Paganism is a religion built upon consumerism?

[thalassa]

sauce

Yea? Nay?


(this is one where you pretty much need to read the sauce before you reply)

[iris]

Re: Paganism is a religion built upon consumerism?

Well, I know where not to move ^^ I barely scrape through grass season here.
But it's an interesting read, though I don't find it surprising at all... I thought that the settlers on the oregon trail wiping out large parts of the native population with illness was common knowledge... I get why the 'cover story' is more popular. I have a harder time understanding why people now settle down somewhere that makes them sick

[thalassa]

Re: Paganism is a religion built upon consumerism?

Well, I know where not to move ^^ I barely scrape through grass season here.
But it's an interesting read, though I don't find it surprising at all... I thought that the settlers on the oregon trail wiping out large parts of the native population with illness was common knowledge... I get why the 'cover story' is more popular. I have a harder time understanding why people now settle down somewhere that makes them sick

oh, lol...that was totally the wrong link that I posted!!! I should probably make sure I posted the wrong link from here in the right place on my blog...


This is the right link


(and the other one is fixed now too)

[gelman66]

Re: Paganism is a religion built upon consumerism?

Interesting read. I wholeheartedly agree that Paganism can and should try to separate itself from capitalism and consumerism as much as possible. As for the assertion that paganism is "quite unlike other religious communities" on this point I have to disagree. Many of the religious transactions within contemporary Christian sects often resemble business transactions. So this is a bit of an overstatement in my opinion.

One thing I will say is that the charitable aspect of Christianity is something to admired and if possible emulated by other religions. The Dalai Lama and others have spoken with admiration about this aspect of the Christian faith.

[Briton]

Re: Paganism is a religion built upon consumerism?

"problematise" *shudder*

A lot of festivals for many pagans are orientated around commerce, though, are they not? Events such as harvests are intrinsically linked to commerce and trying to make more than bare minimum in the hope that you can sell some of it and progress to make a better farm... at least that's what it was like so many eons ago when nearly every family actually owned a farm and where these festivals originated. Can you thus schism paganism from capitalism and consumerism? After all, it's not just a theoretical belief system, for most (surely) it is a part of their nature and greatly impacts how they live, such as their work ethic..?

*Not a "pagan" so don't really know, hence phrasing these as questions!

[Gleb]

Re: Paganism is a religion built upon consumerism?

If paganism is built on economy of different countries, I have a question - where do deities that are not connected to economy come from? For instance Set, Ares, Aphrodite or Nephthys?
It's an interesting theory, I must admit.

[monsno_leedra]

Re: Paganism is a religion built upon consumerism?

Not sure about other countries but I do agree that modern paganism does rely heavily upon consumerism. Today it seem's paganism is book derived and paid for through the actions and needs of the vendors. The fairs, retreats, events, etc many times have the vendors who pay a fee to sell their wares outside the event or even have table's, etc within the bazaar's to sell or barter their wares. A limited minority producing the material of the craft and attempting to live off those proceeds while the majority of the pagan community not being able to survive off of their skills or wares has to support the limited minority.

Learning within the community seldom based upon lineage'd traditions, family traditions or folkloric traditions that have no need of commercial produced items or goods to pass down their teachings or offer guidance to new practitioners. Instead most knowledge now passed down via a few author's and their written idea's of what paganism is, how to perform or live it, what items are needed to make it both effective and factual. Those so called effective and factual needs often expressed via physical items the practitioner must have such as candles, chalices, athame's, swords, staves, wands, appropriate colored robes and cords, etc to be a true practitioner.

Not even considering that I do not believe modern paganism as it stands could stand under its own weight if it had to be self supporting. To be based upon trade and barter to obtain goods, knowledge, skills and abilities to ensure it's survival and expansion. Figure there are no functioning conclaves, retreats, societies with physical boundaries and ownership that are so developed that they can survive upon their own merit or ability to sustain and provide for their practitioners.

[B. de Corbin]

Re: Paganism is a religion built upon consumerism?

Curse words for our century:

Consumer - one who buys stuff.

Capitalist - one who sells stuff.

I think that, perhaps, if we are ever to get beyond the sin of buying/selling (assuming that, for some reason, this is a desirable goal. Is it? Why?) we need to go past treating those who buy and/or sell as sinners. They are no more sinners than are those who eat and screw - they are doing what comes naturally...

...which is why buying and selling are as utterly uncontrollable (from a top down perspective - see "Russian Mafia" for details) as are eating and screwing.

Seems like a reasonable aim for a group of people who don't even believe in "sin" in the first place...

[DavidMcCann]

Re: Paganism is a religion built upon consumerism?

What's so wrong about buying and selling? I've bought images and equipment for my altar. So did the ancients. So do millions of Indian and Chinese pagans. So what?

The article reads like a regression to the 60s: "Let's all go and live in a commune!" "Tribal federation"? Include me out!

[Louisvillian]

Re: Paganism is a religion built upon consumerism?

It's a consequence of developing in the 20th century. Particularly, of maturing in the late 20th century, an era of conspicuous consumerism if there ever was one.
I hesitate to compare it to ancient religion and its intersection with market economy. The Pagan revival of the modern West is very different, structurally and formally, from the entrenched, established, state-supported, culturally-normed polytheistic traditional religion of antiquity.

[B. de Corbin]

Re: Paganism is a religion built upon consumerism?

...Particularly, of maturing in the late 20th century, an era of conspicuous consumerism if there ever was one...

"Conspicuous consumerism" was no more rampant in the 20th Century than it was in any century prior to it.

Despite the horribly inaccurate depictions in TV, movies, and books, for example, wealthy people in medieval times never wore leather (unless they were working). Instead, they wore silk/samite or some other costly fabric imported from the East. Leather was worn by the poor, and being caught in a leather shirt would have been hugely embarassing.

Likewise, the unbelievable use of pepper in medieval recipes (2 cup of ground pepper per chicken, plus bowls of pepper with ladles set out as condiments is typical) was a way of saying "I am so stinkin' rich that I can afford to dump this much pepper on my food."

The 20th Century just had more shit people could buy, and more people who could afford to buy it.

[Domtar]

Re: Paganism is a religion built upon consumerism?

I feel like the deeper spiritual powers are to serve our community.... ESPECIALLY those most in need. The fact that so few pagan communities seem to be focusing on actively solving community problems, bringing healing, health, abundance, skill, craftwork, intelligence, arts to the people. Music is for the people. The dance is for the people, young and old, of many body types and abilities. Art is for everyone to make. There is no more powerful piece of art than one made by someone who truly loves you. We all have true magic within us, we find it most powerful when we are truly serving, not just to help ourselves to money or a title, but when it's hard, when it's needed. I keep waiting for a version of paganism that is the true spiritual power of the love within us manifested in actual meaningful action to the many many people who really need it. What's more, I think a major aspect of pagan practice that is earth based is to learn (in some cases relearn) how to create goods from the earth ourselves instead of exploiting others or the earth.

The food made by one who loves you is more healing, we are finding that love and physical closeness is a major aspect of health and human development to begin with and it's one that is underestimated and discarded too often in our communities where humans are herded like cattle from daycare to school to work institution all of which buffer AGAINST meaningful life long loving relationships or valuing people more than professions, more than success, more than titles, and more than profits. Not to mention what we do to actual cattle, and frankly I think the crimes we commit against animals we begin to get numb to and start doing to humans too. We started with GMO plants, already animals and even human embryos have been experimented on. Their suffering ignored. We HAVE solutions to a lot of social problems and sources of disease that we aren't willing to use and we would rather pretend torturing the earth and it's creatures is "necessary" because we aren't willing to do the hard work of actually using the methods we know can prevent disease and social inequality to begin with. While I think there is a heirarchy of consciousness, for one I'm not sure we actually are all that accurate or unbiased at determining what consciousness is or whether beings who are unlike us could also have consciousness (like say plants, or even forms of energy and matter like the sun/stars which has rhythmic patterns within it they even CALL a solar heartbeat).

I think there is magic we build from our own relationships with the plants and animals and earth and waters around us, that we create from within us and give and receive, and there is magic that we BUY that often comes from sources that are ethically questionable. I think love itself grows stronger when it's shared-- like you can hug yourself but you don't get the same physiological process and shared energy that hugs between others do.... like a baby doing kangaroo care actually gets healing benefits that being alone does not produce.

I think the hard thing about building pagan communities is that building community without creating common values of respect, tolerance, support and pro-social behaviors-- gaurding against abuse and predatory behaviors--- well I will say humans can be one of the most terrifying sorts of beasts among the animal kingdom and forging community with people who are practice divine selfishness does not sound like something I want my kid around. I've spent a lot of time with this crowd actually giving the benefit of the doubt before I got tired of sociopaths attempting to use philosophy "survivalism" or relgion to justify their cruelty toward others. I've reached a point after trying to love and tolerate every single person that I have realized that some people are DANGEROUS, and I don't want my kids around them, and many religions and cultural groups fester and support the ideologies and behaviors that fuel abuse (or at least tolerate and enable it well enough).

I think plenty of individual pagans are opposed to those things, but have difficulty with establishing such values as PART of the community... the tyranny of absolute tolerance and acceptance takes over and sociopaths often thrive in communities that offer unconditional acceptance and lack of boundaries around abusive or predatory behavior. I am thinking building community might work better when it leans interfaith but also with some core values designed with prosocial intent- humanism, compassion etc that should essentially transcend religion and unite us all to begin with. Then the more personal diverse paths or smaller communities of shared vision and preferences, unite to fit into that larger picture.

I say all this knowing that it's EXTREMELY RECENT, that we could even openly talk about this stuff without fear of being killed. So.... the fact there is a lot of work to do at building pagan communities and values is understandable. I think (hope, like I hope there is a magic of christman AKA the christmas wizard with merry christmas lazer eyes!) some of the deeper forms of magic are awakening again, that we may have a deeper connection with each other and consciousness that we have been disconnected from for a while. You don't have to buy those connections.

But dang I wish it were easier to find mentors and friends who were trustworthy and valued compassion and human welfare to offer guidance and support and share ideas. It's hard to find people who are actually experiencing connections with other forms of consciousness.... I don't know how many actually are, I wish it were easier to find each other. There are some harmful forces involved in earth realm and opening up to worship any and every spirit can bring harms to humans. I think frankly pagans have good reason to kind of innately not want to form communities with each other because beings trying to gain power before establishing a deeper purpose toward true compassion can awaken some scary shit and some powerful forces and urges without a lot of reason not to act on them if self power is the main goal.

There are a LOT of mysteries to wonder about what the divine is, what forms of consciousness have been helping or even hindering humanity, what is our larger goal if we are awakening deeper powers? What are we serving with the power we have?

The existance of beings with power does not innately mean they are worthy of worship or that they are a good idea to interact with. I think even at the macro-level there are beings who are more or less devoted to the welfare of beings and I think compassion transcends humanity, I don't think humans are the only creatures capable of feeling that more than themselves matter, of caring how other beings feel, of thinking any sensing being innately matters despite that we may be limited to serve every single sensing being to the extent it may deserve.

[thalassa]

Re: Paganism is a religion built upon consumerism?

TBH...we don't live in a bartering society (and haven't for quite some time, and religion has nothing to do with it). Stuff takes money. If you aren't willing to pay for something, then you are saying it has no value to you. Money is our time's sacrifical cow. People have the right to be compensated for their time, effort, energy, skill, and materials used. If you don't think what they want for those things is worth it, look for it elsewhere or diy.

I wrote this blog post about 3 years ago, but my stance still hasn't changed.

[B. de Corbin]

Re: Paganism is a religion built upon consumerism?

Domtar, I'm going to be a outrageous jerk here and suggest that you might find more compassion in others if you demonstrated more yourself.

I understand that it is easy to get fed up with "those people" (whoever one decides they are), but it is at exactly that point where compassion is most necessary.

Read over what you've written and notice how insulting you were to so many of us who have to work for a living, but have still managed to be decent people. We'll call that "paying your Karmic debt."

[Domtar]

Re: Paganism is a religion built upon consumerism?

I think being unwilling to pay for something is different than being unable. And having worked with a lot of homeless/foster youth alumni/that trauma and mental health impacted people who can barely work minimum wage jobs I feel the mentality of assuming if someone can't pay it means they don't want to or don't value services they need is not only harmful and causes needless suffering, but it's just plain false. Even if you are too broke to help someone, the least you can do is acknowledge you have no idea how hard they are trying to contribute and that maybe their needs are just as valid as anyone elses despite their lack of money. While I like trying to inspire people to be loving and understanding through sugar and do and have done plenty of that, I also think some people will ignore the needs of others unless they start facing people who stand up to their cruelty and the harm they cause in the world. I don't expect to make friends that way, but when it comes to the needs of people in horrific pain, I'll prioritize them over my desire to be liked.