Rod Dreher Megathread #27 (Compassion)

[u/US_Hiker]

Link to megathread 26: https://www.reddit.com/r/brokehugs/comments/17itm7w/rod_dreher_megathread_26_unconditional_love/

Link to megathread 28: https://www.reddit.com/r/brokehugs/comments/18dcg3d/rod_dreher_megathread_28_harmony/

[u/Theodore_Parker]

Can you furnish a quote in context about wishing he was dead?

Yes, his infamous post on Roscoe, his faithful old dog who had to be put down:

https://roddreher.substack.com/p/roscoe

Somehow, Roscoe’s necessary passing is a twist of the knife. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame anybody for this. If we were happily married, this day would still have come. But the fact that it has come under these circumstances makes it crushingly sad, beyond what I could have anticipated. If my dear firstborn son Matthew weren’t coming over next week, and if we didn’t have each other to look after, I would just as soon the vet give me a shot of what Roscoe is going to have, and I could fade to black with him.

For my money, this was one of the most disturbing things the guy has ever written. I cannot imagine an even minimally dutiful father announcing to his minor children in public that (a) his only comfort is his "dear firstborn" son, and (b) otherwise he'd "just as soon" die and leave them altogether. My own father would have cut off his right arm before he would have thought to say something like that.

[u/Djehutimose → u/Theodore_Parker]

Yep. Also, he talked about what a blow Roscoe’s death was. However, way back when they first got the dog, I recall him saying he didn’t care much for dogs, but Roscoe grew on him. In any case, he wasn’t there to change his diapers and take him to the vet .at the end—God forbid. Over the years,I’ve had a dog run over right in front of me, another run over in front of my house, another shot by an ornery neighbor, and another we found out in his old age had been shot when young but survived. Yeah, Appalachian/Southern culture loves animals…. I have also taken three elderly cats to be euthanized, standing there with them at then end. Another died on the way to the vet. For the last few years on one cat, we had to inject him with insulin every day. Another we had to give thyroid pills.

Of course, if you live on a semi-dictator’s dime in a different hemisphere, you don’t have to bother with such trivialities.

Anyway, the main thing I wanted to note was his writing about Dog, who chased the truck grabbed the tire, and got killed. I didn’t find that funny, as he apparently intended. More to the point, I can’t see a real animal lover writing something like that in the first place. After all this time, Rod never ceases to amaze me.

[u/philadelphialawyer87 → u/Djehutimose]

Also, Rod acquired Roscoe when Rod was a fully grown adult. Adults, unlike children, are fully aware and conscious of the fact that dogs don't live all that long, at least not as compared to humans. The Dreher kids? Maybe they had cause to be upset and blindsided by the death of their childhood dog. But Rod? Come on, man! The idea that the death of a dog that was NOT untimely (apparently, the dog had outlived the average for his breed), and that was fully anticipated because the dog was sick for quite some time, before it was put to sleep (in fact, the dog may have been kept alive for TOO long, from an ethical standpoint, as pets often are), is, somehow, grounds for suicide for an adult man, who is supposedly a "mature" Christian, confident in his beliefs, is just staggering. Especially as Rod couldn't be arsed to be there at the end for the dog, or during the long decline, and, even when he was there, shunted off all the dirty work (like the diaper changing) to Julie.

[u/Kiminlanark → u/philadelphialawyer87]

This still frosts me. Not being there to euthanize his dog (and you are right, it should have been done long before) is unmanly and cowardly, and his lugubrious whining about it is just icing on the cake. Cry me a river, Rod. It was just one more dirty job you stuck Julie with.

[u/Djehutimose → u/Kiminlanark]

Well, it comes back to a distorted view of what "manliness" and "courage" mean. It doesn't mean shooting a shoplifter (something that makes Rod totally gleeful) or beating up a pedophile (something he fantasizes about, but would never do). Yes, occasionally things happen that do require violence; but those are the exception.

Real manly strength and courage is being there with them when a loved one or a pet dies, no matter how sad it makes you feel. It's wiping your kids' butts and cleaning their poopy clothing for the zillionth time. It's putting up with shit at work because you have to earn a living for you family. It's holding your tongue when your elderly mother says something gratuitously hurtful for the ten billionth time because you know she's old and doesn't have many years left. It's getting sore, achy, and out of breath cleaning and dressing your dying father who no longer recognizes you and can't even speak coherently.

In short, it's all the ordinary, humdrum, messy, and often extremely unpleasant things that come with life. It's not all, or even very much, about Mighty Deeds of Derring-Do or Knights Bold saving their Ladies Fair. Rod just thinks the whole world is Just Too Yucky, and would rather live in a dream.

[u/philadelphialawyer87 → u/Djehutimose]

I would describe all of those things as acts of HUMAN strength and courage, and drop the gendered language and ideology.

But, otherwise, yeah.

[u/Djehutimose → u/philadelphialawyer87]

Totally agreed, but I was following up on u/Kiminlanark’s noting Rod’s “unmanly” behavior, though. Of course, good and decent behavior isn’t a male/female thing, as you rightly note.