(Derived from an article written in June 1997 on alt.religion.asatru)What strikes me as odd is the compulsion so many of European descent have, upon hearing anyone of that Folk express pride in their people, to denigrate their ancestors, to focus on "crimes", "guilt" and the like. Many of these same people encourage people of other ancestry to express pride, but they have this strange need to insult and degrade their own. Odder yet is to find these people among those claiming to honor the ancestral gods.
Some justify themselves by claiming they are battling extremists, and yet even the mildest expression of pride by Europeans causes them to spew condemnation while blatant extremism by other peoples often earns their praise, at the very least one can say they are verrry quiet in such cases. Others claim they are balancing matters but in fact seek to bury a glorious and proud history under comparatively rare events with negative connotations or which, more commonly, can be distorted and decontextualized to create a negative slant. These people generally apply different standards of judgement to other peoples. While they seek reasons to condemn and insult their own, they seek reasons to praise and glorify other peoples. A strange and self-contemptuous double standard- in fact they take a perverse pride, an inflated sense of individual satisfaction, in being at the forefront of those who deride and ridicule their own people.
So be it. It isn't a path for me. Let the shame-brokers and the guilt-mongers seek to undermine the pride and joy our people feel for what our ancestors have built, discovered, created, invented- more and more of us have grown weary of their bleak viewpoints. I am very proud of the accomplishments of my people, and wish to praise and emulate them. I honor their gods, who are my gods, for I carry their spirit. I wish to offer that faith to future generations of the Folk, that spirit of freedom and truth, that they may prosper and carry on our ways. All peoples should be encouraged to express their own unique spirit and to fulfill their own unique destiny- ours included. How could an adherent of the ancestral faith think otherwise?
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