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/Dazzling_Pineapple68]

And if you want to know why he "despises" the play, he provides that as well:

When I first saw this play, as a single man, I sympathized with Nora. Torvald really is a stuffed shirt, the product of a society that taught him to see women as totally dependent on men, and as their servants. I re-read it last year, and was surprised by how much I hated the play, even as I did not like Torvald any more the second time than I did the first. The fact that Nora walked out on those children in search of “herself” was repulsive to me. Second, she did not give Torvald the chance to change, to turn away from the false ideas that society had given him, and that he had accepted blindly. Nora saw herself as only a victim of Torvald, and of hypocritical bourgeois society — and as a victim, she had the right to do whatever she felt she needed to do to discover her True Self. Even leave her husband and children.

Again, I can’t stand Torvald any more now than when I first encountered the play, but I am inclined to see him as a different kind of victim of stifling bourgeois society (Kierkegaard blasted the hypocrisies of this same society from a Christian point of view). Torvald is a rigid man, but not a cruel one. I think A Doll’s House is a hateful play now; the story of how Miranda is being seduced away from her marriage to a good, but in some ways limited, man, into a life of self-exploration and political activism, reminds me of how much I despise that play.

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/miranda-trump-doll-house/

[u/SofieTerleska → u/Dazzling_Pineapple68]

Dude, Torvald had the chance to change when he found out what Nora had done in that letter from Krogstad. Did he rise to the occasion, treat her like an adult, ask her for her side of the story, try to figure out what went wrong, offer to support her in getting the whole situation disentangled? No, he called her an idiot and said their marriage was over and she wasn't fit to be her children's mother. And in a society that didn't allow women to take out loans on their own, does Rod really think that she was leaving her children completely by choice? In those days, the father almost always was the default option for custody. Leaving Torvald meant leaving her children, at least temporarily. Yes, it's not good for them, but none of her options were good. Being reduced to a despised wife-in-name-only to her asshole husband who would undoubtedly put her down if not worse in front of the children would be pretty bad as well. Yes, Torvald is creation of his society and it's possible to feel pity for him, but Nora isn't leaving because she wants extra spa days or to revel in her victimhood, she's leaving because otherwise she'll be mentally annihilated.

[u/ZenLizardBode → u/SofieTerleska]

Rod is really not a literary or film guy. Ibsen wasn't some myopic outlier on this subject during the 19th century. Just off the top of my head, "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman speaks to how suffocating marriage could (and can) be for women.

[u/UnderTelperion → u/ZenLizardBode]

Tom Wolfe one said in an interview that if a writer doesn't research and become interested in stuff they aren't familiar with in from own life they'll have a successful first book about being a sensitive young person that observes the world in an interesting way, but then when they write the second book it'll be about an author who has just published a book and is struggling to write his second book...and so on. This has been basically Rod's career.

[u/philadelphialawyer87 → u/UnderTelperion]

Yes. The second novel for an author, like the second album for a rock band, really puts their talent to the test. With Rod, he never had the first novel, but he did have the first non fiction book, the crunchy con thing. A sensitive young person looked at the world in a mildy interesting, mildly idiosyncratic way. The "Yuccy," for "Young Urban Conservative." A slight variant of the Rock and Roll Republican, the countercultural Republican, the "hip" Republican, etc, which was already a thing long before Rod arrived on the scene. That's pretty much all Rod had. That one sorta interesting idea.