Wild Ideas and Staged Readings

So, a wild thought occurred to me as I was reading The National Review's take on Will Arbery's just-closed play, Heroes of the Fourth Turning, about which I've written before. I've been wanting someone to talk to about this play for a while, but almost no one in my immediate world is familiar enough with the script or with the issues involved. And everyone in my world is pretty busy with their own things that they'd love to talk to me about if only I were more familiar with them.

But, among the many ideas the play pitches into the air for characters to bat back and forth is conservative Rod Dreher's Benedict Option. Arbery apparently sent Dreher a draft of the script. Dreher notes, however, that Arbery has not responded to Dreher's emailed questions. Likely, Dreher surmises, Arbery is reticent (as he is in national news interviews) about sharing his own stance. As a playwright, he presents an honest selection of characters who represent a cross-section of conservative Catholic thought in 2017. For Arbery to register whether he supports one or more of the characters would be to upset the balanced, complicated picture his dramaturgy produces. (This seems similar to Lucas Hnath's keeping mum about his beliefs in reference to his excellent play The Christians.)

But Rod Dreher lives here. I live here. It is in my power to create a staged reading/discussion event and invite Dreher to participate.

This is a wild thought because, although I find Dreher's writing often compelling, the two of us stand on opposite sides of a worldview gap. We may concur about President Trump's many shortcomings, but on issues like abortion and sexuality, we would be opponents.

It's a strange kind of opposition in this strange time.

One of Dreher's posts today celebrates Democrat John Bel Edwards's gubernatorial win over Republican Eddie Rispone yesterday, a victory widely seen as a rebuke of Trump. I celebrate along with him.

Trump had campaigned strongly in Louisiana and elsewhere for Rispone, even coming personally to Louisiana on three occasions for pro-Rispone rallies. Such rallies, predictably, turned in to pro-Trump rallies. Dreher points out that Rispone had no discernible platform beyond "Trump likes me; I like Trump." If anything, Edwards's victory signals that pro-Trump rhetoric alone isn't enough to swing a state like Louisiana.*

Edwards, by contrast, has held on to his position as one of the very few Deep South Democratic governors largely thanks to his stalwart pro-life credentials. He signed into law incredibly restrictive anti-abortion legislation during his last term.

I am, as I have mentioned, heartily against most abortion restrictions. I approach reproductive matters from an entirely different place, holding entirely different warrants, than Dreher does.

I support Edwards despite rather than because of his anti-choice stances. There are a number of reasons; his expansion of medicare, his stabilizing the state's finances, his openness with his electorate (he hosts a call-in radio show weekly), his support for teachers, his general alignment with Democratic rather than Trumpist values. In my ideal world, I'd have someone like Edwards but who also works to protect the right not to be forced into continued pregnancy or childbirth, who doesn't treat pregnancy as a functional punishment inflicted on people (disproportionately on women) who have sex. I'll take Edwards, though, because his anti-choice stance makes him a viable candidate. It's the kind of pragmatic calculation Deep South progressives regularly have to make when voting (and the kind of calculation conservatives in other parts of the country have to make about their candidates).

There are other big worldview differences between Dreher and me. Unlike Dreher, I simply fail to see any dire cultural threat from the spectacle of a few drag queens in 30 or so cities reading books to children in public libraries. I'm baffled at the shibboleth status that Drag Queen Story Hour has acquired among a particular bandwidth of cultural conservative. I don't know, but I imagine there's a number of ways that my faith expression (liberal gay United Methodist) would be obnoxious from his Orthodox perspective.

Nevertheless, I'm intrigued at the thought of having a good, long conversation with him about this play. He'd be an ideal conversation partner here. (In the unlikely event you're reading this Mr. Dreher, please do contact me!)

And beyond the wouldn't-this-be-cool factor, a productive conversation with Dreher might restore a bit of faith in the possibility of a pluralist civic ethos. Two people who disagree strongly and are unlikely to convert each other have a deep conversation about faith and politics. What a spectacle. Someone should write a play about it.

We'll see.

*Dreher cites another possible factor in Edwards's victory, one I find depressing yet difficult to discount: LSU won last weekend against its long-time arch-rival Alabama (a rare feat). Spirits in Louisiana--pride and contentment about Louisiana--were high this last week. Had LSU lost, a note of dissatisfaction may have tipped things more in Rispone's favor...