Author Topic: A critique of Folkish Heathenry (Read 5931 times)

Megatherium · « **Reply #15 on:** August 05, 2014, 10:23:09 pm »

Quote from: Fireof9;154873

.... It made me a bit defensive. But it also for some reason made me feel more connected to the places I lived and the people that lived there, regardless of their pigment. It also started me on the way to understanding that while I think we should all be proud of aspects of our heritages - regardless of what your heritage is - the only thing we really can gain from dwelling in them is to learn from the mistakes. We can look to historical thing in our spiritual and religious practices to develop a practice and tradition for the world we live in NOW, and the places and people we live with at this time. Otherwise I think its a lot of playing pretend and running scared.

That was always my problem with "folkish" Heathenry. It seemed to be saying "forget about all those POC that are your classmates, friends, colleagues, your REAL community is the WHITE community." Bullshit. My community is who I interact with, my city, my province, my county. Ethnic origin has no relevence as to whether a person is a Canadian or Calgarian, and therefore, it has no relevence to my perception of that person as a member of my community.

Fireof9 · « **Reply #16 on:** August 05, 2014, 11:08:46 pm »

Quote from: Megatherium;154900

That was always my problem with "folkish" Heathenry. It seemed to be saying "forget about all those POC that are your classmates, friends, colleagues, your REAL community is the WHITE community." Bullshit. My community is who I interact with, my city, my province, my county. Ethnic origin has no relevence as to whether a person is a Canadian or Calgarian, and therefore, it has no relevence to my perception of that person as a member of my community.

To further that, would my practice really be the same as a Calgarian...... I mean its really flat out there and I have mountains and real trees....

I think I can see more benefit in a "tribal" type of approach almost. That would be much more relevant to ones community based culture.

Materialist · « **Reply #17 on:** August 06, 2014, 12:24:12 pm »

Quote from: Megatherium;154833

Instead of passing down teachings, we have to study ancient cultures and engage in a lifelong struggle to assimilate a worldview that is clearly different from our own.

Which is one of the reasons why I stopped reading neo-pagan books. Re-flipping through Kveldulf Gundarsson's Teutonic Religion we find:

heathen virtues: Americans have their own virtues enshrined in our constitutions and modern philosophies, why not just use those?

heathen heroes a.k.a. pagan dudes who killed some Christians: Americans have their own culture heroes, real ones, who made our society a better place, why not celebrate what they fought and died for instead?

pagan holidays: I always find it so cute when a Heathen mentions a plow blessing ceremony, who has probably never plowed a thing in his or her life, and doesn't know what back breaking work it is. Instead of honoring a pre-industrial agricultural work life, why not base our holidays on the line of employment we're in?

heathen lore: instead of reading European mythology, why not make use of the mythical creatures and stories from urban legends, folktales and fictional literature?

heathen gods: pagan Europeans lived in tribes, each tribe having its own god, so why not adapt that to our civic divisions? State/province=tribe, town=clan. Let's take New York City as an example: using the first two letters in each word we get Neyoci, child of Neyo.

Perhaps we're taking the first steps towards an American reconstructionist reformation.

Juniperberry · « **Reply #18 on:** August 07, 2014, 01:43:19 am »

Quote from: Megatherium;154833

The more I think about this, the more the idea that modern Heathenry in North America can be described as a "folkway" seems utterly absurd. In fact, it seems to be the opposite of an "ethnic" religion. Instead of passing down teachings, we have to study ancient cultures and engage in a lifelong struggle to assimilate a worldview that is clearly different from our own. We form religious communities based on individual theological opinion rather than naturally inheriting a community from our families. Seriously, what is there about modern Heathenry that could be termed as characteristic of a "folkway"? We have far more in common (in terms of social organization, not theology) with the early Christian communities in Rome than with any actual "ethnic" religion. (Except that Christians, to their credit, have rarely if ever made ethnicity a requirement to join their religion)

Yes. (to this post and materialists original post). I am a Canadian. I am never going to be a German, or a Dutch person, let alone a Frank, or an Alemanni. We need to build our links with our actual homes and communities (which are often multicultural) rather than creating awkward parodies of utterly decontextualized religious traditions.

I just wanted to say thanks so much for this thread. The discussion between you and Fire brought a lot of things back into focus for me and helped me figure out what's missing and where I'm headed.

Megatherium · « **Reply #19 on:** August 07, 2014, 07:20:43 pm »

Quote from: Fireof9;154908

To further that, would my practice really be the same as a Calgarian...... I mean its really flat out there and I have mountains and real trees....

I think I can see more benefit in a "tribal" type of approach almost. That would be much more relevant to ones community based culture.

I agree that one's environment should definitely affect one's religious practice. And I think that pagan/heathen-type religions should definietly vary according to the local geography and circumstances.

On a side note...we got mountains! Lots of mountains! Please don't refer to Calgary as "flat"-mainly because I use that adjective to poke fun at my family members in Saskatchewan and Mantitoba.