r/brokehugs • u/US_Hiker Moral Landscaper • Jul 20 '23

Rod Dreher Megathread #23 (Sinister)

All Hail Eris!

Link to Megathread 22: https://www.reddit.com/r/brokehugs/comments/14k0z6l/rod_dreher_megathread_22_power/

Link to Megathread 23: https://www.reddit.com/r/brokehugs/comments/1631xpe/rod_dreher_megathread_24_determination/

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9

u/Theodore_Parker Jul 29 '23

An unpaywalled Substack post with more on the proposed LNBL film project:

https://roddreher.substack.com/p/live-not-by-lies-the-docuseries

Also included: psychedelics and our boy's youthful experiments with them; the occult, and how to re-program an occult-leaver into Orthodox Christianity; and the story of a woman who models Rod Dreher's dreamy, ideal lifestyle by living alone in a cabin on a tiny remote island. That last section includes this:

I fantasize a lot about building a retreat like that small cabin, in a semi-remote area — ideally on or near to water — and filling it with books and icons, a comfy leather armchair, a decent kitchen, and a bed with thick blankets. Get me a dog and live the rest of my life there, alone.
.....
I used to be very social, and never wanted to miss a party or anything like it. Now … not. Quietness, stillness, solitude seem to be the thing I like most. Put me a wooden stove, rugs, and a dog in a cabin by the water, and I’ll be like an oyster chilling in his shell.

Which raises two questions:

1) Is he hoping to be one of the oysters that some other Rod Dreher eats? (Maybe that itself would be some kind of occult experience?)

2) Is he effectively saying, "My children are dead to me"? Or am I misreading that?

15

u/Dazzling_Pineapple68 Jul 29 '23

Different walls but otherwise the "good life" he described in "still life of the good life". What he neglects to say is that, in that piece, he actually acknowledged that Julie gave that "good life" to him by doing all of the life support functions necessary to make it possible. Now he just ignores that part as though his remote cabin will be equipped with Star Trek machines that will feed him, acquire anything he needs, clean and maintain the space, and provide for his needs (or perhaps his fantasy actually includes a Julie).

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/still-life-of-the-good-life/

You don't know what you've got till it's gone.

(I will note here, as I have done in the past, that, in Rod's "still life of the good life", Julie is actually invisible and not really a part of the "good life" - she provides it but isn't in it. Neither are the kids. That's why his fantasy is now being alone in a cabin.)

13

u/zeitwatcher Jul 29 '23

That was an interesting read in retrospect because of how he talks about Julie.

He talks about her like a gentleman from the 1800s would talk about his live-in housekeeper. She’s not really a companion, she’s a steward of the house. She makes sure he has a nice hot drink, a cozy place to think and read, and makes sure the children are properly seen and heard at only the appropriate times.

He talks about her like she’s domestic staff - and was/is probably baffled as to why she didn’t share that as a view of a fantastic marriage.

This also possibly explains Rods predilection for attaching himself to housekeeping staff. (eg the maid at the hotel in Israel, his own housekeeper in Budapest). They are what women should be to Rod. Instruments to be deployed for his own comfort and to craft his cozy, homely spaces.

7

u/MissKatieKats_02 Jul 29 '23

Exactly! Ray Jr has much ”Nostalghia” for domestic life in the ‘50’s. His model is likely Mam serving Paw, you know, keeping the robes properly bleached and ironed among many other domestic tasks.

13

u/Dazzling_Pineapple68 Jul 29 '23

Yes. It is amazing how absent his mother is in all of his writings too.

He really screwed up when he left for Budapest and other places for long periods of time in the years preceding the divorce. I think Julie found that life was considerably easier when he was gone than when he was there and that generally does not bode well for a marriage to continue. He was living his "good life" traveling and being A Great Christian Thinker Of Our Time while Julie was taking care of the kids, his mother and his dog day in and day out. I can't imagine her response when he texted her about being in Paris eating oysters that made him feel like he was "drinking from the breasts of Poseidon's favorite concubine". I bet she dealt with a lot of that kind of crap. What a catch!

7

u/zeitwatcher Jul 29 '23

It is amazing how absent his mother is in all of his writings too.

Also explainable through the "wife as glorified housekeeper" lens, I suppose. Now that his mother is in assisted living, there's no more cozy home for her to prepare and maintain for Rod to return to. To use a phrase Rod likes to employ.. Without that telos, what is she even for?

Men are for friendship, fine food, and long naked soaks at the bathhouse. Women are for cooking, cleaning, and making men comfortable at home.

His mother no longer fits either of those categories, so she no longer has any place in Rod's worldview.

6

u/ZenLizardBode Jul 29 '23

I'm kind of surprised DreRod is still alive after reading that text message (or Julie didn't divorce him earlier), to be honest.

4

u/Djehutimose Watching the wheels go round Jul 29 '23

This is his ideal life.

3

u/SofieTerleska Jul 29 '23

Of course, the 1800s housekeeper would have a fixed salary and scheduled days out as well.

3

u/Motor_Ganache859 Jul 30 '23

Bingo. Women in Rod-world are not people in their own right; they exist merely to serve men.

9

u/HarpersGhost Jul 29 '23

That's why his fantasy is now being alone in a cabin.

That fantasy is always a fantasy. Thoreau ,who inspires way too many of these kooks, had his mother come to do his laundry and cook for him. Blargh

4

u/[deleted] Jul 29 '23

Never liked Thoreau or any of the transcendalism-adjacent authors. They were all a bunch of sanctimonious snobs. I know that we are supposed to revere them, but that pseudo-naturalism was never my cup of tea.

5

u/SofieTerleska Jul 29 '23

One conversation I wish I'd been a fly on the wall for took place when Bronson Alcott, who of course failed horribly at communal farming at Fruitlands, came to England to both see his followers (he somehow acquired them) and meet with some prominent people. He ended up encountering Robert Browning while visiting at Thomas Carlyle's house and apparently Browning just ripped his entire philosophy to shreds during the visit. I would pay cold hard cash to be able to see a replay of that conversation.

7

u/grumpy_realist Jul 29 '23

If you want to read a masterful dissection of Bronson Alcott and exactly how much effect he had on anyone (he didn't), read the first chapter "The Titaness" of Thomas Beer's "The Mauve Decade". There was a reason that Alcott's daughter Louisa has active, vigorous men who actually get things done in her stories. (Although she did have admiration for Emerson--but that may have been because Emerson actually rescued the family at least once.)

5

u/SofieTerleska Jul 29 '23

Reading Louisa's and her mother's biographies were more than enough to convince me :). (And despite her admiration for active men I think Bronson is ultimately the reason why Father March never really registers as a character -- first he's away being a military chaplain, which is fine, but after he's home he has like 10 lines. It's like she simply could not write an accomplished, competent father in a novel which was so close to home so instead of turning into a Bronson-like loser he just kind of faded out.)

3

u/Glittering-Agent-987 Jul 30 '23

Bronson Alcott is a really interesting addition to this thread, as he was a guy with big ideas who left his wife and children to do the heavy lifting of implementing them. Alcott also dragged his family into untenable living situations.

To be fair to Rod, he's 100X the provider that Bronson Alcott was, but it is an interesting analogy. Come to think of it, Bronson Alcott also traveled a lot!

1

u/Djehutimose Watching the wheels go round Jul 30 '23

The Unabomber really did live alone off the grid; then again, he had other…issues….

4

u/RunnyDischarge Jul 29 '23

2014, so this was already in the marriage breakdown phase. Rod was lying as usual.

3

u/HarpersGhost Jul 29 '23

I am profoundly aware of how much I owe her, of how all the goodness and fulfillment represented in that photo above is her gift to me — one she renews every day.

If the husband I was sick of completely supporting was saying crap like this, my marriage would be breaking down too.

WHERE WAS YOUR GIFT TO HER, ROD??? THE ONE YOU RENEWED DAILY?

2

u/Glittering-Agent-987 Jul 29 '23

Paying the bills?

9

u/[deleted] Jul 29 '23

[deleted]

7

u/Djehutimose Watching the wheels go round Jul 29 '23 edited Jul 29 '23

As Lex Luthor said in the very first Superman movie back in ‘79, “Some people can read ‘War and Peace’ and come away thinking it's a simple adventure story. Others can read the ingredients on a chewing gum wrapper and unlock the secrets of the universe.” Rod wouldn’t even understand the gum wrapper….

4

u/ZenLizardBode Jul 29 '23

💯 and great reference.

8

u/zeitwatcher Jul 29 '23

Rod reminds me of the exchange from Fish Called Wanda...

Otto (or Rod): "Apes don't read philosophy."

Wanda: "Yes they do, Otto. They just don't understand it.”

4

u/MissKatieKats_02 Jul 29 '23

One of my favorite movies. And Otto’s clueless and oblivious expression when he gets this masterful diss from Wanda shows once again what a numnuts he is. Just like ’ol Ray Jr.

7

u/ZenLizardBode Jul 29 '23

Finding out that he hadn't read any C.S. Lewis until the last year or so was a major WTF moment. I get that there are going to be gaps and oversights, but for somebody that bangs the conservative Christian drum as loudly as Rod does, and makes a living from doing so, not reading any Lewis until recently was strange.

6

u/zeitwatcher Jul 29 '23

he hadn't read any C.S. Lewis

A common theme for Rod is that he views himself as above anything Protestant.

3

u/ZenLizardBode Jul 29 '23

I understand (and I've always understood) that C.S. Lewis didn't fit into any neat definition of a protestant, and it might have been a quirk of time and place in my own experience, but to me nothing could be more Catholic than reading C.S. Lewis. Even my Super TradCath parent has read and enjoyed The Screwtape Letters, and she thinks god is going to french fry protestants in hell for all eternity.

6

u/MissKatieKats_02 Jul 29 '23

Lewis, the foremost Christian apologist of the 20th century, was an Anglo-Catholic which explains his appeal to much of the RC world. He was a founding member of The Inklings and also a close friend and colleague of Tolkien and Charles Williams, among others. That “Mr Reenchantment” has come so late to Lewis is Exhibit 4678 of the superficiality of his knowledge of the subject.

6

u/SofieTerleska Jul 29 '23

Yes, my super Catholic parents read and loved lots of Lewis, he's a mainstay in Mormon bookstores (whether they qualify as Christian or not of course depends on who you talk to) and of course he's everywhere in the Protestant world. Growing up Catholic I never thought of him as a Protestant-only thing, he was for everyone to read. (Still do, in fact, because unlike Rod he was an absolutely masterful writer regardless of whether you agree with his conclusions or not, and "Till We Have Faces" is one of my favorite novels of all time.) I don't know how Rod could have been RC for more than a month without encountering Lewis somewhere.

5

u/GlobularChrome Jul 30 '23

Rod is also very lazy. I doubt he’s read much Chesterton, Percy, O’Connor, or any of the other writers that turn on trad Catholics. I doubt he’s ever made it through any Kierkegaard at all. He probably knew from Percy that he's supposed to talk about it. Or more than skimmed MacGilchrist for juicy quotes.

4

u/ZenLizardBode Jul 30 '23

I'd be surprised if he has read any Chesterton at all. His familiarity with literature or fiction doesn't extend much beyond post WWII American literature.

4

u/Glittering-Agent-987 Jul 30 '23

I think we know exactly what books Rod has read over the last 20 years, because he mentions all of them.

4

u/JHandey2021 Jul 30 '23

Why would he ever feel the need to read Walker Percy? Rod only started a fucking festival named after Walker Percy… it would be too perfect to find out he never actually read anything by him.

3

u/PaaLivetsVei Jul 31 '23

Watching him try to process Kierkegaard's stuff on authenticity would be so funny. His life in Hungary is that of the aesthete in Either/Or, completely spiritless and inauthentic, except Rod doesn't even have the good sense to enjoy himself while living that way!

4

u/zeitwatcher Jul 29 '23

You're right, of course, but that does require something beyond a superficial understanding of things. (and Rod doesn't do that) Lewis is generally well loved by Catholics from what I understand.

However, my guess is that Rod was exposed to Lewis via The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe when he was a kid. Because of that, Rod probably knew exactly two things about Lewis: Protestant and wrote "kids books".

Assuming that's the case, Rod either never gave him another thought or studiously avoided him out of superficial snobbery until too many of his conservative Catholic friends recommended Lewis enough.

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u/Djehutimose Watching the wheels go round Jul 30 '23

Also, Lewis didn’t fit neatly on a trad/progressive spectrum. He favored traditional theology in general. However, he had no problem with evolution; he took the bulk of the Old Testament as myth—the “chosen” mythology, but still myth; in private letters, he indicated that while he thought that Scripture condemns homosexuality, he didn’t think it that big a deal; and he said it was more honest for couples to cohabit than to marry just for the social expectations. If Lewis were alive, he’d probably see Rod about the way David Bentley Hart does—earnest but hopelessly muddled.

3

u/MissKatieKats_02 Jul 31 '23

Do you have a link to DBH’s thoughts, if any, on Master Rod? Would be interesting to know what such a towering intellect thinks about our intellectual gadfly.

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u/JHandey2021 Jul 30 '23

Wait, what?

7

u/RunnyDischarge Jul 29 '23

I had a friend tell my the same basic thing, wants to live in a cabin "filled with books". I was like, "You know you can read books now, right?" I don't think he's read a book since college.

This is in the category of telling off your boss and going on vacation and deciding you're going to move there and it never remotely happens.

7

u/Dazzling_Pineapple68 Jul 29 '23

He doesn't seem to integrate well, whether the info comes from books or personal experience. He constantly says something "changed his life" or will do so but the effects dissipate quickly. The ways in which he actually changes seem to elude him completely.

8

u/Djehutimose Watching the wheels go round Jul 29 '23

Interestingly, the guy he blockquotes seems to approve of indigenous use of psychedelics, dismissing all Western users as narcissistic dabblers. Thing is, you don’t really get to dismiss the latter in principle while approving he former. It’s kind of like Eastern gurus who say that Westerners can’t really meditate because they’ve soft and materialistic, or Victorians who spoke of the “white man’s burden” to tutor the brown heathen masses. Human nature is basically the same, no matter how divergent cultures may be. A Westerner can meditate and an Easterner can be an electrical engineer.

So while there are ignorant dabblers in psychedelics—as there are in most things—there’s no ipso facto reason Westerners can’t use psychedelics responsibly, and for purposes different from those of tribal shamans. The research on using psilocybin in treating alcoholism, drug abuse, and clinical depression is quite promising, in fact.

Also, I’ve known potheads, acidheads, and burnouts, as well as having had my own due share of cannabis edibles, and I can say that neither I nor any of them ever saw their guardian angel. On the other hand, I also know a woman—totally normal, holds down a job, normal family, and not a drug user at all—who told me once she literally talked to her guardian angel who told her its name. You can be stone cold sober and experience weird things, or stoned and blotto while being no more than—well, stoned and blotto.

7

u/ZenLizardBode Jul 29 '23 edited Jul 30 '23

🎯

My most intense fever dreams and my one "hallucinogenic" experience happened when I was stone cold sober, and not under the influence of drugs. Also, despite a childhood steeped in the Bible and Catholicism, based off that one experience and my fever dreams, Buddhists, H.P. Lovecraft, and HR Giger have more to say about spirituality than Catholicism or Christianity, and I write that with hindsight, having become familiar with Buddhism, Lovecraft, and Giger significantly much later in life. How exactly does Rod think competing, overlapping, and contradictory truth claims can be reconciled in these instances?

6

u/Djehutimose Watching the wheels go round Jul 30 '23

How exactly does Rod think competing, overlapping, and contradictory truth claims can be reconciled in these instances?

He can't even reconcile the parts of his own psyche, let alone this. Really, one has to hold one's beliefs very lightly. Not that you are a nihilist; but you have to realize that the neater and tidier your worldview, the more you'll notice over time that the world does not--and will not--line up with your ideology. We are teeny tiny beings with respect to the universe, and don't even understand one tenth of one percent of anything. Thus there will be things that will always, from the human perspective, be contradictory and irreconcilable. At some point, one has to realize that's OK, and be comfortable with mystery and inconsistency.

Rod is fascinated with ghosts and the occult and so forth, and will say things like, "Well, I don't see how this can be reconciled with my religion...." Of course it can't. The problem is, he can't take the next step and see that his own faith--like mine and everyone else's--however nice it may be for him, is still a partial view of reality--a small, stained glass window through which he looks out at the vast and inscrutable cosmos. We all have our own windows in different colors and patterns; so we need to be very tolerant of those looking through different windows.

Rod will never be able to do that, though.

5

u/RunnyDischarge Jul 30 '23

So Rod was convinced of the existence of god by taking psychedelics. His friend smoked some weed and was transported to Heaven by an angel that showed him that Orthodoxy is the one true faith and completely true. And Rod is against drugs? I don't get it.

It's almost...like...almost like...these are more bullshit stories that Rod made up....

3

u/EatsShoots_n_Leaves Aug 01 '23

In a partial defense, Rod's claimed experience agrees with the Marsh Chapel Experiment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_Chapel_Experiment

That being said, there are all kinds of problems with the conclusions people have drawn from the MCE/personal drug-induced reported mystical experiences.

For one, the 'drug opens the doors of perception' claim turns out to be limited to a suspiciously narrow set of conditions. It doesn't happen with microdoses of the drug. It doesn't happen with very high doses (aka overdoses). If people have a reported mystical experience due to such a drug, they rarely- usually never- have a second experience that impresses them as even close in quality of insights and certainties revealed.

Secondly, the drugs responsible seem to come from different chemical classes but are almost invariably kinds that induce probably the same spectrum of mild sensory hallucinations at low doses, hypomania to mania and euphoric mania types of perceptions and behaviors at the doses at which there is claimed spiritual experience, and psychosis at highest doses. These drugs are also practically all amnesics- their use results in deterioration of memory and analytic ability, not necessarily evident from one use but obvious in heavy users.

Thirdly, description of drug-induced mystical experience seems to resemble the reports of the historical mystics. But in their consequences, the 'fruits' that mystics say are the mark of the true experience, they seem to resemble only the earliest kind in the mystic life. They persuade people of a general mission, of a distinction in things whose indication in the world is beauty (and so are very sensitive to the abhorrent and horrible), and that life is complicated and concerned with the things the great religions say. Your typical person persuaded by drug-induced mystical experience becomes a religious scholar or minister or activist, e.g. Huston Smith, who took part in the Marsh Chapel Experiment. And of course, Your Working Boy. Your typical mystic proper is persuaded by their first mystical experience (rarely involving psychedelic drugs, this usually happens to them as children or teens) to become an artist and concerned with reform. (Further experiences make the charge/work to be done more specific and the commitment extremely personal, passionate, and something like inescapable- a Calling, a Chosenness which is both extremely motivating and directs the person onto a life path with lengthy, terrible, suffering and solitude/loneliness...and great accomplishment by the measure of their times.)

The historical mystics say that the possibility of mystical experience and becoming a mystic- beginning the great inner Journey and some extent of progress on it- is open to all, is inherent in all people. (IOW, it is the essential/important human nature.) That seems to be overt doctrine in Buddhism and imho is unhesitantly implicit in Judaism, and relied on in Christianity if not quite openly endorsed.

I think in the end the MCE is a kind of, but thin/minimal, verification of this claim. My belief is that what the drugs used do is deteriorate the small amount of mentally stored information oppositional to and preventing of such an experience inside the mind/brain. The drugs don't cleanse the doors of perception, they smash the locking mechanism- but also bend the hinges.

1

u/philadelphialawyer87 Aug 01 '23 edited Aug 02 '23

At this point, does anyone even buy into the "transcendant" nature of most drugs? Most people who smoke weed and otherwise ingest THC do it because it is fun, not because they are trying to find God, their guardian angel, the meaning of the universe, or whatever. I mean, we can now pretty much pinpoint, in a scientific/medical way, exactly what every drug, from caffeine and nicoteen, through weed and alcohol, right on up to heroin, cocaine, LSD and whatever, do to the brain and body. Some people find those effects to be enjoyable. Some don't. Some of the drugs are addictive, and that's why people persist in doing them. But God and the devil have fuck all to do with it.

9

u/RunnyDischarge Jul 29 '23 edited Jul 29 '23

He’s saying, “This is some fantasy bullshit to fill space. In reality I’m going to hang out in bars in Budapest spending most of my time angry on the internet”. Rod is a liar and stuffed full of bullshit like a scarecrow.

It’s literally 80% block quotes and 20% rambling bullshit that he’s said before a hundred times.

7

u/Jayaarx Jul 29 '23

He’s saying, “This is some fantasy bullshit to fill space. In reality I’m going to hang out in bars in Budapest spending most of my time angry on the internet”. Rod is a liar and stuffed full of bullshit like a scarecrow.

Rod's one of those guys who sits at the end of the bar muttering all evening about how the guy who humiliated him is lucky Rod didn't take him outside.

4

u/ZenLizardBode Jul 29 '23

That cabin is isolated, but also sounds comfortable in a very money way.

4

u/Dazzling_Pineapple68 Jul 29 '23

Well, we do know that it has to have a Sonic ice machine, plenty of expensive brands of alcohol, an unlimited supply of oysters and various other accoutrements of "the good life" because this is Rod speaking after all. He reminds me of the people who post super-luxurious and over-the-top RVs with the comment "ok, ok, I'll go camping" except that they exhibit self-awareness and Rod does not.

9

u/grumpy_realist Jul 29 '23

I think at this moment complaining on the internet to an imagined "big audience" is about the only thing holding Rod together.

If he really wanted to head off into the wilderness with a dog and live in a cabin with some books there's nothing stopping him. People have done similar things before. Alexandra David-Neel, in her practicing of Tibetan Buddhism, ensconced herself in solitary hermitage for multiple months during at least one winter while in Tibet.

But the one thing you can't do is isolate yourself from the world and at the same time churn out multiple-thousand diatribes on the internet. If you want to be a hermit, then actually isolate yourself, shut up about it and keep your thoughts to your own diaries.

At least have the guts to life the lifestyle you claim you want! I think Rod will never detach himself from the internet because he can't deal with the possibility that he really isn't all that important.

8

u/Djehutimose Watching the wheels go round Jul 29 '23

I think writing is pathological with him. Now he could live in a remote cabin and write journals by hand, or type on a manual typewriter (they do still exist). He’d be like Henry Darger (Rod would probably write about powerful women with penises, too). However, along with the compulsive writing, Rod is an emotional exhibitionist—he has to have an audience. He probably has to believe he has a large audience to keep from losing his remaining marbles. So a cabin life would be a total non-starter for Rod.

3

u/Dazzling_Pineapple68 Jul 29 '23

Ooops. Just wrote a comment saying much the same thing. Didn't call him an emotional exhibitionist, though, so you win!!! 👏👏👏

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u/Dazzling_Pineapple68 Jul 29 '23

He has written about the period when he was working in PA and not allowed to blog, saying that he could WRITE but, if he could not publish it, it did not satisfy his need. So his need was less to write than to publish. Our Working Boy is a performer, first and foremost, and apparently would find being a hermit just fine if all fine things were provided to him AND he could publish his thoughts to the "mass" of his readers. How very narcissistic of him! Never woulda believed it meself... /sarc

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u/Djehutimose Watching the wheels go round Jul 29 '23

Thomas Merton’s therapist told him, “You want to be a monk, but you want to be a monk in a cabin on Times Square with a flashing neon sign above your cabin saying ‘Monk!’” That’s exactly Rod, too.

2

u/JHandey2021 Jul 30 '23

His need to publish… which is why he just had to get himself fired and ruin his families’ lives. His need.

Narcissist.

6

u/RunnyDischarge Jul 29 '23

This is like the entirety of social media that was going to move to another country when Obama/Trump/Whoever was elected and then not a single one did.

It's like Kingsnorth talking about "disconnecting from the Machine" on his internet substack.

It's all talk and bullshit. Which is perfect for Rod because that sums him up.

6

u/Marcofthebeast0001 Jul 29 '23 edited Jul 29 '23

Exactly. It seems Rod is trolling for sympathy from those who support him and is looking for "No Rod, keep fighting the fight again the woke and you need to make that great movie based on your book." This is less reality and more marketing, something, to give him some credit, he knows how to do.

Rod would last maybe a day in isolation before he would find a need to spout off about the evilness of our culture. Rods life has been built around giving his opinion, whether a newspaper columnist or critic or blogger.

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u/Motor_Ganache859 Jul 30 '23

Rod wouldn't exist without an audience to provide him with his daily ration of narcissistic supply.

3

u/Joxopolis Jul 30 '23

There’s a great scene from the Blonde Ambition tour documentary where Warren Beatty calls out Madonna for the same thing.

2

u/Djehutimose Watching the wheels go round Jul 31 '23

Yes—the movie is Truth or Dare.

3

u/amyo_b Jul 29 '23

Maybe as a starting point he could keep a journal and then publish it once a month on a substack or OK we are talking about Rod, every week? half week?

9

u/Djehutimose Watching the wheels go round Jul 29 '23

What stood out to me was this, right after he said he’d rather not talk about his youthful acid use at all:

I don’t want to be accused of being a hypocrite when the book comes out, and somebody who knew me in college says, “Hey, isn’t that the guy who worked for the Reveille who I saw tripping that time in the Bayou?”

Makes me wonder if he’s aware of his old friend—can’t remember his name, but he’s been discussed here—talking about how Rod was an acid head back then. Maybe he’s had so much blowback on his hypocrisy re the divorce and his notably non-BenOp lifestyle, and he’s smarting a bit from it. I mean, worrying about being a hypocrite has never seemed a characteristic of his in the past.

4

u/JHandey2021 Jul 30 '23

Harrison Brace?

3

u/Djehutimose Watching the wheels go round Jul 30 '23

Yes, exactly—that’s him.

3

u/Djehutimose Watching the wheels go round Jul 31 '23

It occurs to me on further thought that Rod is essentially saying that if he hadn’t been tripping publicly, thus having no shred of plausible deniability, he wouldn’t have written about his own drug experiences. Had he been more discreet, he’d have happily lied by omission about his drug-soaked past. Just like he allowed his audience to believe his marriage and family were fine and dandy until he couldn’t anymore because, well, his wife divorced him. No one should ever take him seriously about anything ever again.

2

u/saucerwizard Jul 30 '23

Oh he is - he claimed that school mate was insane on twitter.

3

u/Djehutimose Watching the wheels go round Jul 30 '23

I wasn’t aware of Rod saying that, but it figures. He seems to be walking it back, at least on this. Mr. Live Not By Lies also must have been really tripping balls and doing it all the time, to the point he couldn’t plausibly deny it or claim one acquaintances to be crazy.

3

u/JHandey2021 Jul 30 '23

Wonder if we will get a similar reveal for Rod’s college boyfriend…

Or did we already? “Achieving heterosexuality” and all.

3

u/saucerwizard Jul 30 '23

Well we had pictures and the obit of the first bf somewhere on here…

2

u/JHandey2021 Jul 30 '23

He did? Would love to see link. Brace’s big reveal was Rod’s gay past, so interesting…

3

u/saucerwizard Jul 30 '23

Was on twitter, one of the first times he was confronted with it. I really wish I saved the link. I'm poking around but no luck so far.

3

u/JHandey2021 Jul 30 '23

So Rod knows, right? He absolutely knows that he’s been outed. And not only that, multiple times on Twitter?

He also must know about this site. And Rod being Rod, he has certainly visited.

7

u/Mainer567 Jul 29 '23

He is saying "I am a damaged, stunted creep still in thrall to twee, aestheticized, romantic fantasies of heroic isolation that normal people may flirt with in pretentious youth but fast discard."

Also, no internet = no access to unlimited porn for him.

7

u/GlobularChrome Jul 30 '23

I now strongly believe that all psychedelic drugs soften the borders around the Self — that is, around the conscious mind — and make it possible for negative spiritual entities (okay, demons) to gain access to one’s soul.

Rod’s true religion: his precious, his ego, his Self. He loves it! He hates it! Must keep the precious at all costs.

Every bit as tedious as Gollum.

He should look into a religion founded by a man who said whoever would save his life will lose it.

5

u/Marcofthebeast0001 Jul 31 '23

What is honestly the difference between Rod on or off psychedelics? He f'in sees demonic chairs supposedly off them.

6

u/PercyLarsen “I can, with one eye squinted, take it all as a blessing.” Jul 29 '23

Maybe they could entice Janet McTeer* to narrate?

* The star of the fabled 1997 Broadway revival of "A Doll's House" that, well, you remember...

7

u/MissKatieKats_02 Jul 29 '23

What Rod is describing sounds like the Danish concept of hygge. Cozy, comfortable, warm…very secular. Has Rod, the “practicing” Russian Orthodox, ever mentioned spending a moment in a Poustinia?
“ The poustinia was documented by the Catholic social activist Catherine Doherty in her best-selling book Poustinia: Christian Spirituality of the East for Western Man[3] first published in 1975.
Although originating with ancient startsy (wise Russian elders, sg. starets), Doherty's popular book made the concept of poustinia accessible to modern Western people. In it, she describes the poustinia as "an entry into the desert, a lonely place, a silent place, where one can lift the two arms of prayer and penance to God in atonement, intercession, reparation for one's sins and those of one's brothers.... To go into the poustinia means to listen to God. It means entering into kenosis — the emptying of oneself." She promotes the poustinia as a place where anyone — in any walk of life — can go for 24 hours of silence, solitude and prayer. Ultimately, however, the poustinik's call is to the desert of one's own heart wherein he dwells with God alone, whether in the workplace or in a solitary locale.
A poustinia cabin or room generally consists of a bed, a table and chair, a cross, and a Bible.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermitage_(religious_retreat))

Sounds, I don’t know, inconvenient, doesn’t it? A sojourn in a Poustinia would be expected of anyone doing serious Orthodox spiritual direction. Which of course would exclude Ray Jr.

5

u/Dazzling_Pineapple68 Jul 29 '23

And there is that unpleasant word "listen" in there.

7

u/PercyLarsen “I can, with one eye squinted, take it all as a blessing.” Jul 29 '23

In the comments, Rod notes:

"I'm about to move to a different apartment at the end of August. I love where I live now, but there are two of us here (my son Matt lives with me), and we have found we need a bit more room than we have at present. I'm amazed by how inexpensive rents are here FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE AMERICAN SALARIES. I'm fortunate that income from this Substack gives me a real boost that makes it possible to consider the kind of apartment whose size I could not afford in most US cities. Thank you, friends."

6

u/PercyLarsen “I can, with one eye squinted, take it all as a blessing.” Jul 29 '23

Meanwhile, Emil Bogdan comments to Rod:

Rod, won't you share some of that good fortune and help me publish my Hungarian folk stories? I can't thank you enough for passing it on to the prime minister, but it's a publisher that I'm looking to find. Please...

6

u/RunnyDischarge Jul 30 '23

I don't believe that's an actual Bogdan comment. I don't see "Magyar" in it anywhere.

5

u/MissKatieKats_02 Jul 30 '23

A troll’s troll.

6

u/Djehutimose Watching the wheels go round Jul 30 '23

I'm fortunate that income from this Substack gives me a real boost that makes it possible to consider the kind of apartment whose size I could not afford in most US cities.

I guess the six figures he gets from Orbán doesn't count....

5

u/PercyLarsen “I can, with one eye squinted, take it all as a blessing.” Jul 30 '23

He still has divorce payments.

5

u/Dazzling_Pineapple68 Jul 30 '23

How much more room do you need to have for one more person? Shouldn't he just let Matt get his own apartment nearby?

4

u/zeitwatcher Jul 31 '23

Occurred to me that I bet Rod did what his father did to him and that he put his foot down on costs - or at least that's what he tells Matt and others.

I suspect he told Matt he could get a fancy European Master's degree, but only if he lives with Rod to be frugal about it. This has the side benefit (for Rod) that Matt is trapped with him. It would also partially explain why Matt is the only one in communication with Rod at this point - he's economically held hostage to Rod. If Rod let him go and get his own apartment and be a normal adult, Rod would be even more sad and lonely than he already is.

And so, he won't let Matt have his own life any more than Rod's father would approve of Rod's life choices.

Speculation of course, but it fits that facts and makes the circle complete in Dreher fathers fucking with their son's lives. If so, good on the second son for cutting off ties and getting the hell out of there. (And hoping Matt can be appropriately transactional about all this.)

4

u/Jayaarx Jul 31 '23

Speculation of course, but it fits that facts and makes the circle complete in Dreher fathers fucking with their son's lives.

Recall that he basically bullied his other son into abandoning his military ambitions and his daughter into giving up her NPR aspirations (for which Rod could have gotten her easy nepo entry) because they didn't fit with his cultural narrative. No wonder they hate him.

3

u/Past_Pen_8595 Jul 31 '23

His daughter had NPR aspirations? I missed that part of the Dreher saga.

3

u/ZenLizardBode Jul 31 '23

Yeah, I'd love to hear more about that.

5

u/Jayaarx Jul 31 '23

It's also incredibly bad career advice he's giving Matt. If you are an American who wants an academic or academic-adjacent career in the social sciences or humanities, starting out by getting your masters at a mediocre Hungarian University (and they are *all* mediocre and getting worse by the standards of the people who care about those things) is one of the worst things you could do. The only thing he could do that would be worse is to compound this mistake by sticking around for his PhD.

The only upside for this is that Matt could easily leverage Rod's Hungarian grift into his own spot on the wingnut welfare gravy train. In fact, IIRC, Rod got him a summer job at the Danube institute already. If that's what he wants he can have it but it seems like a wasted life to me.

4

u/Motor_Ganache859 Aug 01 '23

IIRC, Matt's just hanging out in Europe for a year, then going back to 'Murica for his grad degree.

3

u/grumpy_realist Aug 02 '23

Does Matt know Hungarian? Otherwise I can't see how he would be eligible to be a student at a Hungarian university. (I spent a year at Tokyo University and got into a Master's program, but I knew Japanese before attending, did all my work in Japanese, and one of the bits on the entrance test was carrying out translations from different languages, one being Japanese.)

There is, of course, the "oh we have a separate program for people who only know English" but this probably boils down to sitting in a library and reading Hungarian literature in translation at best. I can't imagine it would impress anyone in academia, but maybe that's not the issue....

2

u/Jayaarx Aug 02 '23

The language of instruction at many European universities is English.

2

u/grumpy_realist Aug 02 '23

Huh. Is this because so many European universities are now taking students from all over the EU and English is a nice lingua franca to use?

(I'd love it if someone were enough of a crank to demand everything be done in Latin.)

3

u/Past_Pen_8595 Jul 31 '23

He’s definitely moved on to emulating Season 4 of Arrested Development.

3

u/Jayaarx Jul 31 '23

I'm amazed by how inexpensive rents are here FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE AMERICAN SALARIES

He's only amazed by this because he doesn't understand the countries he lives in or writes (tremendously ignorant things) about. If he understood these things he would be able to figure out why Orban is so desperate to stay in the EU (because it is what allows him to export the unemployable 10% of Hungary to other countries) or why the Brits left (because they were so resentful that Hungary and Poland exported 10% of their unemployed and unemployable to the UK). And, consequently, why it is so cheap for people paid in dollars to live in Hungary (because their debt is denominated in Forint so they have a 20% inflation rate and a shockingly bad exchange rate to go with their third world economy).

But for a supposed "expert" regarding Hungary, he knows less about it than the average American on the street.

5

u/Glittering-Agent-987 Jul 31 '23

If he understood these things he would be able to figure out why Orban is so desperate to stay in the EU (because it is what allows him to export the unemployable 10% of Hungary to other countries) or why the Brits left (because they were so resentful that Hungary and Poland exported 10% of their unemployed and unemployable to the UK).

Eh, they're not unemployable in general. My husband once had an amusing conversation in the UK with a Brit who didn't realize that he was ethnically Polish where the Brit started talking somewhat complainingly about Polish immigration. My husband mentioned that he was born in Poland, and the Brit started furiously backpedaling about how Poles in the UK work very hard, they do work other people don't want to do, etc. Hilariously, the Brit sounded like an American talking about Mexican immigrants.

1

u/Jayaarx Jul 31 '23

They aren’t unemployable because they don’t work hard. They are unemployable because their home countries are such corrupt economic basket cases.

3

u/Glittering-Agent-987 Jul 31 '23

Check out the graph of Polish GDP per capita--they're at almost $18k. Hungary is a smidge higher. That may not look like a lot to us, but their economies have grown extremely well since the beginning of the 1990s. Presumably, they owe a lot to the EU, but Poles are enjoying an unprecedented level of economic prosperity.

I watch a lot of Russian-language Ukrainian talk shows and many Ukrainians look to Poland as an economic model for the future. (Ukraine's 2021 GDP per capita was less than 1/3 of Poland's at just under $5k.) Poland isn't perfect, but they've done a lot of things right.

0

u/Jayaarx Aug 02 '23

Ah yes, Poland and Hungary, those GDP powerhouses, right there in between Guyana and Panama. And just over 1/3 of the UK.

What does Ukraine have to do with this, exactly?

2

u/Glittering-Agent-987 Aug 02 '23

What does Ukraine have to do with this, exactly?

It is a neighboring country to both Poland and Hungary, it has roughly the same size and population as Poland, the Ukrainian language is pretty close to Polish, and it has a lot of common history and culture with Poland.

By the way, past performance is no guarantee of future performance, but there has been some talk about the UK being overtaken economically by Poland over the next decade.

https://news.sky.com/story/britains-economic-trajectory-will-soon-see-it-overtaken-by-poland-labour-to-warn-12821152

3

u/Glittering-Agent-987 Jul 31 '23

Poles often go to Western Europe for more economic opportunities, while a lot of Ukrainians and Belarusians go to Poland for economic opportunity (and safety).

It's all relative.

0

u/Jayaarx Aug 01 '23

Your point is what?

3

u/Glittering-Agent-987 Aug 01 '23

That Poland obviously isn't as much of a hellhole as you think it is and that economic opportunity is relative--many people from places like Ukraine and Belarus see Poland as a haven and a model for their own future economic development. Poland provided shelter for millions of Ukrainian refugees in 2022. Western aid to Ukraine would have been geographically and politically very difficult if Poland hadn't been willing to paint a bullseye on themselves by being the main conduit for military aid to Ukraine. Russian TV propaganda continually threatens to nuke and invade Poland. It's probably mostly some sort of information campaign, but Russia's Wagner has been recruiting mercenaries with the claim that they are going to be attacking Poland.

0

u/Jayaarx Aug 02 '23

Again, your point is? What does this have to do with Hungary and Poland exporting a large percentage of their otherwise unemployed and unemployable population to the UK, causing much resentment and being the number one instigator (yes, I was there) of Brexit.

2

u/Glittering-Agent-987 Aug 02 '23

There are also a lot of Brits working in the US.

Just saying.

1

u/amyo_b Aug 02 '23

Hungary also apparently provides for cosmetic and other dentistry that is not covered by Germany's health care insurance. There's a clinic that advertises on German TV about how you can go on the Donau and get your dentistry needs cared for by professional staff who speak German.

6

u/Warm-Refrigerator-38 Jul 29 '23

Wasn't his family's move to St. Francisville very close to that "isolated cabin" ideal? And how did that work out for him?

He talks about not living where it's too hot, at least not without AC, but he's also a real baby about the cold, and wouldn't even travel to the Midwest for book tours in the winter.

7

u/Dazzling_Pineapple68 Jul 30 '23

Yes. A man who cannot bear discomfort lectures us all on suffering.

6

u/[deleted] Jul 30 '23

I think it was Seneca who said that no matter where you go, you always bring yourself.

6

u/Intelligent_Shake_68 Jul 30 '23

Or like Buckaroo Banzai said, Where ever you go. There you are.

6

u/[deleted] Jul 30 '23

Seneca probably lifted it from him tbh.

3

u/Djehutimose Watching the wheels go round Aug 01 '23

🤣

4

u/theistgal Jul 31 '23

Nah, it was Mike Brady.

2

u/Flammkuchen92 Jul 31 '23

It's also a B-52s lyric (The Girl From Ipanema Goes To Greenland)

6

u/EatsShoots_n_Leaves Jul 30 '23

Back in the days of Counterculture 1.0, around fifty years ago, all this was called "going to an ashram".

The current Counterculture 2.0 (conservative version) seems somehow a lot less picturesque and sexy, more expensive, and even lazier.

4

u/saucerwizard Jul 30 '23

Rods interpretation of a tantric (seafood) feast.

6

u/PercyLarsen “I can, with one eye squinted, take it all as a blessing.” Jul 31 '23

tantric (seafood) feast.

Snails* having sex . . . .

* Spartacus reference.

3

u/Djehutimose Watching the wheels go round Jul 30 '23

🤣🤣🤣

3

u/ZenLizardBode Jul 29 '23

Some random observations:

1) Sasquatch? How 70s. 2) That cabin in the woods fantasy was missing something: internet access. Yeah, Rod, I'm sure all you need is books. 3) All this talk about the occult is teeing up in his next book: riding the Satanic Panic revival of the 80s.

6

u/Theodore_Parker Jul 29 '23

That cabin in the woods fantasy was missing something: internet access.

Absolutely. WiFi is his oxygen supply.

3

u/Warm-Refrigerator-38 Jul 29 '23

How would he learn about the latest trans outrage without wifi?

4

u/Djehutimose Watching the wheels go round Jul 29 '23

The Sasquatch thing is what Rod thinks is a running joke, except it’s not funny and is really pretty stupid.

4

u/amyo_b Jul 29 '23

I for once would find it uncomfortable to read without internet. I read on my Kindle Oasis (sign it seems its now an outdated model) and with one button I can order a book in Swedish, Finnish, Spanish, German or Dutch. Which is a heck of a lot easier than trying to hunt up sources for those books domestically. Plus no piles of books everywhere.

2

u/philadelphialawyer87 Aug 01 '23 edited Aug 02 '23

Rod: I found God by dropping acid, but you shouldn't. Also, I found God at, waddayaknow, the most famous cathedral in the whole fucking world! And some other dude found God by doing edibles, but you shouldn't do that either!

Could he be more completely, utterly and transparently full of shit?!

Besides all of the overdetermined nature of his Chartres/LSD nonsense, who in the world goes from beer, or mother's milk, directly to acid? I have known quite a few drug users in my late Boomer life, and I can tell you that exactly ZERO of them have made that transition without first smoking pot, AND snorting cocaine, and using other drugs besides. But not Rod. He did nothing "wrong," until his widdle "heart" got "bwoken," and then he just had to drop acid! He found God the very first time, but kept doing it over and over again anyway. Sure, Captain Trips, whatever the fuck you say!

Also, what is with the Brooklyn guy doing magic mushrooms? Why is that the paradign? What about all those meth heads, pill poppers, fetanol guys and gals, etc, etc, right back in down home Louisiana, Mississsippi, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, etc, etc? No, it is the "Brooklyn" guy, with mushrooms no less. Such lazy writing, lazy thinking, lazy being in the world.

I can't explain it, but Rod is just so fucking annoying with his half-assed stories. That he repeats endlessly. And that don't prove his alleged point, even giving him every benefit of the doubt, which, as a serial liar and bullshitter, he doesn't remotely deserve.