For a while, we thought that this article was done. What more was there to say? But, never underestimate the ingenuity of folly. It will always have another curve to throw at you.
- Frequently Asked Question : "I hear that you are intolerant of non-Hellenic Pagans. Is that true?"
Answer: No, not even close. It is an unfortunate truth that in many Pagan forums, any attempt to argue in favor of a nuanced position will result in mud-slinging accusations regarding what it is that one "really" believes. That's what happened here.
Somebody with the Unitarian Universalists showed up in one of the alleged Hellenic forums asking those present whether Neo-Paganism was a subculture or a community, and what the difference was between the two. The second question was easy to answer :
" Between sub-culture, and community? Sub-culture, to me, suggests a transmission of cultural practices. Community implies something more personal, a strongly cohesive network of personal bonds. "
The first one got the questioner something other than the answer which he wanted to hear. To the question "is there a Pagan community, or only a Pagan sub-culture" came the response any of us would offer : "I'd say "no", in both cases". One could tell that this was either a response which our Unitarian Universalist visitor didn't forsee, or more likely didn't want to forsee, judging from the next leading question which we answered.
The question began with an implicit assumption, "if we're a sub-culture but not a genuine community ...", which called for a response :
" Again, false alternatives - I would flatly deny that we're even a subculture, or that there is even a meaningful 'we' to speak of, here. At best, maybe a collection of sub-cultures. "
The question concluded by asking "what would it take to establish a genuine community, to which our response would be (and was) :
" Divine intervention? Polytheism is a pretty slender thread to hang a community on. What, really, does a Judeo-Pagan have in common with the Asatruar, or a Hellenist with a Wiccan, especially one of those who say things like 'we are the gods'?
We don't worship the same gods, we don't hold to the same values - what is there to bring us together? In my experience, Pagan "community building" is usually little more than a front for Eclectic Wiccan evangelism. "
Having run the Agora, which was once one of the two main Pagan networking sites in the third largest metropolitan area in the United States, and a burgeoning hub for Pagan web traffic in the Midwest, we were certainly in a position to know. But knowledge and reason are not things treasured by the Politically Correct, because both so often get in the way of their preconceptions.
The reply we got, in part, was the one you'd expect, especially in a forum with a heavy "generation Y" presence : much affectedly earnest handwringing about hate and intolerance, from people who would stubbornly refuse to hear when one pointed out that there were other issues involved. But, address those issues we did, anyway, as we will now at somewhat greater length, here where we don't have to deal with censorship on the part of the moderator, and shouting matches with the closed-minded.
Our response was to point out what anybody with more than a surface familiarity with these paths would tell you : that there are deep and profound differences between the cultures that produced these religions, and the subcultures that result when we revive them in any serious way, and that given these differences, a simple-minded lumping together of all in a single amorphous community is not a good idea.
As residents of the city of Chicago, a very large and diverse place which hasn't had a majority culture in living memory, we grew up with a certain familiarity with the problems that arise when different cultures interact. There is an art that goes into making such interactions work. Part of the art is an appreciation for the wisdom of the old line from Frost: "Good Fences make good neighbors".
One can not casually toss together people from a variety of cultures into an instant melting pot, and hope to make a community that way. Nor can a variety of cultures co-exist in a single, stable community. Attempts to create such communities invariably break down on the level of conflict resolution : if a person from culture A gets into a dispute with a person from culture B, which culture's rules apply when the conflict is resolved? Because obviously, one can't apply the rules of both, when those rules contradict each other. (A "rule", for the purposes of this discussion being any normative expectation of how people will behave in a society, whether it is consciously spelled out as a "rule" or not).
Some will glibly say "let them work out a compromise", but that ignores the reality that one can not define the notion of a fair compromise, outside of a set of values which will define how much each concession is worth. One is left without the basis for a "give and take". All that will remain, usually, is a shoving match, as each tries to make his own rules the standard by which their conflict is to be resolved, feeling that his aggression is justified because under his own rules, he is the victim, merely fighting to assert his own rights.
Think about that expression, "shoving match", for a second. If you see two people standing on a narrow path, each trying to shove the other out of the way, what do you expect to see happen next? A reasonable compromise, or a fist fight?
Such a means of conflict resolution begins in aggression and promotes aggression, because one does not win a test of wills by being the more reasonable of the two parties. The only value that ends up being esteemed in such a carelessly constructed culture is that of power : "might makes right", with political power taking the place of physical strength, as those lower in the pecking order constructed by the resolutions of these tests of will are pressured by those around them to continue submitting to those higher in the pecking order. This is done, by those more open about their commitment to appeasement, in the name of "peace"; others, less honest, will try to equate submission to the community pressure on the stand out to honor the status quo with "civility" and "courtesy", as if these words could ever be synonyms for "cowardice".
Usually, these will be those who glibly spoke of "compromise", and one quickly finds out what their idea of "compromise" is, here in this artificially created cultural vaccuum where the idea of compromise is left without a foundation: having one side capitulate, in order to make the other side happy, without worrying about how happy those called on to capitulate will be or should be. Far from offering an alternative to the "might makes right solution" above, these people are paving the way for its adoption by manipulating others into not resisting it.
Pardon our skepticism, but somehow we doubt that a descent into barbarism will ever make a community into a better place to live. No, not even if it is done in the name of "inclusiveness", with, God willing, all going into denial about the resentments that will linger as a result of such an inequitable "solution", in an environment in which they are not even allowed to express those resentments without apologizing for them. What truly boggles our minds, with its almost epic level of irony, is the thought that some will push for the adoption of such a system in the name of "freedom". One need only look at the heroic risks taken by so many as they have tried to escape to places where freedom is what they hoped they would find, to see that the desire for freedom is a basic human instinct and the satisfaction of that desire a basic human need. It is a desire that is not being met in any but an illusory way, when submission to the group will is the price of entrance to society.
Fortunately, there is a much better way that has stood the test of time. Click here to continue.