![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
"Hyphen-polytheism" (from Twitter)
Mar. 5th, 2014 12:53 pmIt's not at all easy, without any encouragement, to get to genuine polytheism in the context of monotheist hegemony.
For this reason, I am very impatient with those who, regarding those who came before and were able to think beyond monotheism at all, act as though they would not, in the present climate, have gone further. Many of these, I believe, would indeed.
I was fortunate to be raised atheist/agnostic. Hence, when as a child I read books like D'Aulaire's books of Greek and Norse myth, it was very natural for me to see these beings all as distinct, and as distinct from the God in the bible stories I read as well.
A child will not naturally assume that things which are invisible, are just on account of that all the same thing. They will not yet have been corrupted by that peculiar alliance of monotheism and materialism that affirms that all incorporeals are one.
What an improbable thesis, really, if anybody had proposed it to me, that the Norse Gods and the Greek were the same! Or that they didn't exist, but the God in the bible stories did!
The world was instead revealed to me, right from the start, in every-colored dappled plumage.
But to articulate polytheism, to have the concepts, that is a different matter. People will settle for the inadequate and chalk it up to the limits of thought. They will be satisfied with the loyal opposition, the immanent monotheism of the mystic. It may even speak to something in them, perhaps something they judge to be more important. Very well. But then allow us our space.
Do not tell us that that we who believe in many Gods, need to label ourselves as some sort of "hyphen-polytheist".
But particularly, do not assume that those who were able to think even a little beyond monotheism, would not have gone all the way.
I found the whole of classical metaphysics lying open to me, once I could pierce the veil of the monotheist appropriation of it, but it required all of my native stubbornness and ingenuity I'd not thought I possessed.
I'm not the least bit surprised that those on whose shoulders I stood did not manage that leap.
Radical thinkers who could not leap just a little further, though straining with every fiber of their being; people who had the nerve to stare in the face the threat of the eternal damnation the Christians promised them. Do you really think they'd not have gone *further*?
We're not going to hinder people trying to do something new, in its moment of possibility, for the sake of those who want more of the same.
The present debates within the Pagan community fail to recognize this fundamental asymmetry.
Windows of possibility for new and creative thinking open, and they close. It is vital to seize them.
The possibility to articulate genuine polytheism, this possibility of the spirit, is more important than a community of the here-and-now.
It is an intellectual responsibility to a community unbounded in time and locality. Even a *bad* idea would deserve that space.
For this reason, I am very impatient with those who, regarding those who came before and were able to think beyond monotheism at all, act as though they would not, in the present climate, have gone further. Many of these, I believe, would indeed.
I was fortunate to be raised atheist/agnostic. Hence, when as a child I read books like D'Aulaire's books of Greek and Norse myth, it was very natural for me to see these beings all as distinct, and as distinct from the God in the bible stories I read as well.
A child will not naturally assume that things which are invisible, are just on account of that all the same thing. They will not yet have been corrupted by that peculiar alliance of monotheism and materialism that affirms that all incorporeals are one.
What an improbable thesis, really, if anybody had proposed it to me, that the Norse Gods and the Greek were the same! Or that they didn't exist, but the God in the bible stories did!
The world was instead revealed to me, right from the start, in every-colored dappled plumage.
But to articulate polytheism, to have the concepts, that is a different matter. People will settle for the inadequate and chalk it up to the limits of thought. They will be satisfied with the loyal opposition, the immanent monotheism of the mystic. It may even speak to something in them, perhaps something they judge to be more important. Very well. But then allow us our space.
Do not tell us that that we who believe in many Gods, need to label ourselves as some sort of "hyphen-polytheist".
But particularly, do not assume that those who were able to think even a little beyond monotheism, would not have gone all the way.
I found the whole of classical metaphysics lying open to me, once I could pierce the veil of the monotheist appropriation of it, but it required all of my native stubbornness and ingenuity I'd not thought I possessed.
I'm not the least bit surprised that those on whose shoulders I stood did not manage that leap.
Radical thinkers who could not leap just a little further, though straining with every fiber of their being; people who had the nerve to stare in the face the threat of the eternal damnation the Christians promised them. Do you really think they'd not have gone *further*?
We're not going to hinder people trying to do something new, in its moment of possibility, for the sake of those who want more of the same.
The present debates within the Pagan community fail to recognize this fundamental asymmetry.
Windows of possibility for new and creative thinking open, and they close. It is vital to seize them.
The possibility to articulate genuine polytheism, this possibility of the spirit, is more important than a community of the here-and-now.
It is an intellectual responsibility to a community unbounded in time and locality. Even a *bad* idea would deserve that space.
