seems some of us have already taken the Benedict Option. Still, I worry about our kids being prepared for a life they wouldn’t recognize from the one they have today.
Pseudo – You will be missed. Godspeed.
You know the problem with that is that the Left would never allow it. People always forget that the Left are the aggressors.
True. To the Left, tens of millions of murdered opponents are worth it to get to Utopia.
Pot Pot, Stalin, Mao, Guevara, Castro, Tito, Ceauceascu, all were willing to pave the road to Utopia[] with the blood of tens of millions.
I don’t think the situation is as bad as Dreher fears. I’ve always believed that there is a limit to how selfish the societal zeitgeist can get. Things can’t get worse forever, for no other reason than American will cease to exist if it does (I mean that literally, I think we would Balkanize into smaller countries).
Again, the Left can’t let that happen. The bloodsuckers need us.
There is the original American ethos of being self reliant. We opted out decades ago. Now over 70, I get social security, and Linda, who is totally disabled, is on Medicaid. I receive payments as Linda’s caregiver. This is 100% of our income.
But, our dependence is on God. If it all dried up tomorrow, we would continue our love for God and our acceptance of the moment. We will not be defeated because our God is our salvation.
You might call it passive resistance, we call it Mere Christianity. It is the simple faith that God is our Savior and He will only allow such suffering as He knows is for our good.
We do not belong to a church, and consider ourselves Evangelical Pentecostal believers living in God’s Kingdom now. If you want to know why we believe so, get to know Joyce Meyer. She brings clarity to God’s Kingdom, and the foundation that we live our life upon. Go to joycemeyer.org.
We chose to separate from a dying culture. We choose to remain a part of it. The guys with the guns might make the laws, but our God Saves.
In various ways many above have pointed to a religious revival as the way for America to recover what is being lost. America came into existence as the result not just of an intellectual awakening, but during a period known as the First Great Awakening. This swept Europe and the American colonies in the 1730s and ’40s. The religious foundation was laid for the Founders to design a nation who knew the Creator God and acknowledged our accountability to Him by the observation of nature’s laws.
A Second Great Awakening came in the period from 1800 to 1840, resulting in a new awareness of great social issues. It was the beginning of the Abolitionist Movement and then the Civil War.
Will America see the Third Great Awakening, when God, once again, pours His Grace upon the people and they turn back to Him in repentance?
Without that Third Great Awakening, how can we have even a modicum of optimism about America’s future?
Thank God that His Grace is for each of us as individuals, but the nation will not be so blessed if we do not see that Third Great Awakening.
R and L, I would not be surprised to see that third Great Awakening–in fact, I expect it. People want to live meaningful lives. Why do you think a show like Duck Dynasty is so popular? Those people have values and meaningful lives. I’ve actually never seen it, but from what I’ve heard, they do. That show is a caricature, but still people are drawn to what is genuine in it. Right now many young people think they have found meaning in the whole Obama thing and all the lefty faux values, but in the end, diversity is just not the stuff of a meaningful life.
History goes in phases. The stupid things that have held sway in the past astound us now. In the future, the priorities of now will astound everyone. Conservatives are those who stick to the basics of a meaningful life through thick and thin. God and the Bible–in other words, meaning and wisdom– are what have given humans continuity for a long time and will continue to do so when the current phase is long gone.
If there’s a bright side to all this, it’s that people of faith are being forced to examine their convictions and decide what they really believe. We lose some, but others become more valiant. Look at history–when believers are persecuted, they only believe more strongly and behave more valiantly. I do think we’re going to see a rise in religious schools, even among groups that have never done this before, and in communities of like belief that band together against the world in places that are friendly to them. Red and blue states might take on a whole new meaning. I don’t know if political separation will occur, but it would not surprise me.
Just to keep things in perspective… This is not a new idea. In fact, America was born from this, with Puritans attempting to establish the City on the Hill with an ocean to separate it from evil civilization. And the trend continued throughout the 19th century with all manner of separatist movements. Most died out, a few like Mormons and Amish have been successful and are still with us. The idea seemed to disappear until after WWII when the Beatnik/Hippy/Counter Culture movement revived it. Adding home schooling to this is an interesting thought. Numerous novels, including Atlas Shrugged alluded to above, have delved into this. Anyway, purification through separation seems to be part of the American psyche.
Alternative cultural institutions are vital, but they are expensive to sustain and necessarily lack the glitz and PR of pop culture institutions.
The government is very good at undermining them — the dependency cultivated there comes at the direct expense of voluntary community and private wealth creation.
Still, we need to support those values-based institutions whenever we can. Or form them when they do not yet exist. I think the Democrats understood the importance of that — which explains the IRS abuses. (So much for trying to seek change from within the system.)
http://www.bookwormroom.com/2013/09/28/the-difference-between-islam-and-other-religions/
Obviously this applies to the nanny part of the Left. Can it apply here too?
Dropping out completely has an allure, esp. for those of us who are introverts by nature, and then there is just the idea of joining smaller communities.
I seem to recall that the Lord Jesus Christ mingled with harlots, sinners, and tax collectors. I don’t ever recall him advising his followers to seek a sequestered life. If the world is full of decadence and sin, then it’s up to good men and women to stand forth as an example of righteousness. We might even become persecuted, but it wouldn’t be the first time. I will not hide. Nor will I abandon my students to the tender mercies of the secular state. “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.”
He also instructed his disciples to leave the towns that rejected their message. “Shake the dust from your feet,” etc.
But your point is well taken. Engage wherever it can be constructive. But speaking for myself, using your words, I do fear levels of engagement that abandon my children to the tender mercies of the secular state.
Because the secular state only lets you engage on its terms. That’s the problem.
Edited 1 hour ago
You mean “voting with your feet.” And “voting with your wallet.” I too think these are extremely important tools for cultivating any cultural repair.
The Left anticipates this, giving us “one size fits all” mandates. There’s a reason the Left favors centralized power. You described it.
So one gathers. Yet the example of Scotland, and Belgium and Quebec make solid precedent. And should the Demons be overt in their plantation mentality, it would reveal their true nature, which is a big win for us. I think the real problem is with Republicans. This idea has no standing with them. Is that going to change ever, do you suppose?
…
Now, let Republicans advocate for “Real_Choice”. Of two governments, each person chooses one to affiliate with. Once a year, maybe at tax time. Republicans pay the flat or slightly progressive, simple income tax, and the Demons get to keep (and pay for) their Obamacare. Etc. What’s_wrong with_such_a_world?
Nothing wrong with it. It just won’t happen. The Left requires our participation. It will never leave us alone. ·1 hour ago
Salt is useless unless it is put on the food. A light is without effect if it is hidden under a basket.
We can shield ourselves from the culture, but we can never abandon it to itself except in the most extreme case (I’m thinking Cuba, NK, USSR, etc.) I live less than 20 miles from Seattle (as the crow flies), but I am a world away from it culturally.
Let me add an addendum to earlier thoughts. I have always believed that Republicans are doomed unless they can regain some control over how their educational dollars get spent. Yet you hear precious little on that subject in Republican circles. Are we brain dead?
There is the dawning of a new hope though. Check out this link and decide if the IT revolution won’t win us our freedom as it is helping those in oppressed countries around the world:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/surge-growth-kind-online-course-195311609.htmlWhat need will there be for Federal involvement in education if there is copious and inexpensive pedagogy of high quality from earliest years through graduate school?
We can shield ourselves from the culture, but we can never abandon it to itself except in the most extreme case (I’m thinking Cuba, NK, USSR, etc.) I live less than 20 miles from Seattle (as the crow flies), but I am a world away from it culturally. ·9 minutes ago
Our everyday interactions with society are being micromanaged by people who cannot (will not?) recognize the moral flaws inherent to the tyrannies that ruled Cuba, USSR, NK, etc.
On the contrary, Democrats are more likely to be apologists for those regimes. Or they’ll play their moral equivalence games.
When you see that apologist wielding power from a Washington perch, please consider: could this be what an extreme case looks like up close?
I can’t say. Although for a majority of Republicans in Washington, it seems they’re utterly lacking in the urgency we feel out here in fly-over country. Many of us believe our representatives aren’t radically conservative enough! That Republicans have participated in this downward spiral to this extent is an indication of how clueless they are about the enemy.
I compare it to the general (and horribly misguided) sentiment in the West that fundamentalist Muslims (Iran) are “rational actors.” That somehow we can reason with them, and that their objectives are essentially the same as ours (peace and prosperity).
The same good-natured delusion exists among Washington Republicans (I think our governors know better). Progressives do not believe in the same things we do. Nor are their aims the same.
Qui aures habet auriendi audiat.
Farewell, everyone. I will keep you all in my prayers. Please keep me in yours. ·2 hours ago
Do not depart. We need your voice as well as your prayers.
I am the product of a Benedictine abbey school education. If it be your vocation to attach yourself — as a monk or oblate — to an abbey or priory then God bless you. But if you’re choosing to withdraw to a rural community, I’d suggest checking your motives. The Benedictines I know aren’t in retreat from the world, did not teach this, and would be disappointed if I did so (even if I’m a Lutheran heretic). Withdrawal isn’t the only “Benedict” option.
Boy am I going to miss Pseud!
We are actually considering something akin to this approach. There is an ecumenical Protestant/Catholic community in Ottmaring, Germany that has made living as a witness to Christian unity and reconciliation its mission since the 1950s. We are on the verge of forming a similar community here in Texas. The moral rot of the West has advanced to a degree that the best principle seems to be: the less casual, everyday contact with the culture at large, the better.
And good to see a reference to Cold Creek Abbey. We love those guys.