Sohrab Ahmari is against it. Clean living and self-improvement are no substitute for political action. One form of Lifestyle Rightism is Rod Dreher's Benedict Option which Ahmari dubs "the New Frontierism" and criticizes for its ahistoricity.
Ahmari's article rehearses one aspect of the old problem of activism versus quietism. Can one productively blend the two? I am pulled in both directions. I expose my inner conflict over at Substack.
And that brings me to the topic of inner conflict. One of the reasons I am so fascinated by Tom Merton is because he was one conflicted hombre caught between contemptus mundi and love of the world and its blandishments. He couldn't keep quiet about The Silent Life (the title of one of his better books) and was quite obviously driven by a desire for literary fame. The guy is lovable because so human unlike, perhaps, the man referred to in The Sacred Monster of Thomism, which details the life and legacy of Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, that most paleo of the neo-Thomists. (Richard Peddicord, O. P., St. Augustine's Press, 2005) But when it comes to intellectual penetration, Garrigou-Lagrange far surpasses the loose, literary, and liberal Merton. I read both, respect both, and am grateful for both.
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