From: burns@latcs1.lat.oz.au (Jonathan Burns)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: Freedom of Religion as well as everything else
Date: 27 Aug 92 12:54:24 GMT
Organization: Comp Sci, La Trobe Uni, Australia

In article <2A99A23A.6198@orion.oac.uci.edu>
  cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese) writes:

> In article <1992Aug25.000207.10316@csus.edu> altheimm@nextnet.csus.edu
> (Murray Altheim) writes:
>
>> In article <DiZyPB1w164w@ailanth.UUCP>
>> wang!ailanth!ailsa@ulowell.ulowell.edu (temporary) writes:
                -----

>>> seconded.  check out the republican platform, folkes.  life is not going
>>> to be very good for pagans if they get into power.  (i say "get into"
>>> cos bush at this point lacks the mandate to turn this place into the
>>> world of _the handmaid's tale_ - if he gets elected... )
             ---------------------

Says Janis,

> ailsa, with these three simple words, you've POUNDED the nail on the
head.

Murray again:

>> Quayle said it a couple of different ways, and a couple of times.  He was 
>> VERY clear. In reinforcing the "family values" planks, what had been an 
>> undercurrent of the ultraconservatives' platform is now the main platform. 
>> Abortion, civil rights, the environment all came under heated attack,
>> even so far as to spend about five minutes getting the crowd all worked up
>> in support of Quayle's Competitiveness Council, which, BTW, even Congress 
>> has been unable to establish any control or auditing over.
>> 
>> As has been posted recently, we as pagans can pretty much kiss our rights 
>> to practice our religion, our rights to keep from being discriminated against
>> in our jobs or in public, and our admittedly feeble press support, well, we
>> can kiss it all GOODBYE if the Republicans win the Presidency.


I'm breaking a self-imposed silence, because this is too important.

I also think that ailsa's reference to Margaret Atwood's _The Handmaid's
Tale_ is pounding the nail. I don't think pagans are in particular
danger though: too many educated people choose to be pagans. They can
duck and weave with the best - it'd be Alice's Restaurant all over again.

I think the danger is to support of single mothers.

There are too many cultural signals. We get a lot of American opinion
in our press, and one frequent theme was the proportion of single-mother
households in the "underclass". Recently we had _Boyz N the Hood_ showing
here, saying that this was a fundamental cause of things going wrong.

And George Bush? He's not gone nee thet tar baby, no sir. Too hot. Right?
But watch what he can slip by, into everybody's breakfast chat, by
talking about cultural icons. Murphy Brown ... the Simpsons ... lightweight
stuff ... goes into the bloodstream like chocolate ...

It only needs the right opinions to become ... controversial ... get
earnest editorials written about them in Time. I mean, we leftists
should know, _it's worked for us often enough_.

And one morning, you find it's about to be written into law.

Let me share with you the summary of a piece in _Commentary_ magazine,
in an issue showcasing the L.A. riots:

	It turns out that communities survive by socializing their
	young to certain norms of behaviour. They achieve that
	socialization with the help of realities to which parents
	can point - you have to work, or you won't be able to eat;
	if you don't have a husband, you won't be able to take care
	of your children; if you commit crimes, you will go to jail.
	From this raw material, parents fashion the gentler rewards
	and penalties that constrain unwanted behaviours, and foster
	desired ones.

	...

	There are essentially two alternatives [re: the brutalization
	of the inner cities]. One is authoritarian, treating the inner
	city as occupied territory, and its citizens as wards to be
	tutored and manipulated by the wise hand of the state. The
	other, and in my view the only one that American democracy
	can live with, is to take seriously the old aphorism that
	the only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him.
	The only way that inner-city communities will again begin to
	function as communities is if the individuals within them
	are again permitted and required to engage in that most
	Jeffersonian of enterprises, self-governance.


Isn't that something? First he says that Penalties - far from being
natural oppressions which a self-respecting community tries to
hold away from the weak - are the very fountain of social value.

Then he says that to allow these penalties to work unchecked on the
poor is to _trust_ them, trust them to reclaim their lost family
and civic virtues.


In my book, to trust someone is to grant them power or advantage -
over you - that you might with profit or security have withheld.
Your taxes, say, your library card, your secrets, etc.

Now this chap probably feels that his trust - the portion of his
taxes that has gone to single mothers, the unemployed, slum
schoolchildren - is sadly unrequited. You can't but help feel
sympathy for how the single mothers, the unemployed and the slum
schoolchildren have thrown his bounty back in his face. I'm 
beginning to hear this figure, A Trillion, bandied about: the
trillion you guys have all spent on the poor. Over twenty-odd
years, benefiting I suppose twenty million souls or more. This
guy regrets it - he feels that riots and illiteracy have betrayed
his generosity.

And perhaps they have. But the least he could say is: I think it's
time we stopped trusting these people.


Well, I think the conservatives - who could always boast of not
trusting government, but were a leeetle reluctant to say right
out that you can't trust the poor - are just about ready to unsell
trust in mothers out of wedlock.

This means, basically, that it's the unwed mother who is expected
to become the reforming angel of the drama. From her position of
power, she is expected to force the errant father back to his
productive role. She is expected to do this out of fear, which
will give her the power of ten, right? And he will surely comply,
out of guilt. She, of course, is expected to trust _him_, with her
entire property, and her life, while she holds him to a proper life
of support. From these sturdy motivational roots, self-respect will 
flourish, and the ghettos will rise again in optimism and hard-won
dignity.


This is all a little far from paganism, hmm? Well, I dunno. My style
is neo-Celtic, and that's full of some numinous, majestic, fairytale
quality that the Celt women really did assume and not just in fairytales.
The kind that made Ladies of the House out of the poorest 

	because
	that
	was
	their
	RIGHT

[Right: from the Gaelic Airigecht, meaning Kingship. As in, right of
way, might makes right, the Rights of Man ...]

From the neo-Celtic point of view, feminism is not a social strategy,
a refinement of Christian compassion for the weak, a refinement of
humanist enlightenment, or anything so modern. It's the grey pre-dawn
of the return of something that we had lost and forgotten. Something
Grail-like in nature. The return of the Goddesses into the human social
image.

You can't HAVE that, AND play behavioural games on disenfranchised
supporting mothers. Those are incompatible narratives. You get to
participate in the Return-of-the-Goddess drama only if you adjust
your vision so that the woman's Right stands out as a basic referent.

Everybody do that. Do it, if only for a night. _Then_ look at the
ghetto, and tell me what you see.

Thanks for your patience
Jonno



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jonathan Burns        |  They say you can go to the pits a thousand times
burns@latcs1.lat.oz.au|  and see nothing like the jaguar and the Black Knight.
Computer Science Dept |  I don't know 'bout that either. But I'm going back
La Trobe University   |  just in case I get lucky. 
                      |      Lucius Shepard, _Life During Wartime_
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~