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A Thought Experiment

I believe in the peoplehood of pagans.

Here's my contention: that, collectively, pagans constitute—in effect—a transnational and transethnic people.

I would contend, in fact, that pagans are, essentially, an emergent ethnic group.

So: a pagan and a non-pagan fall into a river. You can only save one. Which one do you save?

In reality, of course, moral decisions are rarely so clear-cut. But ask yourself: under these circumstances, which one would it be?

The pagan moral universe is one of graded responsibility. (Yes, there may be a few heroic souls out there who have managed to transcend such petty restrictions and truly love everyone equally. Well, good on them. I'm talking here about the rest of us poor unwashed unenlightened.) I have more responsibility to immediate family than to more distant relatives. I have more responsibility to distant kin than to non-kin. I have more responsibility to non-kin members of my tribe than to those not of my tribe. And so on, expanding outwards from self.

That said, would I save the pagan, or the non-pagan?

Usually, of course, a question of this sort implies some sort of moral weighting. I'd be more likely to save someone that I knew over someone that I didn't know, the one that I liked better, the one that I perceived as less able to help themselves.

(In the funniest set of pre-flight instructions that I've ever heard, the way-gay air steward mugged: "If you're traveling with a child, please see to your own needs first. If you're traveling with two children, please see to the needs of the most promising child first.")

All that being equal, though, Posch, which one would you save?

There are pagans everywhere.

And natural disasters (“ill-starred [events]”) are just going to happen.

That's why we need a Red Pentagram.

When the hurricane blows or the ground quakes, when the river floods or the wildfire burns, I want to help. But frankly (call me a tribalist; see if I care), I'd rather help pagans. Being a people means helping your own.

How would it work? Don't ask me; I'm just a dreamer.

But ask yourself: what might such a thing look like?

"All our relationships are person-to-person. They involve people seeing, hearing, touching, and speaking to each other; they involve sharing goods; and they involve moral values like generosity and compassion."
Brendan Myers

The New Moon happens on February 18 at 6:47 pm EST, right on the knife’s edge between Aquarius and Pisces, and brings attention and awareness to ideas about the collective and how we treat each other. The importance of technology — everything from breakdowns to privacy issues to technology saving the day — is another topic likely to be front and center. In this upcoming month you may want to focus on considering how you can work with others and create effective change within a group. What can you do together that you can’t do alone? Who is your tribe, and how do you support each other? Who are your spiritual kin, your “fellow travelers”, and how do you connect with them?

The term “tribal mentality” is tossed around a lot these days as though it were something to be avoided — and in the implied meaning of restricted, fearful, insular thinking, no doubt it is. But human brains are wired to live and work in small groups, so we also can find a number of people who are exploring a tribal template as a basic unit for a healthy economic and social system.  As the cracks in the industrial civilization we have built become more and more apparent, some are looking at tribal society as a promising, egalitarian model for a fossil-fuel-restricted, environmentally-challenged future. (See this and especially this) Others feel that “New Tribalism” is destructive of the values of a democratic society. (More about that here). We’ll be seeing ideas like these up for discussion in the coming month, and they will be well worth considering on a personal level as well. What communities do you belong to? How do you support them? How do they support you?

I think it was Judy Harrow that told me this story. If not, apologies to my actual informant, whoever you are. As my father is fond of saying, “Age spares us nothing.”

Dateline: Chicago, 1993: the World Parliament of Religions. (This was the event at which the archbishop of Chicago used his political muscle to get the pagans a permit to do a ritual in a public park. Now that's what I call ecumenism.) It's the main event: religious leaders from all over the world are lined up on stage. The place is packed so full that they have to set up TV screens outside to accommodate everyone that wants to see. The pagans are all outside, watching. (There are, of course, none on stage.)

Some grandee gets up to talk. “Let us all be as one,” he says. “After all, we all worship the same god.” Nods, smiles, and knowing applause from the entire line-up on stage, including (shame on them) the Hindus. The audience eats it up.