PaganSquare


PaganSquare is a community blog space where Pagans can discuss topics relevant to the life and spiritual practice of all Pagans.

  • Home
    Home This is where you can find all the blog posts throughout the site.
  • Tags
    Tags Displays a list of tags that have been used in the blog.
  • Bloggers
    Bloggers Search for your favorite blogger from this site.
  • Login
    Login Login form
Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in dualism

 BOOK OF SHADOWS Celtic Tree of Lifeby Jen Delyth - Celtic Art Leather Gifts  and Celtic Tree Gift

 

The woman four people ahead of me in line, the one with the hennaed hair, is clearly a pagan. I really wish she weren't.

I also wish she would shut up.

Ugh: evangelical pagans. Oh, I understand the sense of homecoming that finding answers to your questions can bring. There's something profoundly unpagan, though, in the wrong-headed (not to mention condescending) belief that my answers should be your answers too.

I can't help but pity the poor stranger that she's evangelizing so aggressively, who listens along politely, but is clearly wondering what she did to deserve this.

Like most bores, Henna Head leaps from topic to topic: breast-feeding, polytheism, Youtube, the Goddess, exploitation of workers in the sugar industry, the moral superiority of veganism, routine circumcision. Like most bores, she maintains the pretense of conversation as she monologues. Occasionally, she solicits agreement: Don't you think? She never pauses to listen for an answer, though. Why should she? Why listen to anyone else, when you've already got all the answers?

Gods. Was I ever this obnoxiously evangelical? (I hope not.) Was I ever this smug? (Probably.) Was I ever this predatory? (Absolutely not.)

People incapable of self-doubt always amaze me. Are they lying to themselves? Or are they too immature—or maybe just plain too stupid—to conceive the possibility that they might be wrong?

Our Pagan Preacher is wildly indignant about all the injustices of the world. I empathize, but her story is always the same story (and a non-pagan story it is at that): Us v. Them. It's Moral Dualism, Good Guys/Bad Guys all the way, with never a moment of doubt as to which Side she's on. From self-pity to self-righteousness is not very far.

From victim to perpetrator is not very far.

Evangelism, whatever the flavor, is always ugly. You'd think that pagans, of all people, would understand this.

Like the other good Minnesotans in line, I think loudly, but say nothing. Eventually the line moves on, and the nonstop Gospel According to the Goddess, mercifully, comes to an end.

Last modified on

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Why I Don't Like Bernie

Well, I've finally figured out just what it is that I don't like about Bernie Sanders.

Here's the thing: I'm a storyteller. When I listen, I always listen for the underlying story.

When it comes to overarching narrative, Bernie's story is just like the Buffoon-in-Chief's. For them both, the guiding narrative is the same lying, Abrahamic story that has wreaked so much ill in the world down the centuries: Us versus Them. Black vs. White. Good Guys v. Bad Guys.

All their ideas come with an enemy attached.

The enemy may be Muslims and brown people, or it may be corporations and rich people. But they're still the Bad Guys of the old, simplistic story, and they're still out to get Us.

For all its cultural omnipresence—pick a Hollywood movie, any Hollywood movie—moral dualism is not a universal story. More importantly—to me, anyway—it is not a pagan story.

It's not that pagan stories lack conflict; it's conflict that makes a story interesting, after all. Look at the great pagan epics: the Iliad, the Táin, the Mahabharata. They're all about wars. But look more closely: Who are the good guys here, who the bad? In a pagan world, conflict arises naturally because people have differing needs and obligations, not because one is good and one is evil.

Oh, in deep ways Sanders and the Troll-in-Chief are very different, of course. One is a not-very-bright, self-serving, cynical bully; the other is intelligent, capable of compassion, and actually believes what he's saying.

That's why I'll vote for Sanders if it comes to that. Of the two, he's by far the better human being. Our only real hope, this time around, is that Democrats (and democrats) are smart enough to realize that voting against is far more important than voting for.

Last modified on
Recent comment in this post - Show all comments
  • Anthony Gresham
    Anthony Gresham says #
    I read in "The Road to Serfdom" by Friedrich A. von Hayek that centralized planning requires an enemy to justify itself, and expla
Pagan News Beagle: Watery Wednesday, May 13

Community is a valuable thing, but it's nothing without the people who make it up. Today in the Pagan News Beagle we talk about the important people in our community, both those who are no longer with us as well as those who continue to play an important part. Additionally, we talk about how our community is viewed by others and what we project out into the world.

Last modified on

Additional information