The scales have fallen from Rod Dreher’s eyes. Commenting on Harvard’s decision to suspend and defund a campus religious organization, he says that his belief in “compatibilism” — the idea that it is possible for orthodox religion to coexist peaceably with the modern liberal state — is over. Regarding the new liberal order, he notes that “it doesn’t matter whether or not we consider ourselves its enemy, but whether it regards us as its enemy.”
Mr. Dreher quotes Alasdair MacIntyre, who likens the predicament of the 21st-century religious traditionalist to what faced the civilized people of Rome during that empire’s decline:
A crucial turning point in that earlier history occurred when men and women of good will turned aside from the task of shoring up the Roman imperium and ceased to identify the continuation of civility and moral community with the maintenance of that imperium. What they set themselves to achieve instead””often not recognising fully what they were doing””was the construction of new forms of community within which the moral life could be sustained so that both morality and civility might survive the coming ages of barbarism and darkness.
It is what many of us in the reactionary Right have said: when the Flood is upon us, we must build an ark.
I have one point of disagreement with Mr. Dreher’s essay: he does not seem to understand that liberalism itself is now a religion, and is in fact the established religion of the West. He and his fellow orthodox Christians are not merely political dissenters. They are Cathars. He is clearly despondent, but he is not sufficiently afraid.
Read his article here.
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As a regular reader of the American conservative I think dreher is very afraid. He also acknowledges the religious nature of the poz (his preferred term is “modern therapeutic deism”, search that with dreher and you’ll find plenty).
TAC is an odd little place; a kind of weigh station between Christianity and the Dissident Right. Reading it regularly you immediately notice that dreher “gets” the revolution underway in a manner basically no mainstream conservative (perhaps aside from coulter and schlichter and while those two understand the gravity, dreher gets the WEIRDNESS of it all too) does. He’s even proposed a solution – his Benedict Option.
At the same time his Christianity leads him to too much sorrow and horror and not enough anger and contempt. I am reminded of Nietzsches disgust at “the crucified lord” as a symbol of western decline from Greek paganism…in my opinion dreher is what Nietzsche was getting at in that passage.
An insightful comment all round, Jimmy. Thanks.
Your mention of Nietzsche identifies a significant tension on the dissident Right, one that has been the object of much attention lately. Christianity is arguably the foundation of Western civilization, but its universalism, and its tendency toward pathological altruism, may be fatal liabilities for that civilization’s survival in a shrunken world.
Christianity is not that universalist. The Good Samaritan helped the stranger by paying an inn. He didn’t bring the Samaritan into his house and gave them the food of his children and gave up the Jewish religion so the Samaritan didn’t get offended.
The Scripture says that he who does not feed his family is worse than an infidel. Saint Thomas Aquinas says that charity is concentrical: first your family, your neighbours, your people and then the rest of the world.
Finally, the West’s decline is proportional to Christianity’s decline. When Christianity was strong, we weren’t helping other people to conquer us. Having said that, if you have other ideology, go for it. But don’t delude yourself thinking
That Nietzsche or paganism are going to save the West. These ideologies are only followed by a handful of people, who are mostly LARPing. Would these people sacrifice your life for Thor or the superman, the way people sacrifice for Jesus, Jahveh or Allah? Of course not
I won’t disagree with you, imnobody; you present some familiar points, and I[m not here to plump for paganism.
But the progress of Christianity in the past century or so has not been encouraging. Protestantism entered the chrysalis in the mid-1900s, and emerged, in its cloaked and mutated form, as our new, universalist state religion. And Catholicism is not exempt; even the new Pope seems to be a convert.
Christianity is universalist in one way and one way only: all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The brotherhood of man is a brotherhood of sin and depravity. That my fellow so-called “Christians” imagine this brotherhood of man to be the real message of the gospel fills me with disgust and contempt (and, yes, a bit of despair).
I once had a friend, who is a communist, comment to me that I was the most dismissive person he’d ever met. Highest compliment anyone’s ever given me. As long as you have food and water entering your body you are able to display contempt. Disgust and contempt are far more potent than anger and hatred – the first are for inferiors, the second for equals or, even, superiors.
Dreher is playing at things, recognising the occurrence of the revolution but refusing to face its real implications. He seems to think he and the like-minded can withdraw behind the barriers and that the prog state will leave them alone. This is astoundingly naive. The religion of progress is one that brooks no competitors, as Christians found out in the Vendee, Mexico, Russia and Spain
He seems to think he and the like-minded can withdraw behind the barriers and that the prog state will leave them alone.
I guess the question is, can you make yourself insignificant enough to the point that it’s not worth it to the prog state to go after you? Important to remember that as the prog state metastasizes those at the top will turn on each other seeking to establish dominance in that hierarchy.
“Important to remember that as the prog state metastasizes those at the top will turn on each other seeking to establish dominance in that hierarchy.”
Very important insight into this “unstoppable beast”. The turning will happen sooner and lower down in the ranks than most realize. The opposition traditional forces must keep aware of this and learn to exploit.
“When elephants fight, the grass suffers.”