2009
I started reading archaeologist Willim G. Dever’s Did God Have a Wife? Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel, and immediately came upon some thoughts of his that touched upon the points I was trying to make here with regards to feminist scholarship and polytheism:
how far does one go in feminist enterprises? I distinguish here between (1) “mainstream” feminists – competent, honest scholars who happen to be women, and who focus on women’s issues among other scholarly interests and (2) “doctrinaire” feminists, whose extremist ideology trumps any scholarly credentials they might have, and who has a result become as chauvinist as the men whose agenda they reject (xiii-xiv).
I think this hits upon the crux of our own problem here with associating Paganism with Eco-Feminism and other social causes. It also touches again upon what is moderate and what is extreme. It seems clear to me, as it does apparently to Dever, that when ideology trumps scholarship, you have veered into extreme thinking. This is the case with Marxism as well, where all the world’s history is to be understood as class struggle – which is demonstrably not the case. And when everyone who disagrees with you becomes morally inferior or demonized – then too you have trodden too far upon the fields of extremism.
Therefore this Eco-Feminism, when we begin to talk about “oppression” of the Earth and in the same breath as oppression of women, we have reached that point where discourse becomes problematic. It is difficult to have a dialogue with an extremist and extremists do not try to have dialogues with those in the middle. Rather, they preach, or lecture, or seek to dictate. We see this not only from the far Right in our own society, but the far Left, where one is telling me that I’m immoral because I don’t accept Christ into my life and the other is telling me I’m violating human rights by circumcising my son. Or being told that eating meat is akin to engaging in human slavery, or that gay-lesbian couples getting married is akin to pedophilia.
When discourse gets to such a level, I’d argue, we’ve left reason far behind.
Spam deleted
The person who was the generator of the long list of comments for the topic "Moderation vs. Extremism", has made a post on her blog about the rebuttals she received from here. She has no idea how sorry and comic she sounds. I'm going to post her statements below, and reply to each one of them.
Hraf, get your laughs for the day. As I don't want to name her, I will refer to her in the neutral, as "lady".
1) “I've noticed a trend in our society. There is this idea that is being presented to us, sometimes very subtly and sometimes not so much. This idea is quite simple. No one should ever think they're right and others wrong. And *if* they think that they should never, ever say it out loud.”
Lady, this is also what monotheists feel. Question is, did you weigh the pros and cons before deciding if you were indeed right? I don’t think so, because you were left with no answer when those who you attacked as being in the “wrong”, pointed out some hard facts to you. Sorry, but you sound a little too vague with this statement.
2) “I could be wrong, I'm open to being wrong and I'm genuinely interested in other people's reasons for things.”
Ah, but my lady, once again, this is not how your presented your argument on Hraf’s post about Moderation vs. Extremism. If you have the courage to admit now that you could have been wrong, good. But back when you posted your comments, there was nothing in them that suggested that you wanted a meaningful dialogue with omnivores and meat-eaters. You came in guns blazing, and just fired at the “others”.
3) “Now this isn't to say I've never been a judgmental, in-your-face, nasty bitch. I have.”
Here, I agree wholeheartedly. ;-D Thanx for using those words, because I couldn’t have used them, and nothing could better describe your behaviour on the issues of abortion and diet.
4) “But what I find even more amusing is a person's reaction when I don't let that shut me up! When their tactic is found out and I just explain to them that their little outburst proves nothing about the topic, they just get more and more angry. Because they know! They know that they're A. Wrong or B. That their own arguments aren't sound and have to be re-evaluated.”
After reading this post of yours, I wasn’t angry. Far from it. I was with a stomach cramp, from laughing this much. You sound eager to defend yourself in your place, just because you either A. didn’t have the face to come here and supply us your argument as to why the killing of plants and herbs didn’t qualify as killing in your opinion and B. you were unwilling to accept that someone else had brought in an issue, that you had thought would easily escape others’ attention. All I can say is: LOL!! And still more LOL!!!
If you thought I was wrong, and that my opinion about the killing of plants had to be “re-evaluated”, then my friend, you would have confronted me with questions. You didn’t.
5) “And when they come at me and say, "Well, you could be wrong too!" It's again like they think they've "Ah ha'd!" me or "Gotcha'd" me into a corner. Duh. Yes! I admit my own capacity to be incorrect. So that rug just gets swiped out from under them. So then what happens? My very admission of being capable of being wrong gets thrown in my face as yet another example of me being *arrogant*!”
Duh??!!! Is that even English??! LOL!! This is a first. I must admit I have never come across someone, who was called arrogant, right after they’d admitted that they were wrong. You could have tried this one out here, before coming up with such a ridiculous statement, but then my lady, you were too uncomfortable thinking about how you are a plant-murderer, mutilator and plant-killer (that’s HUGE!!! LOL!), to have the gumption to make your appearance here once again.
(contd)
(contd)
6) “At the end of the day, it's a defense mechanism designed to keep any criticism of their views at bay while at the same time trying to appear tolerant and open-minded.”
This is the last time I’m going to read something like this, and not react. Next time you say something similar, I’m going to copy paste your statements from the comments you have made and make a post out of them, so that the other readers can see just how “tolerant” and “open-minded” you were with your comments.
7) “It's classic to project onto others and accuse them of the things we ourselves are guilty of.”
So you admit that you yourself are guilty of intolerance and myopic vision? Because that is what this line suggests.
A famous quote is coming to mind of a person who used to say “I HAAATE intolerant people.” LOL. I hope you’ve noticed the irony in the statement. It applies to you.
Wow, lady!! After making personal attacks against the owner of this blog, and treating omnivores and meat-eaters with the same respect that you would a criminal, you go and say that you were “being polite” making “good points”???
Last year, I had a small tiff with a Wiccan member on this blog. Her google ID is: Cosette. I was the first one to begin the attack and I admit this fact in all honesty. Once it was pointed out to me, that I was being downright rude, I immediately apologized to her, publicly, on this blog. Today, Cosette is one of my best pagan friends from the west.
So don’t try to tell me what you did was in any way polite and that you did not indulge in personal attacks, because I know the difference.
But the classic “denial syndrome” in your case, comes from the statement I have saved for the last. I know Hraf is going to get his laughs from it, because I already have. So here it is:
9) “When people over-react like this to something I have to say it shows me one thing, that their own views need so much propping up because dinged just a little, even by the mere thought that they could be wrong, wobbles their structure. It shows me that they don't really have much confidence in their position. In other words, it's not me…it's that they know their position and premises are frail.
It's their own insecurity about their views.”
I have to first stop laughing to be able to type out my reply to these lines from you. LOL!!
Since refuting attacks from someone who comes across as illogical is the same as being “frail” and “insecure”, from now on, each one of us when making a post about our opposition to monotheism, including yourself, lady, will keep in mind that we are doing so because we are all “insecure” polytheists. Our insecurity as people walking in the path of the gods is so great, that we need to stop feeling weak, by attacking monotheists.
From now on, each one of us, including you, must remember, that only the “insecure” and the “obnoxious”; like us pagans, who have no good reason to worship the gods, criticize monotheists from time to time and try to paint their religions and their godhead, as being in the wrong.
Hraf, whose spam comment did you have to delete? Please let me know. Thanx!
Indrani, thanks for posting the amusing comments about me. It really does astound me that a person can so misrepresent themselves and probably mean every word of it. But what you posted here is exactly what I've seen time and again from Christian critics. The reason is simple: extremist points of view all.
I think I will finish up that post on extremism I was working on. I'd gotten side-tracked by that "Christianity Today" article but that's such a long project that I might as well put out the extremist post first or it will be a week before I post again!
I don't feel any need to respond personally to her points because you have done an admirable job of that for me. I could not have said it any better. As I will say in my extremist post, you can't really have a dialogue with an extremist because it isn't allowed. All that's required is a target for the monologue, a unidirectional discourse – in other words, preaching or lecturing.
You absolutely did the right thing to apologize to Cosette. When we are wrong, we are wrong and we must take personal responsibility for our actions and for our decisions. I have been in the wrong before and I have apologized. I will apologize again if it is warranted at some future time. But that time is not now. It's clear who attacked who in the midst of a rational dialogue and it's clear why.
The spam, by the way, was for some source of US funds for college grants or loans.