This post is part of Marc H. Ellis’s “Exile and the Prophetic” feature for Mondoweiss. To read the entire series visit the archive page.
So, at the end of European identity, at least as they see it, do Europeans return to their pagan roots? The next phase of the program here is called “Native Spirit.” It features an Austrian “shaman.” The students will stay in tepees – made out of wood. Are you beginning to get the picture?
What’s so interesting is that traditional religiosity, say Christianity, directly related to the foundations of Europe, is so discredited here that, even in its reformed mode, it’s banished. Romero made an impact on only a few here. But a return to pagan Europe – are you kidding me?
All I can see is Nazi pagan symbols on whatever uniform Europeans adopt. Give me reformed and restrained Christianity, even the Vatican’s type, any day of the week. Yes, I said it, the Christianity of nowadays is vastly preferable to European paganism whatever pre-history they try to dredge up to enable the furtherance of their modern affluence. Hear me out, though. I am not trying to suggest a return to Christianity or Austrian traditional dress as a public affirmation. I am suggesting that Europeans struggle with their real history rather than expropriating native spirituality, in truth from the Americas, rather than Europe.
Of course, I loved John Lennon’s reference to Druid dudes. I visited Stonehenge when I was on my first European tour in the 1970s. So I love the pagan stuff, am even Star Hawk type (who has a Jewish birth certificate by the way). Nonetheless, if we get real, all of this is New Age Jewish Renewal packaged in different guises and without the Jewish foundation. The Jewish foundation held Lerner and Company in some kind of check. It’s different to let New Age paganism run wild in the European landscape. In four years when I’m invited back to teach here – if I am as I was this time – my European students might be wearing uniforms and saluting when I enter the classroom. Or refusing to listen to a Jew – some of them find it difficult enough now.
Ezekiel, yes, my fave, also had his night side. In part of his nightmare, or his redactor’s nightmare, the priests of Yahweh bow to the sun, meaning that even at that date, paganism infused Israel’s spiritual and political life. On the contemporary scene, Richard Rubenstein in After Auschwitz, opined that the Jewish return to Israel was a Jewish reconnection with pagan roots. He even declared himself to be a Jewish pagan. Where was he supposed to go when the God of history had fled the scene? It wasn’t going to be to Christianity, though he admired Catholicism for its negotiated settlement with paganism and criticized Judaism and Protestantism for the strict separation of God and humanity, leaving the earth for progress – and mass death.
So hankering for paganism to close the Sky God/human divide and thus to limit the de-sacralization of the earth isn’t news to me. I’ve been hearing the arguments since my early college years. As the students reading my Practicing Exilepoint out, I’ve softened my Jewishness with Zen. I couldn’t practice exile without Zen. Point taken. We all need something more to make sure we are this and that – but not only. Still the “not only” has to be thought through, lest we mistake the important add-on as the center and, with that, pretend we are ahistorical individuals.
Europeans dancing with wolves. Without Kevin Costner. Adding another uniform. In a long history there are so many uniforms worn. Does it make any difference which one you wear? Perhaps they are more or less the same. Depending on the context, they can go one way or the other.
Best to wear the uniform we know the best?
My Jewish uniform. Shall I dance naked around the bonfire caused by Star of David helicopter gunships firing rockets in the night? Or better fully dressed for synagogue services, Star of David helicopter gunships resting quietly in the Ark of the Covenant?
Dancing with wolves. As in, sensibilities/spiritualties that avoid history.
Native spirits, restive, expropriated. Isn’t this true of everything that breathes long enough to survive?
Conforming to power, especially when you think you’re leapfrogging the awful past. You aren’t.
Paganism linked with modernity. Modernizing the spirits that would have said, “no” for reasons that weren’t strictly about the ethical imperative. Real Shamans hadn’t read Kierkegaard. Or listened to Wagner.
Richard Wagner’s pagan imagination .With a dose of Martin Luther. Channeled through Adolf Hitler.
Dancing around the Jewish books fire. Before the Great Book Robbery
You wrote: “What’s so interesting is that traditional religiosity, say Christianity, directly related to the foundations of Europe, is so discredited here that, even in its reformed mode, it’s banished.”
Do you mean it’s discredited in Europe or discredited at your studies group? I think that strongly leftist political groups are less likely to be religious in part because such groups run more counter to political institutions and thus religious institutions too. Plus- and this is true for Europe in general- there must be a natural reaction against having a “State Church” in modern Europe where there are beliefs in Democracy. Even if the people are OK with having a State Church there it makes sense that progressive people may be more likely to react against it or care less about an institutional religious or political philosophy that, in the modern world, is being put on them by the government.
Regarding Europe, I am not sure so much that religious ideas are discredited on a philosophical or leftist anti-institutional level as people don’t care. They will go to major religious ceremonies and holidays, and apparently they don’t care enough to de-Statize their churches, but I don’t think they are strong religious atheists either. I could be wrong. But my impression is that they think religion has alot of nice parts, but they have some doubts about it and are too “busy” on Sundays.
Thus in turn suggests to me something about religion– particularly Christianity- that the poor are more likely to be attracted to it. If in Europe the system has guaranteed and secured people’s needs, why would they feel compelled inside to go to church? At least this I think was one of Marx’s ideas about the “sigh of the oppressed”, and he predicted people would stop caring as much about religion as their society’s positions improved. And isn’t this noticeable in the modern world, where it is more easy to spread religious ideas among poor people than in much-better-off western Europe?
I would note some important exceptions however to the idea that Europe is forgetting traditional religion, and that would be eastern Europe. Ironically although the socialist governments there encouraged agnosticism or atheism, the eastern churches have made a strong comeback, in part resurfacing. That is not to say people were really atheists under the Soviet system or the Church was banned- the opposite was true, as there was state sponsorship. This could also be seen as a counter-reaction to state sponsorship of religion (agnosticism) or a reaction to people’s relative poverty in eastern Europe compared to western Europe.
So instead of most Europeans studying Spinoza, Nietszche, or other atheist philosophers and religion being discredited in their eyes as a made-up part of an exploitive system, it seems to me that in general western Europeans care less about it than in previous generations. To some extent this phenomenon seems true to me in American society as well.
Regards.
““…Richard Wagner’s pagan imagination .With a dose of Martin Luther. Channeled through Adolf Hitler.
Dancing around the Jewish books fire. Before the Great Book Robbery…”
I think maybe you’re reading too much into it.