Dear Readers,
I do find myself at a loss for words at times in this awful era of the Trump presidency. Not that there is nothing to say, but rather that so many bad things are happening so fast that I often cannot decide where to begin to respond or comment. The separation of families at the border.... the weird coziness of Trump with Putin in Helsinki, treating him like the best person in the world, right after insulting America's allies at the NATO summit, and always, grinding away in the background, the nonstop destruction of programs, policies and regulations that protect the environment, help the poor, and uphold human decency...It is too much, and I fall dumb. This is either evil genius or brutally effective instinct on the part of Trump and his team: to so bombard us with crazy, cruel and contradictory things that we are shocked into silence and inaction. I must confess that at times, I fall right into this trap, which means the bastards win that day. I wish I were stronger.
Two films that I saw recently, both dealing with childhood, brought me to tears. One was a film that I remember first seeing in my early teens, the animated Beatles film "Yellow Submarine" that was first released in 1968, The other was "Won't You Be My Neighbor,?" the new documentary about Fred Rogers, the late host of the long-running, public broadcasting children's program "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood." Both films, in their different ways, are eloquent statements of the importance of love as the glue that holds humanity together. "Love and peace," in the 1960s phrase. This is not merely romantic, sexual love of boy meets girl or girl beckons boy, or boy desires boy or girl goes for girl, but love in the deeper sense of universal brotherhood, the "peace on earth and good will toward men" trumpeted in Christmas carols but known in all or nearly all religions and worldviews as a very important thing indeed.
In "Yellow Submarine," the world is brought to a frozen, deathly state enforced by brutal, fascistic forces known as the "Blue Meanies." The cartoon Beatles save the world by reviving the frozen, lifeless band, which is an alternate form of the Beatles, that is, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, who then overpower the fascistic Meanies by singing the song, "All You Need is Love." Now I must admit, there were times when I was younger when I found this song sophomoric, so utterly simplistic in the face of all the complex problems that beset humanity. "Sure, if you have enough to eat and a roof over your head and some measure of security, great to sing about love. How about the poor and the homeless?" But now, in this grim and fearful time when Trump is empowering the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency as well as local police and sheriffs and others to be true "blue meanies" in ripping apart families and causing irreparable psychological damage not only to young children but to the rest of their families as well, creating trans-generational trauma that will create future problems for these families and others, all for what? For the "sacred," racist purpose of discouraging brown-skinned Latinos from thinking that American society might in any way be open to them. In this time, when Trump continues peddling misleading stereotypes and ranting about how America must be cleansed of unwanted foreigners and immigrants, the Beatles song rings very, VERY true as a very potent response to the sadistic policies and the apparent delight in cruelty of the Trump regime.
We do NOT have to be hateful and cruel toward immigrants, foreigners and refugees. We do NOT have to build walls and imprison people in institutional settings that are just modern versions of concentration camps. We could instead be loving and welcoming to the vast majority of immigrants and refugees who only wish to live in peace with us, to make a new life, to be part of this society. In this spirit, I applaud all those who are taking up slogans like "Nation of Immigrants" and "Welcome Refugees" and reminding us of the words on the Statue of Liberty. We need that. We need.... love. That is the ultimate weapon against Trump and his minions, to declare that we want to get along, get together, stand together, work together, live together, co-exist and seek the best in one another and in others... and build bridges of common purpose, not walls of fear and hate and menace.
In "Won't You Be My Neighbor," we see that Fred Rogers was not just a simple TV personality, but a moral visionary deeply concerned with the healthy emotional development of children... and society in general. He was an ordained minister, the world was his flock, and he used the medium of television not for fame or profit but as a form of ministry. He did not make a point of treating children with love and respect and telling them they were special in order to raise little self-centered narcissists, as has sometimes been charged, but because he wanted all people to feel safe and loved that they might grow up to seek a community of love and peace, not aggression and suspicion, one group against another, one race against another, one religion against another. Fred Rogers was rightly appalled by all the mass entertainment that glorifies guns, violence, speed and death, when what human beings really need... is love. Corny? Perhaps. Trite? You could say so. Simplistic? In a way, of course. But as we now live in a time where our country's president and government are enforcing policies reveling in cruelty, discord and aggression, totally lacking in love, except for the narcissistic cult of King Donald, an orange meanie in place of the blue ones prophesied in the Beatles film, Mr. Rogers' invitation to us all to be good neighbors is a very good thing indeed. This is not sappy. This is not a cliche. This is your life raft and survival manual.
We are struggling to stand upright against a disgusting, fecal barrage of hateful misinformation and confusing propaganda dished out daily by the Trump-Putin-Fox News axis that wants nothing more than to foment division and anger so that authoritarian forces can impose "law and order" with guns and brutality. We should remember John Lennon's advice to never forget to "imagine" a better world, and to play positive "mind games" that can keep us sane and stable even if the world seems to be turning into a sewer. There have been terrible times in the world before, let us not forget, and one of the best things we can possibly do to survive this time and hopefully reach toward a better one in a near or distant future, is to try our best to love each other.
May the spirit of peace and love be with you. May you walk in agape, karuna, ahimsa and frith.
Showing posts with label peace. Show all posts
Showing posts with label peace. Show all posts
Saturday, July 21, 2018
Saturday, August 23, 2014
Peace Without Justice Is No Peace At All
The word "peace" has a pleasant ring to it, but it is thrown around much too easily, often without much thought as to what it really means and requires. When we think of peace as a desirable thing, it is not a "peace" floating in space, devoid of any social context or history or social obligations. It is a peace that makes people content to refrain from conflict because their needs have been satisfied to some extent, and because they feel respected and understood by those with whom they have been in conflict or disagreement.
In a couple of situations that have been very much in the news in recent weeks, the Palestinian-Israeli attacks, counter-attacks and ongoing animosity, and the tensions between protesters and police in Ferguson, Missouri following the police slaying of the unarmed, 18 year old young black man, Michael Brown, I note the tendency among many observers, commentators and politicians to plead for "peace," by which they mean an immediate cessation of violence. This make me reflect on how, for many people who do not think very often or very deeply about these matters, there is a very simple solution to such conflict situations: just stop fighting. Palestinians, stop shooting rockets and killing Israelis. African-Americans of Ferguson, stop throwing rocks and flaming bottles at the police. Embrace "peace." Lion and lamb, please come together, and all the surrounding sheep will BAAAAA in agreement!
This kind of quick, easy and empty "peace," a cessation of conflict without any resolution of the underlying grievances and injustices that drove the conflict in the first place, is not only simplistic, short-sighted and disrespectful to those who have risked bodily harm or even sacrificed their lives to voice their grievances in these actions, but often ensures that there will be more conflict and violence in the future, for the simmering grievances will not become less heated over time simply because "peace" has been declared or imposed.
In the two cases cited above, most of our news media and political leaders tend to side with whoever the dominant power in the situation is, and to show much more sympathy for their suffering and losses than those of the other side. So, in the violence between the Palestinians and Israelis, we hear much more about how the Israelis are justified in using force against the Palestinians than we do about why the Palestinians are rising up in the first place. If an Israeli civilian such as a mother or a child is killed by a Hamas rocket, this is lamented and dramatized, but less so when Palestinians are killed or have their homes and communities reduced to rubble by Israeli missiles and soldiers, even though many more Palestinians have been killed by Israelis than the reverse, in this and past conflicts as well. Still, the Palestinians are expected to accept the destruction of their communities, pick up the pieces and move on, and live happy, "peaceful" lives despite their poverty, trauma and despair, which Israeli policy enforces through such measure as the "Separation Wall" that seals off the Palestinian territories, the Israeli military-manned checkpoints that they have to pass through on a daily basis, to their great frustration and humiliation, and the Israeli-imposed economic blockade that strangles their economic life and ensures continuing poverty and desperation. Where is the sympathy and understanding for that? It seems to me that in much of our media and among many of our leaders, it is only the suffering of the Israelis that receives attention.
In Ferguson, though there is sympathy expressed for the death of Michael Brown, the protesters who have turned to violence are seen as unreasonable hooligans, unlike the "good" protestors, who march in the daytime in the streets holding signs and flowers without resorting to any violence. The state's governor, Jay Nixon, and senior senator, Claire McCaskill, have also embraced this narrative of "good" peaceful protestors versus "bad" violent ones who dare to threaten the police. When the state authorities send in National Guard forces and fire tear gas at protestors in the streets, this may be questioned as to whether it might be a bit excessive, but is still seen as understandable because something must be done to keep the protestors from getting out of control. This understanding attitude toward police use of force, coupled with an unwillingness to allow citizens to use force to fight back against the force used against them, overlooks the deeper reality that the violent protestors are not merely responding to the slaying of Michael Brown but expressing their burning resentment over months, years, and even decades of abuse and harassment that African-Americans in Ferguson have endured at the hands of the Ferguson police and other local and state authorities. There is the stubborn reality of decades of white flight, white-dominated government agencies, including the police, and economic disinvestment in the Ferguson area that have made the black community as poor and troubled as it is. So, when the African-American community here or elsewhere explodes in violence, it has to be understood as an explosion that was caused first and foremost by a long and continuing historical experience of injustice and suffering. Where is the sympathy and understanding for that? It is my impression that for many in our media and among many of our leaders, it is only the violence of the angry African-American protestors that is condemned, not the social conditions and police brutality that drove them to this point.
If we could have "peace" of the sort that our media and politicians seem to be calling for in these situations, a cessation of violent actions before there is any resolution of the issues driving the violence, what an empty and horrible thing it would be. It would mean that people in such situations as the Palestinian territories or the African-American community in cities like Ferguson would have to accept a life as a disrespected, disempowered second class of people, with no effective ability to oppose those who oppress, brutalize and disenfranchise them, vulnerable at any moment to violent treatment by state authorities, with no means of redress. This would be similar to the kind of peace that the Nazis were hoping to achieve, a nice peaceful society of clean, orderly, white German people after all the dirty and disorderly Jews and Slavs and others had been done away with. It would indeed have been very peaceful, but not at all very just.
Though I regret violence and loss of life of any sort, I do not condemn those in harshly oppressed situations who turn to violence when they reach the desperate conclusion that they have no other way of asserting their needs and concerns. Since the creation of Israel, the grievances of the Palestinians pushed out of their homes and off their land to make way for the nation of Israel have never been fully addressed or resolved. Israeli groups continue to build settlements on land that still, according to international law, belongs to the Palestinians, and so the Palestinians, already disadvantaged by the way in which they were treated during the creation of Israel, see their lands further diminished by these continuing encroachments, while they endure such hardships as the checkpoints and embargoes mentioned above. Who can blame them for exploding into violence, as regrettable as its effects may be? And answer this: would the world pay any attention to the Palestinians, would many people outside Palestine actually know or care about their issues and grievances, if they did not occasionally attack Israel? Do the proponents of empty "peace" expect them to simply suffer and die in silence, so that Israeli communities can flourish in peace and security and never have to worry about the people living right next to them in abominable conditions that they, the Israelis, helped to create and now help to maintain, who live under constant fear of the Israeli police and military? When the Palestinians rise up out of their segregated areas to fire rockets at the Israelis, could this not be compared to the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, when the disadvantaged, oppressed Jews decided to fight back courageously against their Nazi oppressors? This is indeed a most painful and horrible irony of the situation of the state of Israel and its troubled co-existence with its Palestinian citizens and neighbors.
And in Ferguson, if there were not violent protestors out in the streets at night throwing Molotov cocktails at the police, would anyone really know or care about the death of Michael Brown and the suffering of the black people of Ferguson? Would the national news media or politicians really pay much attention to quiet, peaceful protests? If the African-Americans there had only protested peacefully, without the drama of violence, would anyone really pay attention or care?
When the long-suffering, oppressed people of any location rise up in violence, it is only because they have been pushed to the brink by authorities that have often preferred to bury them than to care for them. If you want to stop the violence of tomorrow, start thinking about the disadvantaged, underprivileged, and either overtly or subtly oppressed people of today, and start thinking about how we and our institutions and authorities can help those people have a better life today and tomorrow, so that there will be no need for anyone to turn to violence to express the anger, sorrow, humiliation, bitterness and despair that we see in all too many places in our troubled and all too often indifferent world, and don't ask people to respect "law and order" when they have never seen any benefit or justice from that so-called law and so-called order.
Peace without justice is no peace at all. We need peace with justice and caring for the needs of all, not just for certain classes or colors of people, who get to live the good life while others have no life at all.
And to put a Pagan twist on this, I once again reject the narrow tribalism of ethnic division that some Pagans embrace. Just look at Ferguson and all the other communities in America where there is a sharp division between predominantly black and white communities. There are your clearly demarcated tribes, and there you have injustice and hate. Look at Israel and Palestine, and you find the same thing. We need to build bridges, not fences, and break bread together, and look for the good of all humanity, not just one enclave walled off from another and played off against it. Ethnic traditions such as songs, prayers, myths and forms of folk art that come to us from the past are beautiful things, but they are part of the common human heritage and should be respected and enjoyed as such. They should bring us together in moments of sharing and appreciation, and discovery of commonality across the range of diverse expressions of human spirituality and local culture, and not be used to separate us or inflame us against one another.
In a couple of situations that have been very much in the news in recent weeks, the Palestinian-Israeli attacks, counter-attacks and ongoing animosity, and the tensions between protesters and police in Ferguson, Missouri following the police slaying of the unarmed, 18 year old young black man, Michael Brown, I note the tendency among many observers, commentators and politicians to plead for "peace," by which they mean an immediate cessation of violence. This make me reflect on how, for many people who do not think very often or very deeply about these matters, there is a very simple solution to such conflict situations: just stop fighting. Palestinians, stop shooting rockets and killing Israelis. African-Americans of Ferguson, stop throwing rocks and flaming bottles at the police. Embrace "peace." Lion and lamb, please come together, and all the surrounding sheep will BAAAAA in agreement!
This kind of quick, easy and empty "peace," a cessation of conflict without any resolution of the underlying grievances and injustices that drove the conflict in the first place, is not only simplistic, short-sighted and disrespectful to those who have risked bodily harm or even sacrificed their lives to voice their grievances in these actions, but often ensures that there will be more conflict and violence in the future, for the simmering grievances will not become less heated over time simply because "peace" has been declared or imposed.
In the two cases cited above, most of our news media and political leaders tend to side with whoever the dominant power in the situation is, and to show much more sympathy for their suffering and losses than those of the other side. So, in the violence between the Palestinians and Israelis, we hear much more about how the Israelis are justified in using force against the Palestinians than we do about why the Palestinians are rising up in the first place. If an Israeli civilian such as a mother or a child is killed by a Hamas rocket, this is lamented and dramatized, but less so when Palestinians are killed or have their homes and communities reduced to rubble by Israeli missiles and soldiers, even though many more Palestinians have been killed by Israelis than the reverse, in this and past conflicts as well. Still, the Palestinians are expected to accept the destruction of their communities, pick up the pieces and move on, and live happy, "peaceful" lives despite their poverty, trauma and despair, which Israeli policy enforces through such measure as the "Separation Wall" that seals off the Palestinian territories, the Israeli military-manned checkpoints that they have to pass through on a daily basis, to their great frustration and humiliation, and the Israeli-imposed economic blockade that strangles their economic life and ensures continuing poverty and desperation. Where is the sympathy and understanding for that? It seems to me that in much of our media and among many of our leaders, it is only the suffering of the Israelis that receives attention.
In Ferguson, though there is sympathy expressed for the death of Michael Brown, the protesters who have turned to violence are seen as unreasonable hooligans, unlike the "good" protestors, who march in the daytime in the streets holding signs and flowers without resorting to any violence. The state's governor, Jay Nixon, and senior senator, Claire McCaskill, have also embraced this narrative of "good" peaceful protestors versus "bad" violent ones who dare to threaten the police. When the state authorities send in National Guard forces and fire tear gas at protestors in the streets, this may be questioned as to whether it might be a bit excessive, but is still seen as understandable because something must be done to keep the protestors from getting out of control. This understanding attitude toward police use of force, coupled with an unwillingness to allow citizens to use force to fight back against the force used against them, overlooks the deeper reality that the violent protestors are not merely responding to the slaying of Michael Brown but expressing their burning resentment over months, years, and even decades of abuse and harassment that African-Americans in Ferguson have endured at the hands of the Ferguson police and other local and state authorities. There is the stubborn reality of decades of white flight, white-dominated government agencies, including the police, and economic disinvestment in the Ferguson area that have made the black community as poor and troubled as it is. So, when the African-American community here or elsewhere explodes in violence, it has to be understood as an explosion that was caused first and foremost by a long and continuing historical experience of injustice and suffering. Where is the sympathy and understanding for that? It is my impression that for many in our media and among many of our leaders, it is only the violence of the angry African-American protestors that is condemned, not the social conditions and police brutality that drove them to this point.
If we could have "peace" of the sort that our media and politicians seem to be calling for in these situations, a cessation of violent actions before there is any resolution of the issues driving the violence, what an empty and horrible thing it would be. It would mean that people in such situations as the Palestinian territories or the African-American community in cities like Ferguson would have to accept a life as a disrespected, disempowered second class of people, with no effective ability to oppose those who oppress, brutalize and disenfranchise them, vulnerable at any moment to violent treatment by state authorities, with no means of redress. This would be similar to the kind of peace that the Nazis were hoping to achieve, a nice peaceful society of clean, orderly, white German people after all the dirty and disorderly Jews and Slavs and others had been done away with. It would indeed have been very peaceful, but not at all very just.
Though I regret violence and loss of life of any sort, I do not condemn those in harshly oppressed situations who turn to violence when they reach the desperate conclusion that they have no other way of asserting their needs and concerns. Since the creation of Israel, the grievances of the Palestinians pushed out of their homes and off their land to make way for the nation of Israel have never been fully addressed or resolved. Israeli groups continue to build settlements on land that still, according to international law, belongs to the Palestinians, and so the Palestinians, already disadvantaged by the way in which they were treated during the creation of Israel, see their lands further diminished by these continuing encroachments, while they endure such hardships as the checkpoints and embargoes mentioned above. Who can blame them for exploding into violence, as regrettable as its effects may be? And answer this: would the world pay any attention to the Palestinians, would many people outside Palestine actually know or care about their issues and grievances, if they did not occasionally attack Israel? Do the proponents of empty "peace" expect them to simply suffer and die in silence, so that Israeli communities can flourish in peace and security and never have to worry about the people living right next to them in abominable conditions that they, the Israelis, helped to create and now help to maintain, who live under constant fear of the Israeli police and military? When the Palestinians rise up out of their segregated areas to fire rockets at the Israelis, could this not be compared to the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, when the disadvantaged, oppressed Jews decided to fight back courageously against their Nazi oppressors? This is indeed a most painful and horrible irony of the situation of the state of Israel and its troubled co-existence with its Palestinian citizens and neighbors.
And in Ferguson, if there were not violent protestors out in the streets at night throwing Molotov cocktails at the police, would anyone really know or care about the death of Michael Brown and the suffering of the black people of Ferguson? Would the national news media or politicians really pay much attention to quiet, peaceful protests? If the African-Americans there had only protested peacefully, without the drama of violence, would anyone really pay attention or care?
When the long-suffering, oppressed people of any location rise up in violence, it is only because they have been pushed to the brink by authorities that have often preferred to bury them than to care for them. If you want to stop the violence of tomorrow, start thinking about the disadvantaged, underprivileged, and either overtly or subtly oppressed people of today, and start thinking about how we and our institutions and authorities can help those people have a better life today and tomorrow, so that there will be no need for anyone to turn to violence to express the anger, sorrow, humiliation, bitterness and despair that we see in all too many places in our troubled and all too often indifferent world, and don't ask people to respect "law and order" when they have never seen any benefit or justice from that so-called law and so-called order.
Peace without justice is no peace at all. We need peace with justice and caring for the needs of all, not just for certain classes or colors of people, who get to live the good life while others have no life at all.
And to put a Pagan twist on this, I once again reject the narrow tribalism of ethnic division that some Pagans embrace. Just look at Ferguson and all the other communities in America where there is a sharp division between predominantly black and white communities. There are your clearly demarcated tribes, and there you have injustice and hate. Look at Israel and Palestine, and you find the same thing. We need to build bridges, not fences, and break bread together, and look for the good of all humanity, not just one enclave walled off from another and played off against it. Ethnic traditions such as songs, prayers, myths and forms of folk art that come to us from the past are beautiful things, but they are part of the common human heritage and should be respected and enjoyed as such. They should bring us together in moments of sharing and appreciation, and discovery of commonality across the range of diverse expressions of human spirituality and local culture, and not be used to separate us or inflame us against one another.
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
The Culture of Violence Devours Its Young
The recent (Dec. 14) mass killing in Newtown, Connecticut, a town not so far or so different from the one I was born in, sickens me with grief and anger, with hot, bitter tears repeatedly welling in my eyes over the last several days. The only good thing that can be said about this cruel slaughter of 6 and 7 year old children and those who worked with them is that it seems to be provoking the wayward conscience of my countrymen to consider once more some kind of action to limit gun violence in our country. It is hard to be too optimistic about this, however, as we have had similar mass killings in recent years that also stimulated discussions of possible new gun control measures, only for these to quickly fade as America reverted to its characteristic acquiescence in a culture of violence with a society divided between those who think we should have less guns in circulation and those who think the answer to gun-related deaths is always MORE GUNS.
I am in favor of more regulations on the ownership and distribution of guns, such as a renewed ban on assault rifles and other rapid-fire weapons, which are designed for battlefield carnage, not the civilian needs of personal protection or hunting, and an ending to the bizarre loophole in our gun laws that make "gun shows," bazaar-like sales of all manner of guns and gun paraphernalia, exempt from most regulations in effect at regular gun shops, making it easy for people to buy the most dangerous types of weapons and huge amounts of ammunition with few questions asked. I think there is a lot that could be done without interfering with the right of people to own some guns and use guns for sport and self-protection, while indeed quite deliberately interfering with the foolish and dangerous belief of many in this country that Americans should be allowed to carry and use guns anywhere, anytime, anyhow.
Should you respond with the gun-rights battle-cry of "Don't infringe on my liberty! Second Amendment rights!!!," let me suggest a bit of context here. No liberty is absolute. No rights are absolute. There are always compromises made in the interest of the public good. (Of course, if all you care about are private rights and don't accept the notion of a "public good," this will probably not make much sense to you.) We don't allow people to drive anywhere they want. You may want to drive on the left side of the street, Brit-style, and may not want to stop at traffic lights, but you accept that kind of restriction of your "freedom" because that is what is needed to ensure a modicum of safety and order in our streets and cities. We don't allow people to walk around naked in public places. Maybe this infringes on a person's self-expression and personal identity, but we restrict it as it is thought to be offensive to public morality. You may want to dump toxic chemicals from your garage or your business into the local river, because it would be convenient for you to dispose of these things this way, but it is not allowed because it would be bad for public health and the environment. Even dogs are no longer free to shit on the streets, sidewalks and parks without their owners "bringing up the rear" and scooping up the poop. Terrible restriction on personal liberty, isn't it? But we generally accept that in all of these cases, personal liberty is not absolute, but has to be tempered by consideration of the public good. I think the same applies to gun control laws. No one is talking about an all-out elimination of all gun ownership in the USA. All that is being proposed are restrictions on the sale and ownership of the most dangerous weapons, and a more careful procedure for gun sales and registration in general.
It would also help a great deal to have NATIONAL laws, not state laws regulating guns. If one state has very tight gun restrictions and the adjoining state has lax laws, all a person in search of the most carnage-inducing instruments of death has to do is drive across state lines and find a gun merchant. For gun laws to be effective, they have to be NATIONAL in scope, and it would be even better to work at INTERNATIONAL gun treaties to avoid the problem noted above from being relocated to the international stage.
My main purpose today is not to argue about gun control, however, even if I have started off that way. I am more concerned with the WHY of our ever-increasing gun violence. Some look at incidents like the one that just happened in Newtown and put the blame on mental illness. That guy was sick, that guy was crazy, they say; we need more mental health services and more screening for mental illness, and then we'll be fine.
I don't buy that argument. It is too easy and too narrow. It may be that many of the people who go on gun rampages have some kind of psychiatric ailment, but this does not explain why they act out their disturbance in the same way, again and again: loading up on guns, usually including the most lethal, high-capacity types, and then seeking out a public area where they enact the same ritualized scenario, again and again: shooting as many people as they can in a short period of time and then taking their own lives, or dying in a hail of gunfire that they bring down upon themselves. These killers are not each coming up with a unique, creative scenario, but all seem to be following the same basic script. Did they create this script, this pattern, this idea, all on their own? If they have, then we can rest easy that this is simply a misfiring neuron or chemical imbalance or thought disorder, the tragic malfunctioning of a diseased brain, and all we need to understand is which psychiatric label to apply to said brain, medicate or lock away the person bearing bad brain, and voila! Case closed.
But these disturbed murderers are not coming up with these mass-killing scenarios, these die-in-a-blaze-of-glory extravaganzas all on their own. Our media is saturated with images and stories of people who live and die by and with guns, constantly shooting, killing, bleeding, more and more bodies, more and more deaths on our television, movie and video game screens EVERY DAY. And our young are becoming addicted to violent entertainment. It may be that for most young people, this exposure causes no lasting harm, at least no obvious inclination toward mass murder, but how do we know for sure? How do we know how many people who resort to guns in killing and maiming others may have been influenced by the flood of enticing violence in our culture? More research needs to be done, no doubt, but isn't it common sense that if we allow our media to constantly bombard people with narratives and images glorifying gun violence, and we then see a trend of gun violence in our society, that our media may very well be contributing to the problem? Doesn't our economy run on the assumption that massive advertising is able to sway people's behavior? Don't we believe that media communication has an effect on people? Well, shouldn't the same reasoning apply to media violence? WE ARE CONSTANTLY ADVERTISING, MARKETING,BUYING, SELLING, MANUFACTURING AND PROFITING FROM FANTASIES OF VIOLENCE AND KILLING. WE ARE TRAINING OUR YOUNG TO KILL AND BE KILLED.
We need to address this larger social context, and not take refuge in false comfort that all we need is to label, medicate or lock away a few disturbed or diseased individuals. Yes, we need more mental health services, not only because of gun violence, but because it is part of having a humane society, assuming we still believe that such a thing is worth striving for. But we need to think more about how we educate, indoctrinate, advertise and seduce people into loving images of blood-drenched, bullet-riddled violence and narratives of glorious killing. We have to start thinking about restricting such pathways to violence, and building pathways that lead to more peaceful and humane places.
Yes, I am talking about censorship, but this is nothing so different from what we already do in certain areas. We do not allow kids to buy pornography. We slap massive fines on mainstream television performances that feature obscenity or nudity. We do not allow terrorists to use media channels to advocate violent attacks.
If in these cases we accept the need to limit free expression where it is seen as injurious to public health, safety or morals, why on earth don't we put limits on how many shootings and deaths can be shown per night per television program or video game? Yes, the entertainment companies, being immoral corporate greed monsters, will scream and cry that this is against free speech, this is un-American, this is against liberty and consumer choice, but we have to keep our eyes on the prize here. Those media companies will just have to find some different ways to enthrall and entertain their viewers and gamers. They may just have to come up with more compelling stories, characters and scenarios and diversify beyond the rote production of images of carnage. If the media giants are incapable of creating forms of entertainment that are not based upon mass violence, then we should take away their broadcasting licenses and put them out of business.
As a Pagan, I pray that all Pagans will focus their spirituality on glorifying peace and nature, not weapons and death. We can be part of the solution, or part of the problem. In a time when our society is so sick and so sad, let's be part of the solution.
I am in favor of more regulations on the ownership and distribution of guns, such as a renewed ban on assault rifles and other rapid-fire weapons, which are designed for battlefield carnage, not the civilian needs of personal protection or hunting, and an ending to the bizarre loophole in our gun laws that make "gun shows," bazaar-like sales of all manner of guns and gun paraphernalia, exempt from most regulations in effect at regular gun shops, making it easy for people to buy the most dangerous types of weapons and huge amounts of ammunition with few questions asked. I think there is a lot that could be done without interfering with the right of people to own some guns and use guns for sport and self-protection, while indeed quite deliberately interfering with the foolish and dangerous belief of many in this country that Americans should be allowed to carry and use guns anywhere, anytime, anyhow.
Should you respond with the gun-rights battle-cry of "Don't infringe on my liberty! Second Amendment rights!!!," let me suggest a bit of context here. No liberty is absolute. No rights are absolute. There are always compromises made in the interest of the public good. (Of course, if all you care about are private rights and don't accept the notion of a "public good," this will probably not make much sense to you.) We don't allow people to drive anywhere they want. You may want to drive on the left side of the street, Brit-style, and may not want to stop at traffic lights, but you accept that kind of restriction of your "freedom" because that is what is needed to ensure a modicum of safety and order in our streets and cities. We don't allow people to walk around naked in public places. Maybe this infringes on a person's self-expression and personal identity, but we restrict it as it is thought to be offensive to public morality. You may want to dump toxic chemicals from your garage or your business into the local river, because it would be convenient for you to dispose of these things this way, but it is not allowed because it would be bad for public health and the environment. Even dogs are no longer free to shit on the streets, sidewalks and parks without their owners "bringing up the rear" and scooping up the poop. Terrible restriction on personal liberty, isn't it? But we generally accept that in all of these cases, personal liberty is not absolute, but has to be tempered by consideration of the public good. I think the same applies to gun control laws. No one is talking about an all-out elimination of all gun ownership in the USA. All that is being proposed are restrictions on the sale and ownership of the most dangerous weapons, and a more careful procedure for gun sales and registration in general.
It would also help a great deal to have NATIONAL laws, not state laws regulating guns. If one state has very tight gun restrictions and the adjoining state has lax laws, all a person in search of the most carnage-inducing instruments of death has to do is drive across state lines and find a gun merchant. For gun laws to be effective, they have to be NATIONAL in scope, and it would be even better to work at INTERNATIONAL gun treaties to avoid the problem noted above from being relocated to the international stage.
My main purpose today is not to argue about gun control, however, even if I have started off that way. I am more concerned with the WHY of our ever-increasing gun violence. Some look at incidents like the one that just happened in Newtown and put the blame on mental illness. That guy was sick, that guy was crazy, they say; we need more mental health services and more screening for mental illness, and then we'll be fine.
I don't buy that argument. It is too easy and too narrow. It may be that many of the people who go on gun rampages have some kind of psychiatric ailment, but this does not explain why they act out their disturbance in the same way, again and again: loading up on guns, usually including the most lethal, high-capacity types, and then seeking out a public area where they enact the same ritualized scenario, again and again: shooting as many people as they can in a short period of time and then taking their own lives, or dying in a hail of gunfire that they bring down upon themselves. These killers are not each coming up with a unique, creative scenario, but all seem to be following the same basic script. Did they create this script, this pattern, this idea, all on their own? If they have, then we can rest easy that this is simply a misfiring neuron or chemical imbalance or thought disorder, the tragic malfunctioning of a diseased brain, and all we need to understand is which psychiatric label to apply to said brain, medicate or lock away the person bearing bad brain, and voila! Case closed.
But these disturbed murderers are not coming up with these mass-killing scenarios, these die-in-a-blaze-of-glory extravaganzas all on their own. Our media is saturated with images and stories of people who live and die by and with guns, constantly shooting, killing, bleeding, more and more bodies, more and more deaths on our television, movie and video game screens EVERY DAY. And our young are becoming addicted to violent entertainment. It may be that for most young people, this exposure causes no lasting harm, at least no obvious inclination toward mass murder, but how do we know for sure? How do we know how many people who resort to guns in killing and maiming others may have been influenced by the flood of enticing violence in our culture? More research needs to be done, no doubt, but isn't it common sense that if we allow our media to constantly bombard people with narratives and images glorifying gun violence, and we then see a trend of gun violence in our society, that our media may very well be contributing to the problem? Doesn't our economy run on the assumption that massive advertising is able to sway people's behavior? Don't we believe that media communication has an effect on people? Well, shouldn't the same reasoning apply to media violence? WE ARE CONSTANTLY ADVERTISING, MARKETING,BUYING, SELLING, MANUFACTURING AND PROFITING FROM FANTASIES OF VIOLENCE AND KILLING. WE ARE TRAINING OUR YOUNG TO KILL AND BE KILLED.
We need to address this larger social context, and not take refuge in false comfort that all we need is to label, medicate or lock away a few disturbed or diseased individuals. Yes, we need more mental health services, not only because of gun violence, but because it is part of having a humane society, assuming we still believe that such a thing is worth striving for. But we need to think more about how we educate, indoctrinate, advertise and seduce people into loving images of blood-drenched, bullet-riddled violence and narratives of glorious killing. We have to start thinking about restricting such pathways to violence, and building pathways that lead to more peaceful and humane places.
Yes, I am talking about censorship, but this is nothing so different from what we already do in certain areas. We do not allow kids to buy pornography. We slap massive fines on mainstream television performances that feature obscenity or nudity. We do not allow terrorists to use media channels to advocate violent attacks.
If in these cases we accept the need to limit free expression where it is seen as injurious to public health, safety or morals, why on earth don't we put limits on how many shootings and deaths can be shown per night per television program or video game? Yes, the entertainment companies, being immoral corporate greed monsters, will scream and cry that this is against free speech, this is un-American, this is against liberty and consumer choice, but we have to keep our eyes on the prize here. Those media companies will just have to find some different ways to enthrall and entertain their viewers and gamers. They may just have to come up with more compelling stories, characters and scenarios and diversify beyond the rote production of images of carnage. If the media giants are incapable of creating forms of entertainment that are not based upon mass violence, then we should take away their broadcasting licenses and put them out of business.
As a Pagan, I pray that all Pagans will focus their spirituality on glorifying peace and nature, not weapons and death. We can be part of the solution, or part of the problem. In a time when our society is so sick and so sad, let's be part of the solution.
Friday, November 23, 2012
Pagan Peace Process: An Open-Source Experiment
Attending the American Academy of Religion conference in Chicago last week, I was treated to the usual amazing buffet of scholarly research and perspectives on all manner of religious traditions, including a number of fine panels dealing with contemporary forms of Paganism. Conversing with some American scholar-friends who have also been involved in various ways and to differing degrees with Norse Paganism, I was inspired to again consider something I have toyed with in the past. This is the prospect of experimenting with creating a new form of modern Norse Paganism that would consciously de-emphasize, if not altogether discard, certain aspects of Asatru-Heathenry as this has developed in America. It will be no surprise to long-time readers of this blog that I am talking about rejecting overmuch concern with military heroism and warrior machismo, on the one hand, and with ethnic identity on the other, which, as has often been discussed, has an unfortunate tendency to mutate or degenerate into racist sentiment, or provide support or cover for such.
If we took out the macho celebration of weapons and war, the old notion of the ultra-violent Viking, and the appeal to Northern European white identity, would there be anything left, or do these two elements really contain the essence of American Asatru and Heathenry? (Notice how I use the word "American" as a qualifier--I think Scandinavian Asatru is actually on a different track and is not constructed on the same foundations and appeals as the American variety). I have no doubt that there are lots of young men who are drawn to Asatru because of the appeal of warrior machismo, who like to imagine themselves mighty Viking warriors, swinging big swords and axes against the enemies of their tribe and then celebrating their heroic victories with big horns of beer. Certainly there are men in prison coping with daily threats of violence and men away in the military or who come back from Iraq, Afghanistan or other battle zones who find it very meaningful to imagine themselves the heirs of the warrior traditions of old.
However, the prison and the battlefield are not the main reality of life for most people in this country or looking further, on this planet, even though the rapid growth of both the US prison system and the US military might make it seem so to many. The prison and the battlefield are dramatic and painful aspects of our world, to be sure, but should we take them as the template for life in general, requiring a recourse to a religion that rationalizes and celebrates war and violence? Is this how we wish to choose to imagine the world for ourselves and generations to come? To use a scholarly term, is this the "imaginary" that we wish to define our hopes and horizons? Crime, punishment, and war? Survival of the most brutal in a land of endless brutality? Is this all we believe that human beings are capable of? Sometimes it seems our popular culture wishes it so, and we, by purchasing and participating in that popular culture with its endless repackaging of warrior-against-the-world scenarios, from Rambo to World of Warcraft, to Grand Theft Auto to The Hunger Games to The Walking Dead, we add to the strength of that imaginary. It starts to seem normal to think that life is nothing but a violent, manly struggle to survive; there is nothing else. We need gods who will help us fight. 24/7 Ragnarok, we're all gonna die, let's go down fighting. Right?
I say, away with that. Done with that. Close the book on that. Anyone who wants to is free to go play those games and watch those movies and shows, but please don't come to our religion and ask us to sanctify your love of violence or work out your personal PTSD for you. (That is a serious problem, no joke by any means, and if you are suffering from that, there is therapy for that and I sincerely hope you take the step to go get it). We want to imagine the world in a different way. A society that struggles for peace and acceptance, not conquest and punishment, that tries to help people deal with their real problems and not offer them phony, fantasy solutions built around bombs and weapons.
Likewise with a focus on "ancestral tradition" that often sounds an awful lot like a plea for white privilege dressed up in medieval drag. You want White Power? Please, go join the Aryan Nations or the Ku Klux Klan. There are also some really basic problems with Americans claiming to be the heir of "Northern European spiritual tradition." America is a land of mixture and diversity. Most "white" people in America are a mixture of assorted European backgrounds that they have largely forgotten. To cling to "Northern European" and hence Asatru or Heathenry as your ancestral tradition is a bit silly when your most immediate ancestors may have had little knowledge of or interest in any particular country or culture of Northern Europe. If you are an American Heathen or Asatruar, you probably became interested in that region and its traditions as a teen or a young adult, and this is fine, but to say this comes from your ancestors speaking through your genes and not from the books or web sites that you recently encountered is not the most direct or straightforward statement of the course of events, but would seem instead to involve a projection into the past of interests that you just recently hit upon. And honestly, how many truly Pagan ancestors do you actually have knowledge of, rather than just imagination of? Is it possible that most of your ancestors, at least the last thousand years' worth, were Christian? Do you really think they are waiting for you in Valhalla? Doing what, chopping up their Bibles and crucifixes with swords and axes?
For these reasons, I think the claim of ancestral tradition is not legitimate for most Americans interested in Norse Paganism, including myself. I know I came to it through books, later through travels and studies, and I am not ashamed of it. I do not feel I have to dress it up into something more grandiose and impressive by saying "my ancestors are calling me...my Czech and Lithuanian (are they Northern European? hmmm... some would say Eastern or East-Central European) ancestors are calling me to become a Northern European Heathen and worship Odin." Like hell they are! Some of my recent Czech ancestors were Catholic priests and my Lithuanian grandmother was a particularly anti-semitic Catholic, but I can find no record of any Pagans, and certainly no Norse Pagans,among any ancestors that I have information about. If anything, it is the Thor comics of my youth and the Hilda Ellis Davidson books on Norse Paganism that I encountered in college that nudged me in this direction. What I am doing now with my own spirituality is my own choice and responsibility, with nothing to do with my ancestors. If I were to really follow ancestral tradition, I would have to go back to the Church,as that is the only "ancestral" spiritual path I have any real evidence about. And if I found out that I had some Jewish ancestors, which is possible, would I have to then become Jewish on alternate Saturdays?
I am sorry if what I am writing may be annoying or offensive to those American Asatruar or Heathens who have invested a lot of themselves in the claim of ancestral Northern European identity. You have to determine for yourself if that claim really stands up logically against what you actually know of your ancestry. I encourage you to take the test, and if you come out the other end realizing as I have that you cannot honestly or logically attribute your own spiritual inclinations to anything that was bequeathed to you by any ancestors that you actually have knowledge of ....RELAX. It's not so bad. You have now become an independent agent who can think for him or herself about what you want to do or be in matters of religion and spirituality, and of course in regards to life in general.
Returning to the main theme of this essay, if we jettison warrior machismo, weapon fetishes, and claims of Northern European ancestry, is there anything left of Asatru that we can still make use of and build upon? Yes. In fact, there is plenty.
There is still Scandinavia. We can still look to this region as a special, sacred place that we can visit in pilgrimage, like others visit Jerusalem, Varanasi and Mecca. And, no longer being weapon-bearers, we can more easily appreciate what Scandinavia has become since the Viking age: a region with the greatest shared prosperity of any place on earth, and the least militarism. A society that has turned away from making war to making a good life for its people, which was always the goal of the Vikings, in fact. Violent they were, at times, but never for its own sake. They went in search of plunder and economic opportunity. Scandinavians today have proven you can have a good society without overmuch reliance on violence or warfare.
There is still the Scandinavian literature and mythology. We can still study Old Norse and also modern Scandinavian languages, but with our eyes opened to new possibilities. We will pay more attention to the multiple functions of the gods, and not only focus on warrior aspects. We will see new meaning in how Frey gave up his sword, and how Odin was in most of his myths not a warrior king but a seeker of magical wisdom. We will reflect on the myth of Ragnarok as an epitaph for a "world of warcraft" that could not forestall destruction. We will note that after all the madness of war, nature regenerates, the world is restored, and nature proves mightier than war.
We can still enjoy the Saga tales of warrior heroes as a bit of violent entertainment, but without taking their violence as something paradigmatic or sacred. The Sagas were written first and foremost to entertain, and we have to think more about that. Furthermore, when we take a closer look at a figure like Egil Skallagrimsson, we will be more inclined to note that his main occupation was poet, not warrior. With a de-militarized perspective, other more peaceful elements of the old writings will become more clear to us. We will note for example that the Old Norse sagas describe a failed struggle to create a society of laws, not weapons, with a great deal of space devoted to legal proceedings at the regional Thing councils and the annual Althing. We will ponder the extent to which the tragedy of Icelandic history was that endless feuding,the primacy of weapons over law, crippled the early Republic and left it ripe for colonization, first by Norway then Denmark.
We will note too that Iceland gained its independence not through taking up arms and hying to the sea in longships but through a peaceful process of cultural renovation which helped persuade Iceland's colonial rulers in Denmark that the country did deserve respect and autonomy.
What I am writing here may seem strange to Americans who have grown up in American Asatru and Heathenry, which has been so strongly affected by the tastes and predilections of a generation of military men like Stephen McNallen and Valgard Murray. It would not seem strange however to Asatruar or Heathens in Iceland or Scandinavia, however, where war and weapons are not such a priority. When I have attended rituals in Iceland, Norway or Sweden, I felt a peaceful, spiritual mood that I find gets buried in all the militaristic trappings of the American version.
In a de-militarized, de-racialized Norse Paganism, we will still have the Pagan sacredness of nature. We can have renewed appreciation for all the mystery of nature that is upheld in the Eddas and elsewhere. All hail to the World Tree Yggdrasil, the foundation of all life and the living link between all realms of existence. All hail to the ocean, the realm of Njord! All hail to the earth, the mother of Thor!
We will still have rituals like sumbel/symbel and blot, but we will remove the weapons and warrior decorations. We can deck the halls with art that represents the sacredness of nature and the spiritual quest for higher realities. More runes, less rifles, so to speak!
We will still have the love of Norse-Germanic tradition, but without making silly or poorly grounded claims that we love this stuff because it is flowing in our veins,in our bones, our genes, our DNA. Cutting out the "blood and soil," quasi-racist crap will free us to make Asatru truly open to ANYONE who wants to participate, who finds the gods, myths, poems and other aspects of Norse-Germanic culture attractive or inspirational. It will no longer be possible to claim that Asatru-Heathenry is a cover or support for racism, and Asatru-Heathenry will have an easier time standing up against the racist thugs who like to use Norse-Germanic symbolism and folklore for Nazi-istic purposes.
Now is where YOU come in. I would like to ask readers to submit their ideas for rituals and other activities that would draw on Norse-Germanic tradition, but steer clear of racial and military overtones in order to glorify peaceful human existence and the sacredness of nature. Let's experiment. Send in your thoughts, speculations and experiences, and we can put together a rough guide to a non-racist, non-militarist Asatru.
We will probably need a new name for this, as well, to not cause confusion with existing forms of Asatru or Heathenry in America that we are trying to distinguish ourselves from. With my friends at AAR, we proposed Peaceful Tru, or more humorously, Wimp-a-tru, to underline our disinterest in military machismo. Perhaps Tree-Tru with reference to the World Tree as a symbol of nature and the interconnectedness of all life? How about The Great Northern Peace, to be symbolized by that Northern Lights?
Here are some opening suggestions. Imagine a ritual gathering around a fire. We could pass a drinking horn in the manner of a sumbel, but modify the sumbel to have one round of the horn dedicated to participants stating their concerns and intentions for social betterment, world peace, environmental preservation, and other positive goals of this sort. As a sacrifice, we could burn a mock-sword or maybe a mock-bomb made of a flammable substance like paper, cardboard or wood on which we each would have inscribed our wishes for an end to war and a turning away from violence and aggression, including our personal problems with cruelty, aggression and force.
I know there are those who will find this project ridiculous or sacrilegious. That is fine; to each their own. There is room for everyone to develop their own approaches and sensibilities. After all, there is no Asatru Pope, no central authority enforcing orthodox dogma last time I checked. If what I am proposing here doesn't suit you, feel free to ridicule or reject these ideas and stick with what works for you. Those who do see something of worth here are invited to think on these matters and participate as they see fit. As Bob Dylan sang in 1966, "Time will tell/Just who has fell/And who's been left behind/When you go your way/And I go mine." Above all, Let OUR way be a good and productive way!
If we took out the macho celebration of weapons and war, the old notion of the ultra-violent Viking, and the appeal to Northern European white identity, would there be anything left, or do these two elements really contain the essence of American Asatru and Heathenry? (Notice how I use the word "American" as a qualifier--I think Scandinavian Asatru is actually on a different track and is not constructed on the same foundations and appeals as the American variety). I have no doubt that there are lots of young men who are drawn to Asatru because of the appeal of warrior machismo, who like to imagine themselves mighty Viking warriors, swinging big swords and axes against the enemies of their tribe and then celebrating their heroic victories with big horns of beer. Certainly there are men in prison coping with daily threats of violence and men away in the military or who come back from Iraq, Afghanistan or other battle zones who find it very meaningful to imagine themselves the heirs of the warrior traditions of old.
However, the prison and the battlefield are not the main reality of life for most people in this country or looking further, on this planet, even though the rapid growth of both the US prison system and the US military might make it seem so to many. The prison and the battlefield are dramatic and painful aspects of our world, to be sure, but should we take them as the template for life in general, requiring a recourse to a religion that rationalizes and celebrates war and violence? Is this how we wish to choose to imagine the world for ourselves and generations to come? To use a scholarly term, is this the "imaginary" that we wish to define our hopes and horizons? Crime, punishment, and war? Survival of the most brutal in a land of endless brutality? Is this all we believe that human beings are capable of? Sometimes it seems our popular culture wishes it so, and we, by purchasing and participating in that popular culture with its endless repackaging of warrior-against-the-world scenarios, from Rambo to World of Warcraft, to Grand Theft Auto to The Hunger Games to The Walking Dead, we add to the strength of that imaginary. It starts to seem normal to think that life is nothing but a violent, manly struggle to survive; there is nothing else. We need gods who will help us fight. 24/7 Ragnarok, we're all gonna die, let's go down fighting. Right?
I say, away with that. Done with that. Close the book on that. Anyone who wants to is free to go play those games and watch those movies and shows, but please don't come to our religion and ask us to sanctify your love of violence or work out your personal PTSD for you. (That is a serious problem, no joke by any means, and if you are suffering from that, there is therapy for that and I sincerely hope you take the step to go get it). We want to imagine the world in a different way. A society that struggles for peace and acceptance, not conquest and punishment, that tries to help people deal with their real problems and not offer them phony, fantasy solutions built around bombs and weapons.
Likewise with a focus on "ancestral tradition" that often sounds an awful lot like a plea for white privilege dressed up in medieval drag. You want White Power? Please, go join the Aryan Nations or the Ku Klux Klan. There are also some really basic problems with Americans claiming to be the heir of "Northern European spiritual tradition." America is a land of mixture and diversity. Most "white" people in America are a mixture of assorted European backgrounds that they have largely forgotten. To cling to "Northern European" and hence Asatru or Heathenry as your ancestral tradition is a bit silly when your most immediate ancestors may have had little knowledge of or interest in any particular country or culture of Northern Europe. If you are an American Heathen or Asatruar, you probably became interested in that region and its traditions as a teen or a young adult, and this is fine, but to say this comes from your ancestors speaking through your genes and not from the books or web sites that you recently encountered is not the most direct or straightforward statement of the course of events, but would seem instead to involve a projection into the past of interests that you just recently hit upon. And honestly, how many truly Pagan ancestors do you actually have knowledge of, rather than just imagination of? Is it possible that most of your ancestors, at least the last thousand years' worth, were Christian? Do you really think they are waiting for you in Valhalla? Doing what, chopping up their Bibles and crucifixes with swords and axes?
For these reasons, I think the claim of ancestral tradition is not legitimate for most Americans interested in Norse Paganism, including myself. I know I came to it through books, later through travels and studies, and I am not ashamed of it. I do not feel I have to dress it up into something more grandiose and impressive by saying "my ancestors are calling me...my Czech and Lithuanian (are they Northern European? hmmm... some would say Eastern or East-Central European) ancestors are calling me to become a Northern European Heathen and worship Odin." Like hell they are! Some of my recent Czech ancestors were Catholic priests and my Lithuanian grandmother was a particularly anti-semitic Catholic, but I can find no record of any Pagans, and certainly no Norse Pagans,among any ancestors that I have information about. If anything, it is the Thor comics of my youth and the Hilda Ellis Davidson books on Norse Paganism that I encountered in college that nudged me in this direction. What I am doing now with my own spirituality is my own choice and responsibility, with nothing to do with my ancestors. If I were to really follow ancestral tradition, I would have to go back to the Church,as that is the only "ancestral" spiritual path I have any real evidence about. And if I found out that I had some Jewish ancestors, which is possible, would I have to then become Jewish on alternate Saturdays?
I am sorry if what I am writing may be annoying or offensive to those American Asatruar or Heathens who have invested a lot of themselves in the claim of ancestral Northern European identity. You have to determine for yourself if that claim really stands up logically against what you actually know of your ancestry. I encourage you to take the test, and if you come out the other end realizing as I have that you cannot honestly or logically attribute your own spiritual inclinations to anything that was bequeathed to you by any ancestors that you actually have knowledge of ....RELAX. It's not so bad. You have now become an independent agent who can think for him or herself about what you want to do or be in matters of religion and spirituality, and of course in regards to life in general.
Returning to the main theme of this essay, if we jettison warrior machismo, weapon fetishes, and claims of Northern European ancestry, is there anything left of Asatru that we can still make use of and build upon? Yes. In fact, there is plenty.
There is still Scandinavia. We can still look to this region as a special, sacred place that we can visit in pilgrimage, like others visit Jerusalem, Varanasi and Mecca. And, no longer being weapon-bearers, we can more easily appreciate what Scandinavia has become since the Viking age: a region with the greatest shared prosperity of any place on earth, and the least militarism. A society that has turned away from making war to making a good life for its people, which was always the goal of the Vikings, in fact. Violent they were, at times, but never for its own sake. They went in search of plunder and economic opportunity. Scandinavians today have proven you can have a good society without overmuch reliance on violence or warfare.
There is still the Scandinavian literature and mythology. We can still study Old Norse and also modern Scandinavian languages, but with our eyes opened to new possibilities. We will pay more attention to the multiple functions of the gods, and not only focus on warrior aspects. We will see new meaning in how Frey gave up his sword, and how Odin was in most of his myths not a warrior king but a seeker of magical wisdom. We will reflect on the myth of Ragnarok as an epitaph for a "world of warcraft" that could not forestall destruction. We will note that after all the madness of war, nature regenerates, the world is restored, and nature proves mightier than war.
We can still enjoy the Saga tales of warrior heroes as a bit of violent entertainment, but without taking their violence as something paradigmatic or sacred. The Sagas were written first and foremost to entertain, and we have to think more about that. Furthermore, when we take a closer look at a figure like Egil Skallagrimsson, we will be more inclined to note that his main occupation was poet, not warrior. With a de-militarized perspective, other more peaceful elements of the old writings will become more clear to us. We will note for example that the Old Norse sagas describe a failed struggle to create a society of laws, not weapons, with a great deal of space devoted to legal proceedings at the regional Thing councils and the annual Althing. We will ponder the extent to which the tragedy of Icelandic history was that endless feuding,the primacy of weapons over law, crippled the early Republic and left it ripe for colonization, first by Norway then Denmark.
We will note too that Iceland gained its independence not through taking up arms and hying to the sea in longships but through a peaceful process of cultural renovation which helped persuade Iceland's colonial rulers in Denmark that the country did deserve respect and autonomy.
What I am writing here may seem strange to Americans who have grown up in American Asatru and Heathenry, which has been so strongly affected by the tastes and predilections of a generation of military men like Stephen McNallen and Valgard Murray. It would not seem strange however to Asatruar or Heathens in Iceland or Scandinavia, however, where war and weapons are not such a priority. When I have attended rituals in Iceland, Norway or Sweden, I felt a peaceful, spiritual mood that I find gets buried in all the militaristic trappings of the American version.
In a de-militarized, de-racialized Norse Paganism, we will still have the Pagan sacredness of nature. We can have renewed appreciation for all the mystery of nature that is upheld in the Eddas and elsewhere. All hail to the World Tree Yggdrasil, the foundation of all life and the living link between all realms of existence. All hail to the ocean, the realm of Njord! All hail to the earth, the mother of Thor!
We will still have rituals like sumbel/symbel and blot, but we will remove the weapons and warrior decorations. We can deck the halls with art that represents the sacredness of nature and the spiritual quest for higher realities. More runes, less rifles, so to speak!
We will still have the love of Norse-Germanic tradition, but without making silly or poorly grounded claims that we love this stuff because it is flowing in our veins,in our bones, our genes, our DNA. Cutting out the "blood and soil," quasi-racist crap will free us to make Asatru truly open to ANYONE who wants to participate, who finds the gods, myths, poems and other aspects of Norse-Germanic culture attractive or inspirational. It will no longer be possible to claim that Asatru-Heathenry is a cover or support for racism, and Asatru-Heathenry will have an easier time standing up against the racist thugs who like to use Norse-Germanic symbolism and folklore for Nazi-istic purposes.
Now is where YOU come in. I would like to ask readers to submit their ideas for rituals and other activities that would draw on Norse-Germanic tradition, but steer clear of racial and military overtones in order to glorify peaceful human existence and the sacredness of nature. Let's experiment. Send in your thoughts, speculations and experiences, and we can put together a rough guide to a non-racist, non-militarist Asatru.
We will probably need a new name for this, as well, to not cause confusion with existing forms of Asatru or Heathenry in America that we are trying to distinguish ourselves from. With my friends at AAR, we proposed Peaceful Tru, or more humorously, Wimp-a-tru, to underline our disinterest in military machismo. Perhaps Tree-Tru with reference to the World Tree as a symbol of nature and the interconnectedness of all life? How about The Great Northern Peace, to be symbolized by that Northern Lights?
Here are some opening suggestions. Imagine a ritual gathering around a fire. We could pass a drinking horn in the manner of a sumbel, but modify the sumbel to have one round of the horn dedicated to participants stating their concerns and intentions for social betterment, world peace, environmental preservation, and other positive goals of this sort. As a sacrifice, we could burn a mock-sword or maybe a mock-bomb made of a flammable substance like paper, cardboard or wood on which we each would have inscribed our wishes for an end to war and a turning away from violence and aggression, including our personal problems with cruelty, aggression and force.
I know there are those who will find this project ridiculous or sacrilegious. That is fine; to each their own. There is room for everyone to develop their own approaches and sensibilities. After all, there is no Asatru Pope, no central authority enforcing orthodox dogma last time I checked. If what I am proposing here doesn't suit you, feel free to ridicule or reject these ideas and stick with what works for you. Those who do see something of worth here are invited to think on these matters and participate as they see fit. As Bob Dylan sang in 1966, "Time will tell/Just who has fell/And who's been left behind/When you go your way/And I go mine." Above all, Let OUR way be a good and productive way!
Sunday, July 22, 2012
A "Normal" American Massacre: Gun Violence in America
Another hellish shooting in America, this time in Aurora, Colorado. Another mass murder by a deranged gunman, the 24 year old James Eagan Holmes, this time in a movie theatre. Another round of speeches by politicians deploring the loss of life and calling on us to pray for the dead and for their families. This time, Obama and Romney making the usual robotic-compassionate speeches. It's all become so very normal in America, as we seem to have these explosions of gun violence on a horribly regular basis. The news media will be all abuzz for several days with coverage of the tearful survivors and their families.
One thing likely to be missing: any rational discussion of the need for more gun control in this country. We might not be able to prevent all dangerous individuals from getting guns and wreaking havoc, but doesn't it make sense that if we reduce the supply and ease of access to guns in this society, we might see less of these awful events? I fear that our public officials are too afraid of the NRA (the politically powerful National Rifle Association) and the gun lobby to engage in any such discussion. We can look forward to the next massacre, more politicians calling for prayers for the dead and their families, more media stories about pathetic victims, tearful survivors and traumatized families, and nothing will be learned. This country is brain-dead when it comes to the issue of gun violence. It is one of the saddest things about America. As far as I can tell, the Zombie Apocalypse is already here.
As a Pagan, I see all the more need to focus our spirituality on peace and reconciliation, not fetishes about weapons and fantasies of violence. We do indeed have in Pagan mythology gods with weapons and there are indeed tales of wars. Let us make sure to interpret these things metaphorically and spiritually so that the weaker-minded who are among us now or who may come after us later do not see these elements of mythology as literal instructions for what to do in society today, like right-wing racist nuts such as Anders Behring Breivik who blend in the mythical scenario of Ragnarok from Norse mythology with their own hateful fantasies of "race war." We can be fighters for peace and justice. We can look to smash intolerance and inequality, not the skulls of enemies. We can use the sword of intellect and understanding to cut through ignorance, like the thunderbolt-weapon (vajra) that symbolizes the Vajrayana school of Tibetan Buddhism. In fact, there is much for thoughtful Pagans to consider about how Buddhism put a psychological spin on gods of anger and war and used them as tools for meditative self-transformation.
Above all, let us refrain from glamorizing violence and weapons. In our world today, there are simply too many things going on in our culture that point us toward violence, and so very few that point us away. Let's be on the right side of that equation.
One thing likely to be missing: any rational discussion of the need for more gun control in this country. We might not be able to prevent all dangerous individuals from getting guns and wreaking havoc, but doesn't it make sense that if we reduce the supply and ease of access to guns in this society, we might see less of these awful events? I fear that our public officials are too afraid of the NRA (the politically powerful National Rifle Association) and the gun lobby to engage in any such discussion. We can look forward to the next massacre, more politicians calling for prayers for the dead and their families, more media stories about pathetic victims, tearful survivors and traumatized families, and nothing will be learned. This country is brain-dead when it comes to the issue of gun violence. It is one of the saddest things about America. As far as I can tell, the Zombie Apocalypse is already here.
As a Pagan, I see all the more need to focus our spirituality on peace and reconciliation, not fetishes about weapons and fantasies of violence. We do indeed have in Pagan mythology gods with weapons and there are indeed tales of wars. Let us make sure to interpret these things metaphorically and spiritually so that the weaker-minded who are among us now or who may come after us later do not see these elements of mythology as literal instructions for what to do in society today, like right-wing racist nuts such as Anders Behring Breivik who blend in the mythical scenario of Ragnarok from Norse mythology with their own hateful fantasies of "race war." We can be fighters for peace and justice. We can look to smash intolerance and inequality, not the skulls of enemies. We can use the sword of intellect and understanding to cut through ignorance, like the thunderbolt-weapon (vajra) that symbolizes the Vajrayana school of Tibetan Buddhism. In fact, there is much for thoughtful Pagans to consider about how Buddhism put a psychological spin on gods of anger and war and used them as tools for meditative self-transformation.
Above all, let us refrain from glamorizing violence and weapons. In our world today, there are simply too many things going on in our culture that point us toward violence, and so very few that point us away. Let's be on the right side of that equation.
Friday, May 13, 2011
A Personal Farewell to Gods of War
Having received some fine and thoughtful responses on the issue of the contemporary relevance of war gods, I am now ready to offer my own perspective. I posed the question, "Do the gods of war still speak to us?," which I could also rephrase as "Do we still need gods of war?" or "Should we still believe in gods of war?" I have a simple and straightforward answer: NO. As far as I am concerned, war gods no longer serve any useful purpose for modern mankind; at least not for me. When I imagine a Pagan spirituality cleansed of war and violence, I feel I am breathing clear, pure air again, not the smell of blood and burning corpses.
I know that many Pagan and Heathen readers will respond that my proposal is absurd, unthinkable; sacrilegious, even. After all, the ancient Norsemen, Celts and other pre-Christian Europeans, as well as other indigenous peoples of other regions, certainly worshipped war gods, so aren't we modern heirs to the Pagan tradition duty-bound to also worship these gods, and exult in the excitment and camaraderie of the warrior life? I say, NO. I believe we are all free people with the right to think and choose about which aspects of old religions we wish to continue and those we wish to leave behind. Reinterpretation and reconstruction are always selective, and this is my selection. Other may choose differently, and that is fine. Freedom to all to worship as they please.
If you, my friend, wish to worship the old war gods, because they are meaningful to you for any number of reasons, please go ahead. I have no wish to limit your own spirituality. Perhaps if I were a soldier or had a strong bond to the military, I would join you. But my experience in life has led me to nothing but opposition to war and militarism. I have walked the earth in countries that have been crushed again and again by insane and destructive wars, often fought for no other reason than the desire for power and glory of megalomaniacal leaders. I have been to Yasukuni Jinja in Tokyo where right-wing militarists revere the dead soldiers of WW II as semi-divine heroes, even though Japanese militarism led to nothing but misery and destruction across Asia.
As an American living with great unease in America, I see my country going down the self-destructive track of ever-increasing, ever-more costly, ever-more unquestioned militarism, even as basic structures of society from roads to schools to bridges to state parks crumble from neglect, while huge numbers of Americans fall into poverty and discover that there is little to no "safety net" in America, while billions keep being spent on what seem to be endless, eternal wars. I don't see anything much to celebrate. I think the war god is firmly in control of American society, and he is leading us to a future of angry, blind destructiveness.
I have always prized intelligence and compassion over brute force and violence. When I look around the barren landscape of American culture, I see such an overabundance of violence and aggression that I am almost dumbfounded. Worse still, the violence in our popular culture seems increasingly interchangeable with the official violence of our government and military agencies. TV shows like CSI and Law and Order , in their endless, repetitive iterations, teach us that there is no cure for our social ills other than swift, brutal police action to beat up, lock up, or simply exterminate the "evil-doers." Look at the larger society: the trend for many years has been to reduce funding for social programs and education, increase funding for prisons, police and military. Meanwhile, the popularity of "first person shooter" video games perfectly corresponds with the Bush-Obama military strategy of using remote-controlled drone bombers to hunt down and attack people thousands of miles away, all from the safety and security of video screens at military installations in Colorado and elsewhere. Where does the video game end and the war begin? It seems that many people do not care anymore; as long as we get to kill "bad guys," whether in fantasy or for real, without regard for "collateral damage," it's all good!
War God bless America....
I cannot, as a thinking, intelligent person in the age of Hiroshima, My Lai and CIA drone attacks, think of war as a wonderful, honorable thing that we need to honor with a war god.
I note with happiness that most Pagan gods are multi-functional. We can dispense with various gods and goddesses' war functions and concentrate on those aspects more in keeping with modern life. The Pagan religions of the past were always in a state of transformation. Let us continue the transformation to create 21st century Paganism.
I know that many Pagan and Heathen readers will respond that my proposal is absurd, unthinkable; sacrilegious, even. After all, the ancient Norsemen, Celts and other pre-Christian Europeans, as well as other indigenous peoples of other regions, certainly worshipped war gods, so aren't we modern heirs to the Pagan tradition duty-bound to also worship these gods, and exult in the excitment and camaraderie of the warrior life? I say, NO. I believe we are all free people with the right to think and choose about which aspects of old religions we wish to continue and those we wish to leave behind. Reinterpretation and reconstruction are always selective, and this is my selection. Other may choose differently, and that is fine. Freedom to all to worship as they please.
If you, my friend, wish to worship the old war gods, because they are meaningful to you for any number of reasons, please go ahead. I have no wish to limit your own spirituality. Perhaps if I were a soldier or had a strong bond to the military, I would join you. But my experience in life has led me to nothing but opposition to war and militarism. I have walked the earth in countries that have been crushed again and again by insane and destructive wars, often fought for no other reason than the desire for power and glory of megalomaniacal leaders. I have been to Yasukuni Jinja in Tokyo where right-wing militarists revere the dead soldiers of WW II as semi-divine heroes, even though Japanese militarism led to nothing but misery and destruction across Asia.
As an American living with great unease in America, I see my country going down the self-destructive track of ever-increasing, ever-more costly, ever-more unquestioned militarism, even as basic structures of society from roads to schools to bridges to state parks crumble from neglect, while huge numbers of Americans fall into poverty and discover that there is little to no "safety net" in America, while billions keep being spent on what seem to be endless, eternal wars. I don't see anything much to celebrate. I think the war god is firmly in control of American society, and he is leading us to a future of angry, blind destructiveness.
I have always prized intelligence and compassion over brute force and violence. When I look around the barren landscape of American culture, I see such an overabundance of violence and aggression that I am almost dumbfounded. Worse still, the violence in our popular culture seems increasingly interchangeable with the official violence of our government and military agencies. TV shows like CSI and Law and Order , in their endless, repetitive iterations, teach us that there is no cure for our social ills other than swift, brutal police action to beat up, lock up, or simply exterminate the "evil-doers." Look at the larger society: the trend for many years has been to reduce funding for social programs and education, increase funding for prisons, police and military. Meanwhile, the popularity of "first person shooter" video games perfectly corresponds with the Bush-Obama military strategy of using remote-controlled drone bombers to hunt down and attack people thousands of miles away, all from the safety and security of video screens at military installations in Colorado and elsewhere. Where does the video game end and the war begin? It seems that many people do not care anymore; as long as we get to kill "bad guys," whether in fantasy or for real, without regard for "collateral damage," it's all good!
War God bless America....
I cannot, as a thinking, intelligent person in the age of Hiroshima, My Lai and CIA drone attacks, think of war as a wonderful, honorable thing that we need to honor with a war god.
I note with happiness that most Pagan gods are multi-functional. We can dispense with various gods and goddesses' war functions and concentrate on those aspects more in keeping with modern life. The Pagan religions of the past were always in a state of transformation. Let us continue the transformation to create 21st century Paganism.
Friday, July 23, 2010
The United States of Punishment
Readers, this is something I have been wanting to comment on for a long time: a growing spirit of meanness, even sadism, in the thought, behavior and culture that I feel is becoming stronger and stronger in the United States. This country has a lot of problems right now, but it seems to me that there are not a lot of people interested in actually THINKING about what our problems are and trying to solve them TOGETHER. No. What many, and I fear most Americans want, is just to beat up on someone. You can see it in reality television shows and on that internet voyeur known as You Tube, where the great fun is to watch some misguided average Joe or Jane humiliated and ridiculed. You can see it in our obsession with celebrity, in the delight that so many take in seeing the famous brought low.
You can see it in our criminal "justice" system, where there is much more support for punishing the people locked away, even for very minor offenses, than for rehabilitating them so that they will have a snowball's chance in hell of living a normal, productive life when they get out of prison. Why rehabilitate them? Better to let them remain criminals so that we can enjoy locking them up again and again and feeling superior to "those people."
You can see it in the anti-immigrant, anti-Hispanic sentiment that seems to be growing in popularity. Look at that one more closely and you will find things like Hispanic people being beaten up and even killed, not in the Deep South, mind you, but on Long Island, just a few dozen miles from diversity central (NYC). You can see it in the popularity of police drama television shows, which give the people a steady dose of a very particular view of American society, in which there is no hope of improving society, only the adrenalin rush of hunting down criminals and locking them up. You can see the real-life ramifications of this media indoctrination in the way states like California have, for many years, been pumping much more money into prisons than schools. Did you know California used to have free university tuition? Not anymore, but plenty of free services for the thousands upon thousands in California prisons, a situation mirrored in states across the country. Priorities are clear! Why educate people when you can punish them? Is THIS the American dream? Most modern democratic countries have abolished the death penalty. Not here! It is a dear and cherished tradition!
You can see it in our national government's foreign policy spending priorities, in that the amount of money devoted to peaceful foreign projects is far dwarfed by what is spent on the military, not only our several ongoing wars that have ripped apart whole societies and left shattered cities, psyches and limbs in their wake that will take decades to heal, but also our "peaceful" military presence in so many countries around the world, which sends a clear message that we are ready to stomp on anyone who disagrees with us or fails to support our military objectives and corporate business interests. Remember that what kicked off both of our most recent wars was a desire to PUNISH: punish the Afghans for 9/11 (even though all or most of the terrorists were Saudis), punish Saddam and Iraq for anti-American weapon programs. Call it "war on terror," call it "nation-building," but I would argue that the root motive is punishment of dark-skinned, non-Christian, uncooperative foreigners.
You can see it in how every city and even very small towns in the USA always have military parades, which for some reason often feature police as well as soldiers, but nothing to honor artists, teachers, or people in non-punitive helping professions. It was a hard-fought battle in this country to establish Martin Luther King day as a national holiday, for the obvious reason that he was a man of peace, as well as an African-American, and in the view of many, THAT AIN'T AMERICAN!! Do you know which state held out for years on accepting the holiday? Same state (AZ) that is now set to implement a law that will give police carte blanche to harass and arrest Hispanics suspected of being illegal aliens. It is also the state with a cruel and humiliating prison system, in Maricopa County, that happens to be immensely popular with the general population, to the point where the head of this police state, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who his fans call "America's Toughest Sheriff," has his own reality television show.
I can't wait until someone finally puts on a show that will televise live executions. "Live from Death Row," sure to be a big hit in the near future! Fun for the whole family, taking America back to the days when people would bring picnic lunches to watch hangings and lynchings. I am not joking about that last point: executions and lynchings were popular entertainments in the not-too-distant American past.
We just love Love LOVE to have someone to beat up on, someone to bomb, someone to throw into prison, someone to hate. And, final irony, some of those on the right-wing side of the political spectrum seem to be gearing up and gunning up to take up arms against our democratically-elected government--and they think of themselves as patriots. The obsession with guns, the fear that you will need to defend yourself in a John Wayne movie always showing in the little cinema in the back of your mind, where does that come from? I suspect it goes back to the culture of the American frontier, when "the west was won" by white Americans shooting and killing Native Americans and taking their land. A great victory, right? Or maybe it was the time not long past in the Jim Crow South when the white man could shoot blacks with impunity? Maybe there is a bit of guilty conscience, fear of payback from people no longer cringing in fear?
What is it that many right-wingers and conservatives shout nowadays? "TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK!!!" Back to what, exactly? They never say...Perhaps the good old days of white supremacy, the KKK, lynching of blacks and gays? I for one have no doubt that there is an ugly racial undercurrent running through the so-called Tea Party movement. First a black man is elected president, and then sales of guns and ammo shoot through the roof. What is that about? And what was it that made Bush so popular for several years post-9/11? His promise to "punish the evil-doers." I wonder, will Obama now be tempted to attack Iran to bolster his own popularity?
I am afraid. I fear that this country is becoming an increasingly harsh and brutal police state. I fear that young people today are being raised in a culture which values and validates violence and aggression over all things, that sees compassion, compromise, gentleness and intelligence as disgusting, undesirable, effeminate qualities. A culture that believes the ONLY solution to social problems is to beat people down, shut them up, lock them up. A mindset that has no doubt that the ONLY solution to international conflicts is to use force to beat and bomb foreign people into submission to our will. A mentality that asserts that the ONLY way to be a man is to be a tough-as-nails, ain't never backin'-down, fist-fightin' gun-totin,' brute (A REAL MAN!!) Women too are encouraged to be more aggressive, more selfish, more mean, maybe pack a gun in the purse along with the lipstick. Now there's some great feminism for you! Real gender equality, all through the magic of gun ownership! And now, thanks to the Supreme Court, it is going to be easier and easier for every American to carry a gun wherever they want! Finally, we will all be SAFE. This is surely what the forefathers dreamed of when they set sail for America: a nation where guns will one day outnumber brains.
I don't believe that violence and aggression will make this world a better place. I think we are WAY off track and completely losing sight of the need for gentleness, calmness, compassion and civility. If it were not the fact that something deep in me resonates strongly with the gods and traditions of the European Pagan heritage, I would be very tempted to take up Buddhism. I greatly respect the Buddhist path of self-control, self-reflection and non-violence. I would like to believe they can also be found in Pagan tradition, but I know many disagree. In American Asatru, there are many who primarily relate to this tradition as a warrior path. I don't want to begrudge anyone the right to their own views and interpretations, particularly military veterans who have a need to validate their battlefield experiences, but I feel that there is just too much war-mongering going on, to the point where other priorities and possibilities are lost. I mean, come on! "Hail Thor, Hail War, Let's drink some beer then drink some more!" Wow, now THAT is really spiritual! Come on, please. Anyone who studies any Pagan tradition, whether Norse or Celtic or Slavic or what have you should realize that warrior machismo is not the only thing going on in these religions. There is so much about nature, about sensuality, about peace, about friendship, about art, about beauty. I fear that the warped priorities of modern American society are being read back into ancient Paganism, and then held up as Pagan virtues that all should honor and obey.
Well, I for one am NOT going to play along with this. I worship the sky, the earth, the trees, the ancestors, and I don't need guns or weapons or fantasies of violence to feel right with MY Paganism. I do NOT accept narrow definitions of "tribe" that would cause me to turn away from my brothers and sisters of all races and ethnic backgrounds. I do NOT see the military punishment of foreign populations and disruption of their societies as honorable or worth emulating. I believe that there are more pleasant and productive forms of travel than military invasion. My Paganism is wide and loving and embracing, not narrow and hateful and punishing. I want to see a Paganism that teaches peace and co-existence, not a glorification of war and aggression. Those things have their time and place, I don't doubt, but that place is not everywhere and the time should not be everyday and every minute.
What kind of world do YOU want to live in?
You can see it in our criminal "justice" system, where there is much more support for punishing the people locked away, even for very minor offenses, than for rehabilitating them so that they will have a snowball's chance in hell of living a normal, productive life when they get out of prison. Why rehabilitate them? Better to let them remain criminals so that we can enjoy locking them up again and again and feeling superior to "those people."
You can see it in the anti-immigrant, anti-Hispanic sentiment that seems to be growing in popularity. Look at that one more closely and you will find things like Hispanic people being beaten up and even killed, not in the Deep South, mind you, but on Long Island, just a few dozen miles from diversity central (NYC). You can see it in the popularity of police drama television shows, which give the people a steady dose of a very particular view of American society, in which there is no hope of improving society, only the adrenalin rush of hunting down criminals and locking them up. You can see the real-life ramifications of this media indoctrination in the way states like California have, for many years, been pumping much more money into prisons than schools. Did you know California used to have free university tuition? Not anymore, but plenty of free services for the thousands upon thousands in California prisons, a situation mirrored in states across the country. Priorities are clear! Why educate people when you can punish them? Is THIS the American dream? Most modern democratic countries have abolished the death penalty. Not here! It is a dear and cherished tradition!
You can see it in our national government's foreign policy spending priorities, in that the amount of money devoted to peaceful foreign projects is far dwarfed by what is spent on the military, not only our several ongoing wars that have ripped apart whole societies and left shattered cities, psyches and limbs in their wake that will take decades to heal, but also our "peaceful" military presence in so many countries around the world, which sends a clear message that we are ready to stomp on anyone who disagrees with us or fails to support our military objectives and corporate business interests. Remember that what kicked off both of our most recent wars was a desire to PUNISH: punish the Afghans for 9/11 (even though all or most of the terrorists were Saudis), punish Saddam and Iraq for anti-American weapon programs. Call it "war on terror," call it "nation-building," but I would argue that the root motive is punishment of dark-skinned, non-Christian, uncooperative foreigners.
You can see it in how every city and even very small towns in the USA always have military parades, which for some reason often feature police as well as soldiers, but nothing to honor artists, teachers, or people in non-punitive helping professions. It was a hard-fought battle in this country to establish Martin Luther King day as a national holiday, for the obvious reason that he was a man of peace, as well as an African-American, and in the view of many, THAT AIN'T AMERICAN!! Do you know which state held out for years on accepting the holiday? Same state (AZ) that is now set to implement a law that will give police carte blanche to harass and arrest Hispanics suspected of being illegal aliens. It is also the state with a cruel and humiliating prison system, in Maricopa County, that happens to be immensely popular with the general population, to the point where the head of this police state, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who his fans call "America's Toughest Sheriff," has his own reality television show.
I can't wait until someone finally puts on a show that will televise live executions. "Live from Death Row," sure to be a big hit in the near future! Fun for the whole family, taking America back to the days when people would bring picnic lunches to watch hangings and lynchings. I am not joking about that last point: executions and lynchings were popular entertainments in the not-too-distant American past.
We just love Love LOVE to have someone to beat up on, someone to bomb, someone to throw into prison, someone to hate. And, final irony, some of those on the right-wing side of the political spectrum seem to be gearing up and gunning up to take up arms against our democratically-elected government--and they think of themselves as patriots. The obsession with guns, the fear that you will need to defend yourself in a John Wayne movie always showing in the little cinema in the back of your mind, where does that come from? I suspect it goes back to the culture of the American frontier, when "the west was won" by white Americans shooting and killing Native Americans and taking their land. A great victory, right? Or maybe it was the time not long past in the Jim Crow South when the white man could shoot blacks with impunity? Maybe there is a bit of guilty conscience, fear of payback from people no longer cringing in fear?
What is it that many right-wingers and conservatives shout nowadays? "TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK!!!" Back to what, exactly? They never say...Perhaps the good old days of white supremacy, the KKK, lynching of blacks and gays? I for one have no doubt that there is an ugly racial undercurrent running through the so-called Tea Party movement. First a black man is elected president, and then sales of guns and ammo shoot through the roof. What is that about? And what was it that made Bush so popular for several years post-9/11? His promise to "punish the evil-doers." I wonder, will Obama now be tempted to attack Iran to bolster his own popularity?
I am afraid. I fear that this country is becoming an increasingly harsh and brutal police state. I fear that young people today are being raised in a culture which values and validates violence and aggression over all things, that sees compassion, compromise, gentleness and intelligence as disgusting, undesirable, effeminate qualities. A culture that believes the ONLY solution to social problems is to beat people down, shut them up, lock them up. A mindset that has no doubt that the ONLY solution to international conflicts is to use force to beat and bomb foreign people into submission to our will. A mentality that asserts that the ONLY way to be a man is to be a tough-as-nails, ain't never backin'-down, fist-fightin' gun-totin,' brute (A REAL MAN!!) Women too are encouraged to be more aggressive, more selfish, more mean, maybe pack a gun in the purse along with the lipstick. Now there's some great feminism for you! Real gender equality, all through the magic of gun ownership! And now, thanks to the Supreme Court, it is going to be easier and easier for every American to carry a gun wherever they want! Finally, we will all be SAFE. This is surely what the forefathers dreamed of when they set sail for America: a nation where guns will one day outnumber brains.
I don't believe that violence and aggression will make this world a better place. I think we are WAY off track and completely losing sight of the need for gentleness, calmness, compassion and civility. If it were not the fact that something deep in me resonates strongly with the gods and traditions of the European Pagan heritage, I would be very tempted to take up Buddhism. I greatly respect the Buddhist path of self-control, self-reflection and non-violence. I would like to believe they can also be found in Pagan tradition, but I know many disagree. In American Asatru, there are many who primarily relate to this tradition as a warrior path. I don't want to begrudge anyone the right to their own views and interpretations, particularly military veterans who have a need to validate their battlefield experiences, but I feel that there is just too much war-mongering going on, to the point where other priorities and possibilities are lost. I mean, come on! "Hail Thor, Hail War, Let's drink some beer then drink some more!" Wow, now THAT is really spiritual! Come on, please. Anyone who studies any Pagan tradition, whether Norse or Celtic or Slavic or what have you should realize that warrior machismo is not the only thing going on in these religions. There is so much about nature, about sensuality, about peace, about friendship, about art, about beauty. I fear that the warped priorities of modern American society are being read back into ancient Paganism, and then held up as Pagan virtues that all should honor and obey.
Well, I for one am NOT going to play along with this. I worship the sky, the earth, the trees, the ancestors, and I don't need guns or weapons or fantasies of violence to feel right with MY Paganism. I do NOT accept narrow definitions of "tribe" that would cause me to turn away from my brothers and sisters of all races and ethnic backgrounds. I do NOT see the military punishment of foreign populations and disruption of their societies as honorable or worth emulating. I believe that there are more pleasant and productive forms of travel than military invasion. My Paganism is wide and loving and embracing, not narrow and hateful and punishing. I want to see a Paganism that teaches peace and co-existence, not a glorification of war and aggression. Those things have their time and place, I don't doubt, but that place is not everywhere and the time should not be everyday and every minute.
What kind of world do YOU want to live in?
Friday, August 21, 2009
War and Peace in Paganism
As a dedicated peacenik and staunch foe of militarism, which I consider one of the greatest curses of modern life, but also a Pagan, I have often pondered how the ancient European Pagan traditions had gods of both war and of peace. Obviously, then as well as now, war was sometimes an unavoidable necessity, and then as now, it had an economic dimension as well, in that "to the victors go the spoils," to which we might add modern-day reflections on the military industrial complex and how much profit and employment is wrapped up in the war biz. The greater the number of people who depend on the military-industrial complex for their employment, education, housing, health insurance etc., the harder it becomes to cut back any aspect of the military, as it has become an ever-expanding social welfare program for soldiers and their families as well as all the people who work in military-related industries.
In the Pagan religious traditions I am closest to, the Norse-Germanic Asatru/Heathen tradition and the Baltic-Lithuanian Romuva movement, I have seen that what often seems to attract a certain number of men to these religious movements dealing with the Pagan past is the opportunity to play and pose with swords and other medieval weapons and imagine themselves great warriors of the distant past. A lot of this is just testosterone bluster in honor of the Gods of War, but I worry about how this kind of thing may drown out an appreciation of the Gods of Peace.
I cannot help but relate this to modern American culture, with its endless images of war and violence that are drilled into our heads 24 hours a day. I do understand that boys will be boys, and that they often do love to play with war toys. I had my toy soldiers as a boy too, and enjoyed my share of make-believe combat. But I do worry at how this ties in with our modern, post-9/11 military occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, because it seems to me that in this last decade, war and the military have gained a sort of sacrosanct status, as something sacred that cannot be questioned but must only and always be obeyed. We are all pressured to "support the troops" rather than to THINK about what these wars are based upon and what they are actually achieving or not achieving.
I find the Gods of War a pretty scary lot. Even Odin, one of my favorite Pagan deities, is described as sometimes being untrustworthy in his aspect as a war god, giving victory to the undeserving and sacrificing his own followers on the battlefield for his own mysterious purposes, including drafting them into the elite force that will battle frost giants and fire demons in the final battle of Ragnarok, which, according to the Eddic poem "Voluspa," will plunge the whole world into fiery chaos, prior to an eventual regeneration of the cosmos after its total destruction. I think that for many in the Heathen or Asatru community, the mythology of Odin, Valhalla and Ragnarok is seen as a straightforward glorification of war and warriors. I see darker, more ambiguous meanings here. Odin's shiftiness on the field of battle seems a perfect metaphor for the horrible uncertainty of war; the destruction on both sides, never knowing who will live or die, and in the aftermath, the grieving for the dead and the wounds both psychological and physical, the broken limbs and shattered minds that even the victors will carry home from the battle, and the possibility of renewed war in the near or distant future as the losing side nurses grievances and dreams of vengeance. Not exactly a good time for all. Not the great fun of "The World of Warfare" video game.
And, Ragnarok is a failure, an absolute disaster for the gods. All the combined efforts of Odin and the other great gods like Thor and Freyr to protect the worlds of gods and of men are all in vain. Odin is swallowed by the great wolf Fenrir; Thor is slain by the Midgard Serpent. The other gods go down in defeat as well, and the fire-demon Surt runs wild, in what seems a medieval version of a nuclear holocaust. There are obviously different ways to interpret this, and my thoughts here are strictly my own. I read this as actually suggesting a weariness with war, a sense that war only leads to greater and greater destruction. Others may view this as prophesizing that some kind of all-destroying conflict (Israel versus Iran in the Middle East? India vs Pakistan? Yankees versus Red Sox? soccer versus football?) is inevitable, and that we should all sharpen our axes, shine our shields and prepare to go down fighting.
However, the peacenik in me finds other threads to follow in the Norse myths. When Odin gains mastery of the magical runes in the poem Havamal, one of the abilities he acquires is the ability to make peace. So he is not a 24/7, bloodthirsty war god who only knows how to rhyme "war" with "more." He knows the value of peace, when possible. There is also the tale of the battle between two families or tribes of divine beings, the Aesir (including Odin and Thor) and the Vanir (fertility gods all, sea-god Njord, brother and sister fertility deities Freyr and Freyja). It was the "first war in the world," and neither side could win. So they arranged a truce, exchanged prisoners, and Freyr and Freyja came to dwell among the Aesir. This truce, unlike the apocalyptic battle of Ragnarok, was a success. Peace worked, at least in this case.
Elsewhere in the mythology, a minor episode that I also find significant is that Freyr, in the course of wooing a maiden of interest, gives away his sword, and when the battle of Ragarok comes, he is without a proper weapon, and has to make do with the horn of a stag; we might jokingly say, Freyr has to "go stag" at the worst possible moment. He gave up his weapon for love. Now, this didn't end so well for Freyr, so it is not necessarily an argument that this was the best move to have made, but I find it expressive of Freyr's primary nature as a fertility god, who was often worshipped in the form of a giant phallus. He seems to have been a "make love not war" kind of god.
Therefore, I think that a cogent case can be made that the Norse tradition is not wholeheartedly pro-war or pro-military. There are also anti-military, pro-peace dimensions that deserve contemplation. Stepping back to our modern society, I think that pro-peace voices need to be bolder and louder. For too long now, the worship of the war god has dominated our political discourse. To be anti-war is seen as wimpy, traitorous, un-American. On the conservative side of politics, there is the strange, ironic coincidence of "pro-life" and pro-war points of view. I think that being truly pro-life should extend to opposing war, or at least being very cautious and reserved about the hellish mass murder that war is, and not celebrating it as if it were a big happy football game for the whole family to watch and cheer. In the Pagan world, I would personally like to join forces with other Pagans who feel that their spirituality calls them to promote peace and denounce war. I will stand with you. There was once a "Pagans for Peace" organization in the late 1990s, but I don't think it survived the Bush years. Perhaps it is time to try again?
In the Pagan religious traditions I am closest to, the Norse-Germanic Asatru/Heathen tradition and the Baltic-Lithuanian Romuva movement, I have seen that what often seems to attract a certain number of men to these religious movements dealing with the Pagan past is the opportunity to play and pose with swords and other medieval weapons and imagine themselves great warriors of the distant past. A lot of this is just testosterone bluster in honor of the Gods of War, but I worry about how this kind of thing may drown out an appreciation of the Gods of Peace.
I cannot help but relate this to modern American culture, with its endless images of war and violence that are drilled into our heads 24 hours a day. I do understand that boys will be boys, and that they often do love to play with war toys. I had my toy soldiers as a boy too, and enjoyed my share of make-believe combat. But I do worry at how this ties in with our modern, post-9/11 military occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, because it seems to me that in this last decade, war and the military have gained a sort of sacrosanct status, as something sacred that cannot be questioned but must only and always be obeyed. We are all pressured to "support the troops" rather than to THINK about what these wars are based upon and what they are actually achieving or not achieving.
I find the Gods of War a pretty scary lot. Even Odin, one of my favorite Pagan deities, is described as sometimes being untrustworthy in his aspect as a war god, giving victory to the undeserving and sacrificing his own followers on the battlefield for his own mysterious purposes, including drafting them into the elite force that will battle frost giants and fire demons in the final battle of Ragnarok, which, according to the Eddic poem "Voluspa," will plunge the whole world into fiery chaos, prior to an eventual regeneration of the cosmos after its total destruction. I think that for many in the Heathen or Asatru community, the mythology of Odin, Valhalla and Ragnarok is seen as a straightforward glorification of war and warriors. I see darker, more ambiguous meanings here. Odin's shiftiness on the field of battle seems a perfect metaphor for the horrible uncertainty of war; the destruction on both sides, never knowing who will live or die, and in the aftermath, the grieving for the dead and the wounds both psychological and physical, the broken limbs and shattered minds that even the victors will carry home from the battle, and the possibility of renewed war in the near or distant future as the losing side nurses grievances and dreams of vengeance. Not exactly a good time for all. Not the great fun of "The World of Warfare" video game.
And, Ragnarok is a failure, an absolute disaster for the gods. All the combined efforts of Odin and the other great gods like Thor and Freyr to protect the worlds of gods and of men are all in vain. Odin is swallowed by the great wolf Fenrir; Thor is slain by the Midgard Serpent. The other gods go down in defeat as well, and the fire-demon Surt runs wild, in what seems a medieval version of a nuclear holocaust. There are obviously different ways to interpret this, and my thoughts here are strictly my own. I read this as actually suggesting a weariness with war, a sense that war only leads to greater and greater destruction. Others may view this as prophesizing that some kind of all-destroying conflict (Israel versus Iran in the Middle East? India vs Pakistan? Yankees versus Red Sox? soccer versus football?) is inevitable, and that we should all sharpen our axes, shine our shields and prepare to go down fighting.
However, the peacenik in me finds other threads to follow in the Norse myths. When Odin gains mastery of the magical runes in the poem Havamal, one of the abilities he acquires is the ability to make peace. So he is not a 24/7, bloodthirsty war god who only knows how to rhyme "war" with "more." He knows the value of peace, when possible. There is also the tale of the battle between two families or tribes of divine beings, the Aesir (including Odin and Thor) and the Vanir (fertility gods all, sea-god Njord, brother and sister fertility deities Freyr and Freyja). It was the "first war in the world," and neither side could win. So they arranged a truce, exchanged prisoners, and Freyr and Freyja came to dwell among the Aesir. This truce, unlike the apocalyptic battle of Ragnarok, was a success. Peace worked, at least in this case.
Elsewhere in the mythology, a minor episode that I also find significant is that Freyr, in the course of wooing a maiden of interest, gives away his sword, and when the battle of Ragarok comes, he is without a proper weapon, and has to make do with the horn of a stag; we might jokingly say, Freyr has to "go stag" at the worst possible moment. He gave up his weapon for love. Now, this didn't end so well for Freyr, so it is not necessarily an argument that this was the best move to have made, but I find it expressive of Freyr's primary nature as a fertility god, who was often worshipped in the form of a giant phallus. He seems to have been a "make love not war" kind of god.
Therefore, I think that a cogent case can be made that the Norse tradition is not wholeheartedly pro-war or pro-military. There are also anti-military, pro-peace dimensions that deserve contemplation. Stepping back to our modern society, I think that pro-peace voices need to be bolder and louder. For too long now, the worship of the war god has dominated our political discourse. To be anti-war is seen as wimpy, traitorous, un-American. On the conservative side of politics, there is the strange, ironic coincidence of "pro-life" and pro-war points of view. I think that being truly pro-life should extend to opposing war, or at least being very cautious and reserved about the hellish mass murder that war is, and not celebrating it as if it were a big happy football game for the whole family to watch and cheer. In the Pagan world, I would personally like to join forces with other Pagans who feel that their spirituality calls them to promote peace and denounce war. I will stand with you. There was once a "Pagans for Peace" organization in the late 1990s, but I don't think it survived the Bush years. Perhaps it is time to try again?
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