Some American conservatives have curious ideas.
Rod Dreher — for many years a regular columnist for the magazine The American Conservative — is one example.
But maybe not a very good one. Because Mr. Dreher now lives in Hungary, so we can’t accurately call him an “American conservative” any longer. Not really.
And he no longer writes for The American Conservative, maybe for the same reason.
I came across Mr. Dreher because of my interest in digital fasting.
Fasting is a feature in various religious traditions. Examples include Lent, especially among Catholics… and Yom Kippur, Tisha B’av, Fast of Esther, Tzom Gedalia, the Seventeenth of Tamuz, and the Tenth of Tevet in Judaism. (No wonder Jews tend to be slender!)
Muslims fast during the month of Ramadan each year. Eastern Orthodox Christians fast during specified fasting seasons of the year… and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) typically abstain from food and drink for two consecutive meals in a 24-hour period, on the first Sunday of each month. (Wow, that was a mounthful.)
Members of the Baháʼí Faith observe a Nineteen Day Fast from sunrise to sunset during March each year. And we definitely don’t want to forget about Hindus and Buddhists, who sort of invented the whole thing.
But it’s not clear whether any of these religions have heard of digital fasting. Or taken it seriously.
Rod Dreher was raised Methodist, and then converted to Catholicism… but he gave up Catholicism to become a journalist. (Not all journalists have given up religion, but it’s not uncommon.) Then, later, he became Eastern Orthodox. Which might explain why he now lives in Hungary.
Mr. Dreher once published a book about American conservatives (back when he was still an American) with the impressive title:
Crunchy Cons: How Birkenstocked Burkeans, Gun-Loving Organic Gardeners, Evangelical Free-Range Farmers, Hip Homeschooling Mamas, Right-Wing Nature Lovers, and Their Diverse Tribe of Countercultural Conservatives Plan to Save America (or At Least the Republican Party).
The word “crunchy” referring to conservatives who eat crunchy granola. An underappreciated type of American conservative.
In Mr. Dreher’s view, part of the plan to save America, or at least the Republican Party, involves talking more openly about sex. Something that American conservatives tend to avoid. But something that might make the conservative movement more attractive.
But also, saving America can be facilitated by digital fasting.
Turning off your computer, and your tablet, and your phone. Spending some time in prayer. Disconnecting from the fake news, and the mountain of cultural garbage than is piling, ever higher, in Cyberspace.
I myself would be glad to turn off my computer, if I weren’t trying to make a living contributing to the mountain of cultural garbage.
Here’s a quote from a review of Mr. Dreher’s latest book, The Benedict Option — written by fellow conservative Thomas R. Ascik:
True to the practices of his Eastern Orthodoxy, one of Mr. Dreher’s first recommendations about social media is to implement “digital fasting,” purposeful periods of abstention from technology in order to turn the mind to God… In what is probably his most controversial position, Mr. Dreher says that smartphones should be taken away from kids. There are two reasons. The overwhelming majority of adolescents – more than 90 percent of boys – have seen pornography online. The second is the effects on the brain of life online and the transformation of attitudes and perspectives of daily living…
If my kids weren’t already grown up and graduated from college, I would happily take away their smartphones. You don’t have to be a conservative to know how beneficial that would be.
Anyway, the thing I like best about fasting. You do it for a while, and then you go back to your same old bad habits.
But you feel like you’ve accomplished something special.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.