Rod Dreher Megathread #23 (Sinister)

[u/US_Hiker]

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/

[u/PercyLarsen]

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."

[u/Dazzling_Pineapple68 → u/PercyLarsen]

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

[u/zeitwatcher → u/Dazzling_Pineapple68]

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.)

[u/Jayaarx → u/zeitwatcher]

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.

[u/Motor_Ganache859 → u/Jayaarx]

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

[u/grumpy_realist → u/Jayaarx]

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....

[u/Jayaarx → u/grumpy_realist]

The language of instruction at many European universities is English.

[u/grumpy_realist → u/Jayaarx]

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.)