The Benedict Option Will Tell You More About Today’s Conservatism Than Hillbilly Elegy

With Donald Trump’s selection of Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate, there has been a renewed interest in Vance’s popular memoir Hillbilly Elegy. Already, the book has become a bestseller (again) as people read Vance’s story of growing up in a dysfunctional home in the Rust Belt and try to better understand the MAGA movement. 

However, as amazing as Hillbilly Elegy is, a more relevant book that speaks to the current moment is The Benedict Option by Rod Dreher. While detractors (who usually didn’t read the book) have derided Dreher’s masterpiece as a fanciful call to live off the grid and cosplay as some kind of 19th-century homesteader, the book is an insightful and eloquent prophecy of the political and cultural morass in which Westerners now find themselves. 

Long before most conservative commentators saw it, Dreher observed the irreversible decay and collapse of nearly every Western institution: the Church, the government, arts, education, business, and even the family. As the title implies, the best analogy for what has been happening is St. Benedict’s monastic movement that preserved Western culture while the Roman Empire succumbed to barbarism. Far from recommending that Christians leave the cities and live in insulated rural communes, Dreher generally argues that people who hope to preserve their faith, freedom, and sanity will have to live more intentionally or risk being swept away by a dehumanized, secular modern culture: “the Benedict Option is a call to undertaking the long and patient work of reclaiming the real world from the artifice, alienation, and atomization of modern life.” 

True, one way to exercise the Benedict Option could be to join a religious order and live by the rule of St. Benedict, as Dreher relates at the beginning of the book. But there are also many other ways to reject modernity without retreating from it entirely: developing personal discipline, adopting more traditional Christian devotion and liturgies, connecting with local community, adopting the classical education model, founding and supporting local businesses, abiding by Christian sexual ethics, and moderating technology use.

As for politics, the Benedict Option does not comfortably fit into the conventional liberal, progressive, conservative, or libertarian labels. Rather, it inspires a kind of “antipolitical politics” that champions self-government, local community, and a shared moral code and vision. As such, the only issues that really concern modern Benedictines are the ones that affect their ability to live, speak, assemble, and worship freely. Unlike the various political parties, they have no interest in exporting democracy, creating more entitlement programs, subsidizing wealth creators or labor unions, or protecting marginalized identity groups. And they certainly don’t aspire to take over the levers of power and engage in absurd palace intrigue. 

At first, nothing about the Benedict Option as such seems to have much to do with today’s conservative movement; but a deeper look reveals a familiar pattern. Most conservatives are now ready to depart from today’s institutions, and they follow Trump because he is the most anti-establishment (or anti-institutional) politician. When he claims to “Make America Great Again,” his idea of greatness is largely vested in Americans being able to fulfill their potential and thereby leave behind the darkness of “liquid modernity.”  

This central idea informs the rest of his agenda: reshoring manufacturing, closing the border, deporting illegal immigrants, school choice, cracking down on violent crime, combatting opiate addiction, lowering taxes, subsidizing family formation, restoring meritocracy in colleges and businesses, opposing woke indoctrination, boosting domestic energy production, cutting regulations, ending government cronyism, stopping pointless wars, and draining the swamp. None of this particularly caters to Big Government, Big Business, or any large organization. On the contrary, the main idea is to boost all Americans in their respective stations in life.

Nevertheless, it’s misleading to designate this agenda as mere populism. Trump is not some Roman tribune dispensing more circuses and loaves of bread to the plebeians, nor are his supporters an irate mob of disenfranchised peasants and laborers. He is something much more than that: he is a leader who seeks to govern in the style of the Benedict Option. 

If the goal of the Benedict Option is to live freely, authentically, and communally, then the main challenge to this has to be leftist American elites who hope to exploit the people by turning them into demoralized consumers, workers, and taxpayers. As a rule, they oppose all the social mechanisms that empower individuals since a population of independent Americans who have healthy habits and are part of strong communities, work for themselves, and love God and their country would eliminate the need for an elite class altogether.  If the goal of the Benedict Option is to live freely, authentically, and communally, then the main challenge to this has to be leftist elites who hope to exploit the people by turning them into demoralized consumers, workers, and taxpayers. Tweet This

Of course, Dreher would be the first one to warn against placing any hope in any politician or political party, particularly at the national level. This kind of behavior will not only lead to inevitable disappointment, but it fails to address the much deeper issues plaguing the modern world: “believers must avoid the usual trap of thinking that politics can solve cultural and religious problems.” Even if Trump somehow became a “Red Caesar” who singlehandedly vanquished corrupt elites, made America ever richer and stronger through shrewd policies and capable management, and ushered in a golden age, this would mean little if most Americans lived like ignorant slaves in an uncivilized culture. 

But if Trump and the MAGA movement have humbler aims, as was exhibited in the recent Republican National Convention, then there is reason to believe that Americans under such an administration might have a greater capacity to live out some version of the Benedict Option. As Dreher notes, much of this is already possible: 

Turn off the television. Put the smartphones away. Read books. Play games. Make music. Feast with your neighbors…. Start a church, or group within your church. Open a classical Christian school, or strengthen one that exists. Plant a garden, and participate in a local farmer’s market. Teach kids how to play music, and start a band. Join the volunteer fire department. 

Such activities lay the groundwork for revitalized culture and, by extension, a revitalized political system. 

Then again, these activities are now endangered as life becomes more expensive, the State becomes more oppressive, and cultural and moral institutions become more compromised. Such precariousness indeed suggests an urgent need to change at the federal level. For that reason, it’s more important than ever to remember what conservatives are really fighting (and voting) for: an America where the Benedict Option is still an option.