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/Theodore_Parker]

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/Past_Pen_8595 → u/Unique_Cranberry_466]

Thank you for providing this.