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Do reactionaries have a monopoly on paganism? (lemmygrad.ml)

submitted 6 months ago by thefreepenguinalt@lemmygrad.ml to c/comradeship@lemmygrad.ml

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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?

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[–] bleepingblorp@lemmygrad.ml 25 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

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

[–] cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

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.

[–] huf@hexbear.net 7 points 6 months ago

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.

[–] multitotal@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 6 months ago

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.