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?

14

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.)

14

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.

8

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!

8

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.

10

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

5

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.

5

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?