Tempers are flaring and emotions are running high across the Pagan interwebs today. If you don’t why, you’ve likely either been under a rock, or, unlike me, have a life that doesn’t require a WiFi connection.
One of the gifts of such a wildfire raging through our community is the insight it gives us into each other. Healthy, happy people can get along fine sipping sweet tea on a sunny day, but when you’re angry, hurt and confused then your humanity can’t help showing through.
I’ve been watching that unfold over the past few days. I’ve seen thoughtful people being thoughtful. Passionate people making their case with gusto. I’ve seen people I thought were rational behaving irrationally. I’ve seen wise people be confronted with previously unforseen consequences. I’ve seen people so caught up in their own view that they couldn’t see other perspectives.
I know other people have observed me as well. I’ve been angry, hurt, frustrated, tired, irritated and more over this whole revitalized controversy. What they’ve seen in my responses and reactions I can only guess.
With a few exceptions, this revealing process has only made me love people more, even when I disagree with them. I’m not in favor of David Salisbury’s boycott on PantheaCon, but I do admire the grace with which he has clung to his convictions. I’m always in awe of Cara Schulz’s ability to reflect calmly and thoughtfully when everyone else is shouting. I am comforted by how Peter Dybing is always calling for compassion and understanding, even when I am in no mood for either. I am inspired by and heartbroken for some of the folks at the core of this debate, and how they are subject to scrutiny, criticism and anger that they don’t necessarily deserve.
Debates like this make me question whether the internet is really useful and helpful for the Pagan community. True, it facilitates faster and easier communication of true, important and inspiring things, but so often it only serves to spread misconceptions, rumors, and escalate anger, grief and bitterness.
I don’t know how useful this blogosphere is, or how useful this raging internet debate is, but I do know that seeing people in our community under the strain of this debate have made me come to appreciate them more. Even when I disagree with them, even when they disappoint me, I am still inspired by my fellow Pagans.
I will venture to say that I think this raging Internet debate is useful, or at least will be if we keep at it even after the noise and smoke of the current battle has faded. The scope and intensity of this debate has proven to my satisfaction that we do still embrace the pagan “umbrella” concept even if we disavow the word. If we were truly un-related islands of trads and individuals, we would not care a hoot what happened with this or that con. So if we’re going to define ourselves as a people, even in the loosest sense, we’ve got to take on the damn hard work of figuring out what that means, if anything. There is no way to that goal that does not lead through these tough issues.
You are too kind. I’ve never thought of myself as calm, but I’m happy if anyone else does!
About how people are reacting, what’s the saying attributed to John Wooden? ”Sports do not build character. They reveal it.” Same thing with stress. Stress doesn’t bring out the worst in people, it brings out more of the person.
I don’t know if too-long of stress brings out the best in us, maybe helps us improve the worst in us. These are stressful times from all directions. To stretch the sports metaphor, you can’t keep leaving 120 percent out on the field without it catching up later… Unless we do remember what regenerates, and that’s got got a lot to do with each other.
What this is all about. That’s why there’s ‘teams.’
Quite frankly, I’m ashamed of my community. After 30 years in this community I’m fed up. I don’t understand why the first amendment doesn’t apply to pagans. They are acting like Republican Christians not open and tolerant pagans. Not every tradition is open to every body! Grow up! If you feel excluded start your own damn tradition like every other pagan group has done! And what Z did 40 years ago when she felt excluded! What Hyperion did with the Unnamed Path! How indeed Gardner did!
If PantheaCon is for every pagan then every pagan should have the right to put a circle together for their people that attend. I know RJ astewart did for his people and nobody sat outside his door?
The First Amendment is working exactly as it was designed. It guarantees only that the government refrains from censorship or from pushing people into one religious belief or another. It creates the ultimate free market. It says to people “argue amongst yourselves, and each of you decide for yourself what makes sense and what sucks.” That’s exactly what is going on here.
In the hundreds of comments I’ve read in recent days, no one I recall is calling for Z’s work to be banned. People are saying, by and large, that it’s just something they don’t want to be part of or to underwrite with their dollars at a conference, especially one which is supposed to emphasize unity.
I support her right to do whatever sort of exclusive trad work or ritual she wants, whether I happen to agree with the reasons or not. At the same time, it’s my First Amendment right to say, truthfully, that I’m not going to share space with anyone doing such work, nor will I support it with my dollars or attendance. I also support the right of racist groups or ex-Witch ministries or even the odious Westboro Baptists to do what they do, within the bounds of law. But I will be damned if I ever go to any conference that has them in the program.
At the end of the day, that inspiration-despite-ourselves is what will see us through as a community.
Got us this far, hasn’t it?
Does take more than scuffling on the Net, though.
Fortunately, that ‘more’ tends to happen anyway.