Do reactionaries have a monopoly on paganism?
Do reactionaries have a monopoly on paganism?
I often see that norse paganism is often espouted by neofascists. I also notice stuff about how reactionaries have co-opted slavic paganism with this whole kolovrat stuff. Is this just a result of reactionaries being the loud minority and drowning out any left-wing pagan voices or do reactionaries actually have a monopoly on paganism?
No, they don't. They are just the loudest voices. I've met a number of norse pagans who are good people. Also there are groups with names such as Facebook's "Nazis don't go to Valhalla".
If you feel Norse paganism speaks to you, or you like the 'Vikings and Runes' aesthetic, or you have that ancestry, or whatever, you don't need to let Nazis and reactionaries co-opt that or monopolize it. It isn't theirs. They don't get the victory of being the gatekeepers for any fucking thing.
Nazis get nothing except death.
EDIT: Typo fix
For the most part i agree with this. That being said, the Vikings (and i'm not talking about all Norse peoples of that time in general but about the specific groups which engaged in Viking behavior) shouldn't be idolized too much, they were effectively pirates who produced little themselves and mostly just invaded and took from others. And frankly if one is really trying to look for historic continuity that explains why Anglo culture has been so rapacious over the past centuries one could draw a direct line from Viking plunder habits through the Normans all the way to the piratical British Empire which invaded and looted for centuries across all continents, and up to the modern US empire which has taken over the global robber empire role from the British. If i were an idealist i would say piracy is in their cultural DNA.
eh, i think the roots of european behavior lie more in the way they consciously modelled themselves after the roman empire. the hypocrisy (rome never starts aggressive wars you see, they just need to defend the republic by going halfway across the world to burn everything down) , the slavery, the elite sucking up all the wealth, the sense of superiority over others (rome's version wasnt our modern racial hierarchy, but it was something in the same genre), etc...
the vikings were opportunistic pirates, sure, but mainly they were traders. and they didnt leave much of an institutional imprint.
the Vikings shouldn’t be idolized too much,
Nobody should be idolised, tbh.
they were effectively pirates who produced little themselves and mostly just invaded and took from others
That's mostly media portrayal. Most Vikings were traders and farmers. You also have to consider in what kind of conditions they lived, Scandinavia is harsh and it's very hard to grow things there.
piracy
The word "pirate" doesn't always have negative connotations, like in the golden age of piracy and modern times where pirates are those who download and share digital media and files, so I don't understand your use of pirate as an insult. Invaders, pillagers, plunderers, conquerors, these would all be apt labels.
from personal expierence, yes 100%
I live in the UK and i've interacted with about 10 different pagans, sometimes one on one, sometimes as part of a larger pagan group.
At the best its been full of reactoids who fetishize violence against outsiders and are openly racist.
At the worst they have literal pagan fash tattoo's and attend neo-nazi rallies in Ukraine....
The pagan-fascist-folk music link is well established, look up 'death in june'
https://www.deathinjune.eu/patches/2496-patch-ukraine-flag-with-totenkopf6.html
These guys where literally going over to Ukraine during euromaiden and stoking tensions, they have an active role in the Ukraine war... not pacified pagans but active war dogs...
Yes. They do. For at least three reasons I can think of:
- it is all about "going back to the roots", aka throwing out societal progress (and we have progressed societally, make no mistake)
- it is not tied to the "uncool", establishment religions, such as Christianity. Makes it a perfect outlet for wannabe rebels
- as all religions, it is inherently idealistic and most likely undialectic.
As a Norse Pagan myself of Italian descent no less, the reactionaries really piss me off. It really devalues the faith. I know the gods to be loving and nourishing gods who love everyone. But the gods are the Viking gods of old and command respect too.
The problem is how the texts are written. The Poetic Edda and the Hávamál is poetry written in Old Norse, and they've been redacted by Christians. But more than that, Old Norse (and Nordic language in general) is not entirely black and white. So reading the texts requires meditation and interpretation, and an understanding of Old Norse is certainly far better. Because many of the texts have what's called "kennings" which are a sort of poetic riddle, and the context of those riddles can and do change interpretivly depending on time, space and cultural context.
For instance, in the texts the god I serve, named Heimdall, is described as being "the whitest god" and a lot of racists worship him, which pisses us both off. But in the actual texts the Old Norse word used more closely resembles "purity of heart" rather than race. Remember, there are 6 Norwegian words for "snow" but not a single word for "please".
It's basically false interpretation of the texts for political and ethnic reasons which would have not existed in a country-less, clan structured medieval Europe.