The Pagan/Fascist Meme, Following Up
I thought my last post on Hitler and Paganism would be my last for a little while but the ‘Fascism = Paganism’ meme popping up in my news searches prompted me to do a follow-up post. The One Republic Journal features an editorial by Bruce Thornton a professor of Classics at Cal State Fresno. In the editorial about Islam Thornton gives this little nugget of wisdom:
“The key to this mistaken interpretation is the short shrift given to the power of spiritual needs–an omission surprising given how religious the media keeps telling us this administration is. That ignoring of spiritual reality is what makes the analogy with fascism and communism false. Both of those ideologies were anti-Christian: fascism was a species of debased Romantic neo-paganism, and communism was blatantly atheist. As such, both ran counter to the powerful Judeo- Christian forces that shaped European and Russian civilization, and so could not satisfy for long the spiritual yearnings of the people, yearnings denied their traditional expressions. Thus these ideologies were doomed because they denied not just political freedom, but the powerful human need for religious expression and spiritual experience.”
This remarkably limited view of fascism is troubling, if for nothing else than the idea that fascism couldn’t happen in a strong “Christian” nation. For the press and pundits to constantly reiterate that the rise of fascism is tied to “Romantic neo-paganism” creates a dangerous meme where so long as one thumps the Bible hard enough a fascist state could never emerge from a restrictive controlling government.
In related news Unitarian-Universalist blogger Jaume de Marcos in reply to my first post about Hitler and Paganism, takes me to task for my interpretation of Nazi mysticism and it’s relationship to modern Paganism. I started writing a response but it became quite long and I realized that I wanted to get some input from a few modern American Asatru before posting a response. But I just wanted to let him and any readers waiting for my response know that I’m working on it.
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