A Meditation on the Benedict Option and Community

My attention was recently called to an article* in the New Yorker (of all places, since they are the foremost promoters of the terminally hip urban lifestyle, which seems incompatible with serious spirituality) on Rod Dreher and his book “The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation”. The term is defined in the article, not unfairly, as including the following ideas:

• “... places where faith, family, and community form an integrated whole”

• “(Dreher) urges Christians... to remove themselves from the currents of modernity. They should turn inward, toward a kind of modern monasticism.”

• (quoting Dreher) “I believe that politics in the Benedict Option should be localist.” (Catholic social teaching refers to this as “subsidiarity")

• “Christians should consider living in tight-knit, faith-centered communities, in the manner of Modern Orthodox Jews.” (to which I would add, the Amish and certain Mormon offshoots)

• “Surviving this new age of darkness might call for the construction of local forms of community, where a realist approach to morality lives on.”

The same idea can be found in some of the writings of the late John Senior, Catholic educator extraordinare:

• “Now we have come to another bitter time of discontent; and the age of Saint Benedict has returned.” (from “Hidden Grace”)**

• “In times of great crisis, in the spiritual life of persons and of nations and the Church, anything but flight is folly.” (in a discussion of Newman in the same essay)

The New Yorker article, while biographical to a great extent, and anthropological as well (since the author seems highly bemused by the whole concept as well as the various versions of its implementation), does outline the numerous issues and dilemmas surrounding the Benedict Option, and I do recommend it as at least an introduction to the issue.

I was familiar with Dreher because of his work on The American Conservative, which is, BTW, one of the few truly conservative media outlets. (Most of the ones self-styled “conservative” are actually neoconservative, the critical difference being that the neocons advocate a “muscular” foreign policy, which is another way of saying we are the world's policeman – and we see how well that has worked out.)

As to The Benedict Option, I had heard the term before, and I always enjoy thinking about my older son, who has elected the Benedict Option in the literal sense by becoming a Benedictine monk. And the first thing that I think of in that regard, from the social, political, and economic points of view, is the self-sufficiency of the Benedictine monastery. It is not total – i.e. they are still “on the grid” to some extent – electricity, phone service (but virtually no cell phone service and very little Internet activity). But they are moving (it's still a fairly new place) toward ever-increasing self-sufficiency when it comes to food, drink, and various maintenance issues. (Once a given part of the monastery is built – it's happening in stages – the maintenance falls to the monks. They have no live-in, on-site secular employees.)

I guess one could think of that as one “extreme”, on the end of the continuum, although in times past the monastic life was considered quite normal and not at all freakish. Of course, self-sufficiency in general was pretty much the rule in the old days; even my home town was a far more self-sufficient place when I was a kid than it is now. And most of the people who worked there lived there, and vice versa (except for the guys who drove in to work in the “plants” on the outskirts of Buffalo). But it was a true community in that people knew each other, and you could go a long time without ever seeing a “stranger”. (By contrast, I see people I've never seen before every day right on my street. And no, it's not Alzheimer's where you meet new people every day.)

But to call my home town a “community” is not to imply some sort of uniformity. There was religious diversity within the Protestant mold... a large Catholic contingent (anchored by Poles and Germans, with some Italians in the mix)... two Jewish families... and, I'm sure, plenty of skeptics, unbelievers, and the otherwise “unchurched”. Politically, it was a Republican town in the sense that the dominant middle class were pretty much all Republican – although I suspect that some of the blue-collar folks had Democratic leanings (especially the union members).

The other major vector when talking about the Benedict Option, besides community per se, is what some refer to as the “culture wars”. The premise – or one premise -- behind the Benedict Option is that the culture wars have been lost, so rather than keep fighting in vain it's time to retreat, get off the battlefield, and get back to basics – spiritual as well as material. Of course this motive was behind all of the countless Utopian communities that sprang up, particularly in upstate New York, in the 1800s. Already at that early date there was a feeling that some sort of purification was in order, and the way to accomplish that was to get off what at that time passed for “the grid”. But speaking of purification, let's not forget that the Pilgrims and Puritans (hence the name) had the same motive; for them the way to renewal was to get out of Europe and settle in the New World, where it was just them, God, and nature. And, oh yeah, a few Indians.

So you have this motive that recurs so many times in history that it almost seems like part of human nature. It's certainly part of human nature in the collective – but it's also always a minority opinion. Most people are content with things as they are – or if not content then at least willing to put up with it. In the modern era you had the hippies, who rebelled against materialism (as well as war and what Wilhelm Reich called character armoring) – first on campuses and in the cities, and then in the form of communes which sprang up everywhere, but especially in California. And they too had given up – at least for a while – on the mainstream (AKA “square”) culture. Some of the communes survive to this day – usually because they came up with some marketable goods and services. Others pretty much evaporated. But the same is true of the Utopian religious communities.

But this raises the interesting question of religious vs. secular communities. So many of the dynamics and motives, and trajectories, are similar, and yet there is this one significant difference – that the older communities were, pretty much without exception, motivated by religious or at least spiritual ideals, whereas the communes were more about getting away from the establishment juggernaut and finding peace and tranquility (and a place to get high without getting hassled -- “Tune in, turn on, drop out” being the mantra). And yet for the latter there was a “spiritual” -- if I can stretch the definition a bit – element. Many of those involved had become interested in Buddhism, for example – and that has a long monastic tradition as well. Others were more into the general, somewhat catch-all and at times nebulous, New Age “thing” -- which persists to this day, of course, becoming more mainstream all the time. (Next time you walk past a GNC store or pass the large yogurt section in the supermarket, thank a hippie.) And even that didn't start with the hippies; there were communities of the old school that dabbled in what we would call holistic health, alternative medicine, esoteric sexual practices, and Spiritualism (and many kindred pursuits).

It would be tempting to say that the old timers paved the way for the hippies... and that the Old World monasteries paved the way for the old timers. Again, if you want to talk about human nature in the collective, there are many parallels. But the European monasteries were all Catholic, whereas the New World Utopian communities were, as far as I know, all either Protestant or somehow spiritual and humanistic, but definitely not Catholic. And the hippie communes don't seem to have gotten the idea from the Utopian communities, although I recall there was a certain degree of interest there – especially in the Shakers, which is ironic since the Shakers were celibate whereas the hippies were anything but.

What I'm saying is that any continuity that appears in a historical survey is based more on human nature than on the direct descent of ideas. Like so many other social or political movements or ideas, there is a kind of cyclic phenomenon whereby a given idea first becomes widespread and implemented in a variety of ways, then the initial energy wanes a bit and we have a period of stability, after which things tend to kind of fade and the whole idea goes underground again (except for a few isolated proponents) until the next “wave”. There are very few phenomena, whether one is talking about politics, religion, or culture in general, that are not subject to this cyclic pattern – which leads one to imagine that there is a kind of long-term drive toward homeostasis in human history. We talk a lot about “pendulum swings”, and I think that refers to something quite real and quite embedded in the human psyche. Things go too far in one direction, and then there is a correction, and then things head off in the opposite direction. (I also imagine that the Hegelian concept of the dialectic, or thesis/antithesis/synthesis, is another way of expressing the same idea.)

The Benedict Option clearly refers back to St. Benedict himself and the establishment of the monasteries – although as metaphor, it could certainly describe any movement away from the “business” (busy-ness) of the world and toward a simpler form of existence. And I'm not claiming that it's always motivated by a feeling of giving up, or despair, vis-a-vis the world at large. It could boil down simply to choosing something better. However, if someone who is traditionally-minded and who is also religious in a traditional sense were to keep a scorecard with wins and losses in the culture wars, it would definitely seem that the floodwaters are rising and that it's time to flee to the hills (figuratively at least). The current political war is certainly a case in point, although not a clear one. For one thing, Donald Trump is not a conservative in the strict sense, although he does seem to have traditionalist leanings. But his opposition, AKA the Resistance, is definitely that which Dreher seems to be advocating we avoid. For they have won the culture wars on pretty much every front – and this is not to say that they have won all “hearts and minds” -- far from it. What they have managed to do is take over the culture – and there is nothing sudden or overnight about this; the campaign has been waged for many decades – lifetimes, even. And they have not taken over everything; there is still a remnant – a few voices of opposition left. (They don't seem to have had much of an impact on NASCAR yet, for example. But the NFL counts as the most recent casualty.) What is shrinking more than the number of people who believe in “values” is their opportunities to make their convictions known, and their status in society in general – and I don't see the Trump Event as more than a temporary slowing down of the overall trend. The “forgotten Americans” stood up and voted Trump into office, but they and their values are no less under siege now than they were prior to the 2016 election. Congress is helpless to do anything about it, and the Supreme Court can't be totally relied on even with a “conservative” majority.

Now, it has to be said that for many people this is all good news. They are 100% on the side of “progress” and “social change” and all the rest of it, and the events of the past few decades, despite the occasional setback, can hardly be anything but an occasion for rejoicing. Catch a Hillary supporter fleeing to the hills! Why should they? The mainstream culture is going their way, and getting better every day. They are happy as pigs in stuff, as the saying goes.

No, clearly the Benedict Option is for the “bloodied but unbowed” veterans of the culture wars who have grown old and weary of fighting, and convinced that much more can be accomplished on the local level, and in a community of like-minded people, and with family, home and hearth at the center. I believe this myself, of course – and try to live it out as best I can given my particular circumstances. One can always do the right thing. Even someone in prison, in solitary confinement, can practice righteousness.

I should insert something here on the issue of planning, as in “planned”, vs. “organic”, communities. Organic communities just sort of happen – they grow up – there is a history there, having to do with agriculture, or industry, mining, transportation, whatever... but the community as community is not the result of a blueprint (other than the ones used by the real estate developers). It winds up being a collection of people that appears quite random at times; even if the original settlers were of one mind, relatively speaking, can that be said of their descendants? Not unless there was a serious, well-established and overt cultural groundwork. And yet, “random” communities do, in fact, survive and may even prosper, whereas many “planned” communities fold up for some reason, often because that original vision was lost or proved to be either delusional or insufficient in some other way. Another thing that happens is that the planned community gives way to a less-planned community, which gives way to a non-planned community, even if there is some claim to history or to tradition referring back to the founders. Show me any of the planned communities of old that are still operating on as strict, uniform, and coherent basis as they did when founded – I daresay there are few if any left (monasteries being an exception, of course).

Now, what does this imply? That planned communities are always a mistake? Or sometimes a mistake? Or worth a try, but don't be surprised if things don't work out in the long run? One can point to plenty of the old-time Utopian communities that did much good for their members, and which continue to represent a certain set of values; the fact that the original uniformity is lost should not count against the original idea or against what has evolved.

We should also – if we're studying this issue – take a look at the original basis for any given community. Was it an idea, or a movement (religious or otherwise)? Or was it, perhaps, a single, charismatic leader who, once deceased, was succeeded by people with less firm convictions, or simply less social dominance? The communities that have both succeeded and persisted seem, in fact, to be characterized be a combination of original factors – yes, there was a strong and charismatic leader, but he or she also had coherent ideas – an ideational system, even. And those ideas were sufficiently appealing to be passed down – and at the same time the original leader didn't leave a vacuum but developed the next generation.

Another factor, as the article implies, is that – human nature again – there are people who are willing and able to live in a community of like-minded people. They are, by nature, cooperative and willing to blend in – AND (important point) abide by whatever hierarchical authority structure the community might have. They aren't rebels, in other words – and not chronic malcontents, gripers, or complainers. But there are also those who may be willing, but are not able – they just can't “hack it” in that sort of setting, so wind up leaving, regretfully. So any discussion of the Benedict Option has to take this very natural continuum into account – not only human nature in the aggregate but human nature on an individual basis. Just as there is a spectrum of human nature, so there should be a spectrum of available options within the larger Benedict Option idea – and there should be no arbitrary attempts to rank or assign levels of merit based on which option is chosen.

This, in turn, brings up the sub-option of what I will call the Benedict Option “in place” -- i.e. not requiring an actual physical retreat (heading for the hills) and also not requiring entering an organized community. If the family is, in a sense, a “little church”, then it should also be fully capable of embracing, and implementing, many if not all possible elements of the Benedict Option within the four walls of the home. And family life should be valued not just as the way things are, and the best way to bring up children, but also as a perfectly respectable way of retreating from the world (that “retreat” occurring on a daily basis, or as often as need be, when dealings with the wider world are done). I know families that have, perhaps implicitly, adopted this strategy. Admittedly, most of them live in rural areas or small towns, and some live near monasteries, from which they gain spiritual strength and which generate like-minded families with which at least a loose community can form. And the beauty of all of this is that it's happening “below radar”, i.e. without attracting the notice of the Regime, or of the media (except on rare occasions), and yet this remnant may serve as the seed for future generations as they attempt to reverse the overwhelming tide of secularism and materialism.

Can this even be done in urban contexts? Or – unlikely as it seems – in the suburbs? Well, we know that there is a significant Mormon presence in many suburban areas in the U.S. -- and even many of the Hassidic Jews live in what is, for all intents and purposes, a suburban area in Rockland County, New York – having migrated there over the years from densely-populated Brooklyn. So yes, it can happen anywhere, and where one finds oneself is no excuse for not at least trying to walk a different path from the one that popular culture seems to require. (I note that even the hippies of the 1960s bifurcated – from their start in college towns and large cities, some stayed in urban areas and others wound up in the countryside. Each environment presented challenges, of course; the idea is not to insist on a certain place, but on a certain set of principles that will be followed regardless of place.)

To sum up, a lingering question might be – isn't all of this the same as giving up... as despair? Well, there are wars that eventually result in victory for one side and defeat for the other, and conceding defeat is not shameful if one has fought the good fight. And as to despair, that would be if one capitulated but then failed to come up with an alternative – a Plan B – and the Benedict Option is clearly the Plan B of our time. It's difficult for individuals or families to assemble the resources to live an alternative lifestyle, but it can be done in community, as it has been countless times over the millennia. The skeptic will always come up with quibbles – what's wrong with the world the way it is? It won't work! It's too much trouble! Et cetera. Well, it's that attitude that keeps them in place and keeps them subject to the whims of their rulers. I'd rather be open to alternatives, even if I can't take advantage of all of them. It's good just knowing they're there, and that there are people out there who are trying to.... not create a new world (that's a “progressive” project) but take one small portion of the existing world and make it into something that is nourishing and uplifting rather than toxic and oppressive.

*Article reference: The Seeker, by Joshua Rothman. The New Yorker, May 1, 2017, pp. 46-55.

** This essay can be found in “The Remnants: The Final Essays of John Senior”. The Remnant Press, 2013.