Dreher is charming and disarming, but he horrifies me. I've known people of real faith and he simply doesn't present as one. Too much of the crusader. I think he's a person of fear, and therefore ultimately unbalanced. And a little scary in his tendency to unload. He also humbly reeks of ambition.
Yes, could be. Dreher lost me back at the Benedict Option. I saw him then as a dualist, while recommending against it, and wanting the society to enable (his) salvation, which is still okay, but the dualism created these problems in the first place and is a fundamental flaw to me. Thoreau wasn't about escape but the necessity of re-grounding, I think, and in Dreher I see a desire for escape no matter what he says but I haven't followed him that closely since initially writing him off as a dangerous mixture of right and wrong. And he's mighty with pride. Really stuck on himself. 'I've done well.' We know, Rod.
Stop saying it. Exorcise that. Escape isn't Catholic or Orthodox it's Calvinist, and I see Dreher's background asserting itself there in his zeal and quest for purity. I've got my own baggage with both conservative and progressive reformers so maybe I'm being unfair, but I think the conservatives won and are blaming the progressives for the moral mayhem they caused. Hence the accusation of unloading, which is core Calvinist stuff. Who knows. I love Merton though he has his own contradictions. Dreher and his allies don't seem like unifiers to me, except on the Franco model in Spain, unification by force.
Did you see the written interview I did with him? I very gently tried to push on some of these tensions. I thought about going at them harder, in both contexts, but felt like it wouldn’t work if I did.
This was a great convo. I don’t know how you get your guests to go to these deep, vulnerable places but you have a talent for it. I’ve never really read Dreher outside of a couple articles here and there so I don’t have the baggage others seem to have when it comes to him, but at least in this conversation he was a very compelling voice.
Another thing that came to mind while listening was Tao Lin's recent essay in Granta called "My Spiritual Evolution." Touches on many of the same points re: materialism, depression, health, Western values. If you haven't read it do check it out: https://granta.com/my-spiritual-evolution/
Read it. Loved it. Was also listening to Phil Klay and Jake Siegel's interview, on their podcast, of Ross Douthat, who has a new book coming out about why it's rational to believe in God (or something in that vicinity). It's definitely in the air.
OMG, this guy sounds so smug, in that self-deprecating way of True Believers. ((And this just on paper--haven't listened.)
Sure the world's been "disenchanted"--cf. Nietzsche, Weber, the Frankfurt boys--but going back to a creator deity isn't doing it for most folks in the rich countries (even the US and Israel, arguably). To be really filled with wonder, evolution's where it's at, IMO. Eukaryogenesis--the best answer to the Fermi paradox. Check this out: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2019.2149
As for Alistair MacIntyre's account of the "disintegration of the West" (no Aristotelean teleology, hence no community, etc.)--MacIntyre's solution to the crisis at the end of After Virtue is really lame: something about retreating to (Catholic, of course) communes, I guess something like Dreher's Benedictine monk model. No, thanks.
I see he trots out that "only a god can save us" from Heidegger's last interview. Heidegger was definitely not referring to the mono-God of Dreher's faith, who is just a blip in the road to fundamental ontology. To parse it you would have to go to H.'s "fourfold," but that's too much to get into here.
Curious man(in both senses), good meeting in the conversation.
Dreher is charming and disarming, but he horrifies me. I've known people of real faith and he simply doesn't present as one. Too much of the crusader. I think he's a person of fear, and therefore ultimately unbalanced. And a little scary in his tendency to unload. He also humbly reeks of ambition.
Couldn't his faith be real but all the other things you're saying are true too?
Yes, could be. Dreher lost me back at the Benedict Option. I saw him then as a dualist, while recommending against it, and wanting the society to enable (his) salvation, which is still okay, but the dualism created these problems in the first place and is a fundamental flaw to me. Thoreau wasn't about escape but the necessity of re-grounding, I think, and in Dreher I see a desire for escape no matter what he says but I haven't followed him that closely since initially writing him off as a dangerous mixture of right and wrong. And he's mighty with pride. Really stuck on himself. 'I've done well.' We know, Rod.
Stop saying it. Exorcise that. Escape isn't Catholic or Orthodox it's Calvinist, and I see Dreher's background asserting itself there in his zeal and quest for purity. I've got my own baggage with both conservative and progressive reformers so maybe I'm being unfair, but I think the conservatives won and are blaming the progressives for the moral mayhem they caused. Hence the accusation of unloading, which is core Calvinist stuff. Who knows. I love Merton though he has his own contradictions. Dreher and his allies don't seem like unifiers to me, except on the Franco model in Spain, unification by force.
Did you see the written interview I did with him? I very gently tried to push on some of these tensions. I thought about going at them harder, in both contexts, but felt like it wouldn’t work if I did.
This was a great convo. I don’t know how you get your guests to go to these deep, vulnerable places but you have a talent for it. I’ve never really read Dreher outside of a couple articles here and there so I don’t have the baggage others seem to have when it comes to him, but at least in this conversation he was a very compelling voice.
Thanks! I'm working on it. It probably helps that my wife is a therapist. Maybe I'm picking up some good habits.
And yeah, Dreher is a very open person, in a one on one context. It's very compelling.
Another thing that came to mind while listening was Tao Lin's recent essay in Granta called "My Spiritual Evolution." Touches on many of the same points re: materialism, depression, health, Western values. If you haven't read it do check it out: https://granta.com/my-spiritual-evolution/
Read it. Loved it. Was also listening to Phil Klay and Jake Siegel's interview, on their podcast, of Ross Douthat, who has a new book coming out about why it's rational to believe in God (or something in that vicinity). It's definitely in the air.
OMG, this guy sounds so smug, in that self-deprecating way of True Believers. ((And this just on paper--haven't listened.)
Sure the world's been "disenchanted"--cf. Nietzsche, Weber, the Frankfurt boys--but going back to a creator deity isn't doing it for most folks in the rich countries (even the US and Israel, arguably). To be really filled with wonder, evolution's where it's at, IMO. Eukaryogenesis--the best answer to the Fermi paradox. Check this out: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2019.2149
As for Alistair MacIntyre's account of the "disintegration of the West" (no Aristotelean teleology, hence no community, etc.)--MacIntyre's solution to the crisis at the end of After Virtue is really lame: something about retreating to (Catholic, of course) communes, I guess something like Dreher's Benedictine monk model. No, thanks.
I see he trots out that "only a god can save us" from Heidegger's last interview. Heidegger was definitely not referring to the mono-God of Dreher's faith, who is just a blip in the road to fundamental ontology. To parse it you would have to go to H.'s "fourfold," but that's too much to get into here.