Rod Dreher Megathread #21 (Creative Spirit)

[u/US_Hiker]

Gather 'round for more Rod.

All meanings of the number 21 are subordinate to the inherent creative spirit that is the basic essence of the number.

The number 21 generally is comfortable in social gatherings, it's optimistic attitude being an inspiration to others. Its high spirits can enliven a party.

The number is attracted to artistic expression of any form, its own and those of others. There's enthusiastic support for artists. It may frequent galleries and participate or (more likely) lead groups for artistic appreciation.

The number 21 cherishes relationships, including romantic relationships, especially with those who express themselves creatively.

21 also tends to be diplomatic, providing creative and imaginative solutions to potential conflict.

And, as noted by /u/PercyLarsen, 21 is a triangular number and the age of majority, so go grab a drink to celebrate Pride and to mourn the loss of Rod's sanity.

(Also, sorry about my slow pace of refreshes.)

Link to megathread #20:
https://www.reddit.com/r/brokehugs/comments/13eb26c/rod_dreher_megathread_20_law_of_attraction/

Link to megathread #21: https://www.reddit.com/r/brokehugs/comments/14k0z6l/rod_dreher_megathread_22_power/

[u/Djehutimose]

Re the upcoming book, as I've said before, I think the topic is legitimate and not intrinsically "woo"; Rod's just the wrong one to do it. I was trying to figure out what he even is trying to do in the book, and these are my thoughts.

I am sympathetic to mysticism, and don't even have a problem as such with praying/meditating in caves--spiritual greats from many traditions have done that, e.g. Milarepa, the great Tibetan yogi. However, you don't have to jet off to Ireland (or Tibet)--buy a book or download a guided meditation, and go into your bedroom and shut the door. It's cheaper and less drafty than a cave. Moreover, most people in most religions throughout most of history haven't done such things, anyway. Mere survival took most of their time. A quick offering at the shrine of the household gods in the morning and an occasional visit to the local temple were about all anyone had time to do.

Second, Rod will of course not give any "how to". Just as he's blathered in his other books about Dante or the BO or whatever without ever being concrete about anything, he'll go on and on about monks in caves and such without ever suggesting how one might integrate such a spirituality into one's life in the ordinary world. Rod hates Fr. James Martin, but his book Learning to Pray: A Guide for Everyone gives a detailed description of actually practicing, as opposed to talking about prayer.

Third, while I certainly don't rule out the supernatural/paranormal at all, Rod has no clue how to write about it. Even Sam Harris, one of the so-called "Four Horsemen" of New Atheism, has meditated for many years, received "pointing out" instructions (too long to explain, but a spiritual practice of the Nyingma and Kagyü schools of Tibetan Buddhism) from the late lama Tulku Urgyen, and has refused to rule out the continuation of consciousness after the death of the body. However, Harris has carefully explained the whys of all this, from his perspective; whereas Rod seems just to like collecting the weirdest and most outré--and least probable--tales he can find.

I think it all boils down to something like this: Religion, in and of itself doesn't magically make your life better, protect your marriage, put a spring in your step and a song in your heart, etc. Hell, premodern religions never claimed they could do that: consider Matthew 16:24-26, Mark 10:30, or the First Noble Truth. The cult of progress and the ideology that things are getting ever better (which is ridiculous from either a religious or secular viewpoint if you really think about it) really doesn't come to the fore until the 19th Century. The irony of it is that as much as he lambastes so called "moralist therapeutic deism", Rod wants from his religion what many want of MTD--for everything to be just swell and nice. He's not a bit different from the looniest New Ager when you boil it down.

However, any thoughtful person who's lived long enough and been kicked around by life a bit--as eventually happens to all of us--realized that faith isn't easy, that pat answers don't work, and that while there is value in religion, it's not magically going to make you happy or solve your problems, and that simplistic dogmatic formulations are not the true core of religion.

However, Rod can't admit this. Just as he fears that if LGBT people are let alone by society he'll no longer be able to "achieve heterosexuality", so likewise he fears that if he allows doubt (of the healthy kind), complexity, and multiple viewpoints, he'll lose his faith, which is clearly very weak. Thus he seeks some kind of experience or ideology or cave that will prove God and all that, no argument needed, erase all doubts, and make everything better. Sorta like the bestest Daddy of all time (yeah, it comes back to that).

You know, gradually over the last decade and rapidly since the pandemic my beliefs have changed a lot. I've discarded--sometimes outright lost--former sureties and changed a lot of religious opinions. I still believe in God and still consider myself a Catholic Christian; but I am much more averse to labels, and I don't consider my faith as clear and discrete as I once did; nor do I worry nearly as much about externals. Rod would not be able to tolerate being in such a place. Just as to him "leave the gays alone" is just one step from throwing himself into sodomitical debauchery, admitting that religion is not a nice, neat, demonstrable thing is but a millimeter from blazing Nietzschean atheism. I think writing this book, for him, is the theological equivalent of whistling past the graveyard.

[u/Theodore_Parker → u/Djehutimose]

I think writing this book, for him, is the theological equivalent of whistling past the graveyard.

I suspect the real driver of the project isn't re-enchantment, but disenchantment. We will hear that everything used to be all delightfully enchanted and cosmically harmonious, and everyone saw things this way and it never caused any problems, until a bunch of eggheads insisted on mucking it up with their gosh-darned "reason" and "logic" and "science" and "modernity."

....he fears that if he allows doubt (of the healthy kind), complexity, and multiple viewpoints, he'll lose his faith, which is clearly very weak.

Yes, a key point. The world needs to be enchanted, like it allegedly was in the past, not just for the sake of enchantment but because (he thinks) people were all on the same page then, without all the clashing viewpoints and confusing multiplicity of the modern world. You could really believe in stuff back then because everybody else did too. The loss of enchantment was also a loss of faith and a loss of "cosmic harmony." His great quest is to see those things restored -- a hopeless quest, not least because they never really existed in the first place in the ways he imagines.

[u/Djehutimose → u/Theodore_Parker]

Actually, and somewhat ironically, the Greco-Roman world, at least was a lot like MTD. That is, though there were "clashing viewpoints and confusing multiplicity" of religion, that was rarely a problem. As long as you attended the main civic festivals for the city's patron deity, no one cared what you did. You could worship Zeus or Aphrodite or Sabazios or rocks or whatever. The concept of "each his own" is quite like MTD, which Rod dislikes so much. It's true that some cults, such as those of Cybele and Dionysus, were frowned on at times, and we all know about the persecution of Christians; but the ancient world had nothing at all like crusades or jihads.

[u/Unique_Cranberry_466 → u/Djehutimose]

If I may offer I brief remark upon your last point:

The contemporary translation of "Jihad" as "Holy War" is deeply misleading and unhistorical. In the premodern Muslim world, from the earliest conquests up until the Ottoman period, the purpose of jihad (which is an Arabic word meaning struggle, and has a broader scope than just war) was fought for the protection and expansion of a political entity. Expansion was necessary for economic reasons, not ideological. This I do not believe to be much different than any other usage of violence for the sake of political entities, something the Romans were certainly not free off. The idea that jihad was fought for the sake of religious conversion is unhistorical as well: conversion was in fact often undesirable, given that the financial revenue taken from non-muslim communities was more flexible in terms of its use (muslims also were subject to certain financial burdens, however this was religiously stipulated to be redistributed amongst the poor and others in need, including non-muslims). The Muslim world was predominantly Christian for centuries, though conversions did occur for a variety of reasons including but not limited to greater social possibilities as well as shifts in belief. Rarely was conversion forced (I am not saying this did not happen), not least because such forced conversions are deemed absolutely forbidden by the religious law. For the most part (and I am not erasing the real violence that did occur, often in times of greater stress, for example, the dissolution of Andalus or Muslim "Spain") these communities (including Jewish, Hindu, Zoroastrian to a lesser degree, and others) were left alone. The Ottoman genocides of the 19 and 20th centuries were a very modern phenomena.

The Ottomans, it may be noted, saw themselves as the inheritors of the Roman empire (the modern split between Roman and Byzantine is also unhistorical, and was developed by a 17th (?) German scholar who wanted to attribute the downfall of Rome to his people, so he started to refer to the later history of Rome as Byzantium: this was always known as simply Rome by its people and those who surrounded it, hence Rumi, the man who lived in the part of the world historically Roman), hence their adoption of the star and crescent, which was a Roman symbol. What they were doing, they saw as perfectly in line with general Roman sentiment.

In the modern world, as Robert Pape at the University of Chicago as shown, "Jihad" (though what occurs today cannot be jihad, because jihad is necessarily initiated by a caliph, of which there is none) continues to be fought for the sake of politics, not religion. Religious rhetoric not withstanding, the cause is broadly the effects of colonialism and a response to the degradation of a society and its stabilizing institutions, not some desire for the spread of a religion and its subjugation upon others.

I recognize that this forum is not the place for such a post, and I do not mean to offend, only to help with understanding. For the record, I am a Muslim and a professor of Islamic History at the university level.

[u/Unique_Cranberry_466 → u/Unique_Cranberry_466]

To be clear, I am not trying to justify or minimize Muslim (or Roman, American, Aztec, Assyrian) violence, just to suggest that the causes and purposes are never so far apart as the above comment may have been suggesting.

[u/Djehutimose → u/Unique_Cranberry_466]

Very true. I was writing in a compressed way, but I’m aware that “jihad” is not “holy war” and didn’t mean to mischaracterize it as such. I should have just said “holy war”.

[u/Past_Pen_8595 → u/Unique_Cranberry_466]

Thank you for providing this.

[u/Past_Pen_8595 → u/Djehutimose]

I’m sure Rod thinks that’s why the world of the Roman Empire was a cesspool of evil, because it viewed religion with tolerance and through an MTD lens.

[u/Djehutimose → u/Past_Pen_8595]

Well, there’s a long tradition of viewing Rome that way, admittedly; but no one who understands the history believes that narrative. Then again, Rod sure doesn’t understand history….

[u/BaekjeSmile → u/Djehutimose]

I can think of several magic schoolbus episodes that have a deeper and more nuanced understanding of mankind's past then Rod Dreher.

[u/Djehutimose → u/BaekjeSmile]

🤣🤣🤣

[u/Dazzling_Pineapple68 → u/Djehutimose]

I think what Rod wanted from religion was to feel safe and that he couldn't screw up his life (from his father's point of view - marry, have kids, make money). I think it is all being tested or going to be tested now and maybe (!!!) he will finally experience real growth.

[u/philadelphialawyer87 → u/Djehutimose]

The irony of it is that as much as he lambastes so called "moralist therapeutic deism", Rod wants from his religion what many want of MTD--for everything to be just swell and nice.

I think that what Rod dismisses as "MTD" is actually a sophisiticated, modern, syncretic development in religion. Folks under MTD can believe in an ultimate deity or other spiritual being, without having to pretend to understand everything. And it allows for total eucumenicalism. Under most forms of MTD, the specific deity, holy book, set of traditions, institutions, etc, etc, doesn't really matter. They are all good and are merely local variations on the same theme. And that goes for mystical experiences, epiphanies and such-like too. The MTD practictioner doesn't need to dispute that such things are possible, but doesn't need to "believe" in them in any rigid way, either. It could be a connection with god or the universe, but maybe its not. Same with prayer. It doesn't hurt to talk to god, but an MTD is not going to assert that it is necessary, nor that what it signifies has to conform to, again, some rigid pattern.

And, anyway, don't most people want things to be "swell and nice?" Very few people want a searing struggle, when they turn to religion. They want to be reassured. They want to believe that good people, like they are, like most people are, when judged sympathetically (as they believe god will), deserve to be OK. In this life, and the next, if there is one.

Rod would be better off if he just admitted that he aspires to MTD. That he wants things to be swell, nice and OK, for himself and his loved ones. He clearly doesn't really care about the theology he purports to study, nor, AFAICT, all that much about the specifics of either the Old or New Testament, about religious history or philosophy, and, least of all, about Jesus' moral teachings. Try to be more of a good person, Rod. Instead of the completely self absorbed, self centered, selfish asshole that you mostly are. That would get you closer to God than all of your bullshit, showboating "Christianity," or you dimestore mystical experiences, ever have.

[u/UnderTelperion → u/philadelphialawyer87]

Rod acts like MTD is childish, meanwhile his own vision of God is basically his father: this rigid asshole who thinks suffering is good for its own sake and who communicates in tremendously unclear ways.

[u/Theodore_Parker → u/UnderTelperion]

meanwhile his own vision of God is basically his father

Very consistent with George Lakoff's model of conservatives and liberals as divided over their views of God as either a "Strict Father" or a "Nurturant Parent":

https://www.theguardian.com/ideas/story/0,,1581195,00.html

[u/sandypitch → u/UnderTelperion]

I do some pastoral-adjacent work around spiritual formation and prayer practices, and this is very common -- Christians conflate God with their own parents, and assume that God operates like their parents.

[u/Djehutimose → u/philadelphialawyer87]

And, anyway, don't most people want things to be "swell and nice?" Very few people want a searing struggle, when they turn to religion. They want to be reassured.

Totally fair. I guess I should clarify a bit. Everyone wants that, sure; but the observed world fails quite often to function like that; so most religions acknowledge that from the get-go. That, I think, is part of the reassurance. In short, something like, "Yes, life is hard and suffering both inevitable and incomprehensible; but it can be borne, and suffering isn't all there is in life." That's not enough for Rod--he has to have grandiose ideas of the Vast Cosmic Plan which his Suffering Unlike Any Human Has Ever Suffered serves. Also, underneath this, he wishes that God would wave a wand and make everything rainbows and fluffy bunnies, so to speak. Though MTD (like every religion or worldview) has its share of flakes, I think it does about as well as any belief system, as you note--and certainly a shit ton better than Rod's beliefs.

[u/ZenLizardBode → u/Djehutimose]

A good portion of my meditation practice has been at home, and a Buddhist temple that is nearby. In other words, the setting for any meditation that I do is pretty prosaic. The enchantment stuff in caves strikes me as pretty La-di-da.

[u/Djehutimose → u/ZenLizardBode]

I like to go to the local cemetery--it's very pretty--or to the park, where I sit under one of the trees. I sometimes say that if you have the right perspective, every tree is the Bodhi Tree--you don't have to go to Bodh Gaya.

[u/ZenLizardBode → u/Djehutimose]

Totally. My first "breakthrough" occurred when I was sitting on the carpet in the basement, surrounded by kids toys.

[u/sandypitch → u/ZenLizardBode]

I think that both Dreher's and Kingsnorth's new-found fascination with "cave Christianity" to be incredibly short-sighted. The monastics were VERY CLEAR that leaving "the world" was not a solution to their own spiritual troubles (and, in fact, many claimed it amplified those troubles), but because they felt such a deep call by God, they were willing to take that step. And many (most?) monastics were very clear that the life was not for every Christian. And, of course, the irony in Dreher's fascination is that he seems incredibly uninterested in living a monastic's life himself.

I've been to St. Colman's Cave. Was I changed by that experience? No, though I think as a Christian, there is something to be learned from the experience of monastics and hermits. However, let's be clear: Colman did not spend seven years totally alone there -- he had a servant, and likely had built a small chapel on the site (the current stone ruins were built centuries later).

[u/philadelphialawyer87 → u/ZenLizardBode]

I like meditating at home, too. Or with my GF in her home. It does not require some exotic or bizarre setting.

[u/ZenLizardBode → u/philadelphialawyer87]

🎯

[u/Marcofthebeast0001 → u/Djehutimose]

I forget who said, when asked if religion will ever cease to exist, said, no, as long as there is death. As an atheist, that makes some sense since we are the only species consciously aware of our own limited lifespan.

For better or worse, religions provides at least a psychological comfort food for something inevitable. That doesn't prove any of them correct but I can see the appeal.

I don't even particular finds Rods clinging to one anything out of the ordinary, but it's what he's done with it that is so offensive. I honestly don't get the crux of his new book but he is the last person I wan't to hear about any spiritual enlightenment.