If a man isn’t willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he’s no good.
-Ezra Pound
I may catch a lot of flak for this. Then again, I may not. I have the privilege of being one of those little pagan blogs that never get attention except occasionally. I like that. So here goes:
I am a fascist.
No, not really. I’m not. Both because I’m honestly not aligned with Classic Fascist ideology, and because it is outlawed by Nova Roman law. I’m a Great Depression style isolationist conservative with National Socialist anti-corporation and blut un boden influences. My preferred government style is neo-Hamiltonian and I occasionally call myself a National, or Volk, Federalist. I am a very strong supporter of Monarchy and the primacy of either the Orthodox, Roman Catholic, or Protestant churches within those monarchies; depending on the nation in question. I have a passing interest in racial theory although I believe that most of it is complete bullshit; if not all of it. Economically I prefer a State Monopoly on essential goods like transport and electricity accompanied by an old-fashioned Guild-system replacing most of the corporations of today; ensuring handmade quality goods with higher regulation than we see today. I support invading Mexico to disrupt the drug trade and restore the House of Iturbide.
Kind of a mouthful, eh? So I go by fascist until it gets me into trouble and I spill the more truthful mouthful. What I’m addressing here today is conservatism (and not the GOP Classic Liberalism) within the pagan community and the third positionist communities. That last being the grand amalgamation of all Fascists, Classic and Strasserite National Socialists, Federalists, Futurists, Nationalists, National-Syndicalists, Monarchists etc. in the world. Verbosity is a bit of a problem; especially when it comes to identifying oneself in our little community. What prompted me to write this post was/is the already growing kerfluffle on Z. Budapest -a hitherto respected Dianic elder- holding a Dianic rite at PantheaCon that was for, as The Wild Hunt reports, ‘genetic women only’. A meditation/protest was staged outside the ritual, several reports have surfaced expressing displeasure with Budapest, and there have been calls to keep Budapest out of PantheaCon. This is utterly ridiculous.
First, I would like to point out the following: it is her religion. She founded the damn thing. Every transgendered individual on this earth can scream and shout, holler and moan, but it is her tradition and she can do whatever she goddamn pleases in setting it’s ritual boundaries and requirements for participation. Should she take into account the input of other Dianics? Of course. Power should not exist in a vaccum. But she has a right to hold whatever Dianic anything she damn well pleases. You cannot argue otherwise; unless you feel like sacrificing individual religious liberty in favor of some monstrous universal ‘equality’ (lol Hyperbole). My personal opinion on the matter of Transgenderism is that it is a mental illness and the transgendered it’s sufferers. I don’t know from where this illness originates, but perhaps it is a symptom of living environment, trauma, etc. Perhaps not. I don’t really care. All I know is that they’re not women.’Womyn’? Sure. Women? No. Gender is non-negotiable. It is the bedrock of human society and civilization; a classification that has existed since the beginning of civilization. It is not something that can be changed; however this degenerate modern society wishes it weren’t so. You can’t have choices in everything. You can’t change and destroy the deepest tradition of human society.
Keep in mind however that this does not mean I’m condemning Transgendered individuals, spiritual trangenderism like has been often found in shamanistic and Native American societies etc. If you are a transgendered individual and you call yourself a woman, that is fine. I don’t. We can ignore the issue and go on as planned, or we can acknowledge our differences in opinion and go our separate ways. If you considered yourself a ‘person of two spirits’ but don’t try to strap on a phallus or identify as the opposite gender then that’s fine. I’ll accept that. And also keep in mind that if you get surgery to get the proper equipment and hormones, then you aren’t transgendered. You’re a man/woman. Don’t call yourself or identify as transgendered, because that isn’t what you are. And I do say that hesitantly, as there is a culture and human history and identity with each gender. But I’ll make this compromise.
Getting to the meat of this post, the issue of transgendereds at PantheaCon is only a single facet of the multifaceted Liberal Diamond of Paganism. Paganism has historically been a liberal movement, with humanistic and liberal roots stretching back to Gardner and the first little flowers of modern paganism. We’re a liberal crew. Even reconstructionism -traditionally regarded by a great deal of pagans as a conservative subset- has a great deal of liberals both classic Libertarian and modern Democrat. Only Heathenry is a pagan faith-group that I think it is fair to call ‘conservative’, and they are kinda marginalized for that. This is because Paganism is not a truly ‘tolerant’ place. And normally, I wouldn’t have a problem with that. I’m not generally a tolerant person. But the ‘pagan community’ places a great deal on value on being a ‘tolerant’ community when it is in fact very intolerant of anything outside it’s narrow, liberal, humanistic, duotheistic worldview. And it is that hypocrisy that really gets to me. I am well acquainted with a few pagans -one nameless one who nevertheless knows who she is anyway in particular- who have been rejected from their local pagan community for, basically, not being Wiccan enough. And it happens all the time. We are not tolerant; but I wouldn’t mind if we were. Religion, in a statement that would greatly piss off my ideological comrades, transcends all boundaries; even religions like my own which are quite connected with our boundaries, thank you kindly. We should not exclude any political ideology any more than we should exclude an faith-tradition. And that is something paganism needs to learn. A devout Orthodox who believes I’m a heathen and I can get along famously if we’re both monarchists. Likewise, a communist I would otherwise advocate be imprisoned can be my friend if he is a Celtic Recon.
It all depends.
Now within the Third Positionist community we have a lot of pagans, But not pagans like you or I, but pagans who make that decision based solely off the fact that Christianity is ‘weak’ that paganism (usually Germanic) is strong and warriorlike. Others are Christians where they would otherwise be atheist call themselves Christian solely because it is their ‘national faith-tradition’. And I heartily oppose this pagan-fakery. You are not a pagan if you do it simply because it fits your ideology. Nor do you call yourself a specific kind of ideologue simply because it fits your religion. They either compliment each other, or they do not. I say all this because I normally strive to keep the two separately. I chose Nova Roma because of my preference for organized religion and because of my deepest love and devotion to Roman religion and culture. I chose my ideology not because of the highly-organized and state-centered nature of my faith, but because I gradually came to adopt those ideas through trial-and-error. They are completely separate and yet they compliment each other well. But they are not one and the same and I generally hate to mix them. So don’t get any ideas on how I’m some sort of ebil theocrat. Thanks kindly.
