Folkish vs. Universalist (pt2)

Arguments for Folkish

With the more ridiculous arguments out of the way - and I won't even get into the Scientology-level bullshit that is "metagenetics" - I'll take a moment here to examine some of the more reasonable discussions I've had on the subject.

While Folkish is often criticized as "white people only" there are others who argue that it's not about skin color or ethnicity, but about heritage. Because ancestor veneration is such a large part of the religion and world-view, they view it necessary to have some heritage somewhere leading back to northern europe. They define "folk" as family, no matter how far back.

They are also quick to argue that Heathenry is itself an ancestral folk-religion, here in the sense that it was connected to a specific tribal people at a specific time, and that gives us "claim" to it. They will point out that you can't simply walk onto a Sioux reservation and claim to be part of their tradition or their religion. The Sioux will not accept you, and yes, it will be because you are white. You are not part of their tribe.

There is a certain logic here, but does that make it right? Historically, white people have become part of the Sioux or other native traditions. The problem, it turns out, isn't that you're white. It's that they don't believe you have an earnest interest in converting. I am sure if I went out to a given group and made myself useful, ingratiated myself to them, and showed that I wasn't just another lost Caucasian out to either rip them off or cheapen their culture by adopting a parody of it and calling it my own, they might just accept me in time and teach me their world-view. Of course, there might be people among that tribe who also wouldn't accept me simply because I wasn't blood, but if the only reason one can level against you is race, then that is by definition racist. It doesn't matter who is doing it.

Universalists Corrupt the Core Values

I recently had a conversation with someone whom I otherwise held in fairly high regard. He called himself a Gothi, a claim of which I was skeptical even then, but he otherwise had some insightful things to say. Then he posted a thing on being folkish, and first stated how he didn't believe that you can't be a heathen if you weren't of European decent, but that he wouldn't want you in his kindred personally.

My natural inclination when presented with a position that I don't understand is to assume that the other person's position is valid, and that I simply don't have enough information to understand it. With that in mind, I struck up a conversation on the topic and asked him to explain it to me. I was told that being Universalist " is to corrupt the core values of the faith by bringing in or allowing to be brought in worship from areas foreign to our blood." He then went on to explain that one time someone tried to bring one of the celtic gods into a blot of his, and he was quite upset about it. He then elaborated on the argument with "Universalists have more of a wiccan mindset, most if not all wiccatru are universalists."

My respect for this person began to rapidly decline. The latter argument basically amounted to "If you don't exclude people based on race, you're basically a wiccan." The former wasn't actually an argument against race at all. Instead, what he was actually arguing for was purity of world view. Bringing a celtic god into a blot isn't a racial issue (and even if you tried to make it so, I have never heard anyone examine someone's ethnicity and go "well, you're Irish. You guys make fine slaves but you can't be heathen."), its an issue of mixing traditions.

I made a counter-argument, pointing out that the example given mixes two different issues. Legitimacy of blood or heritage had nothing to do with the conversation. It was about bringing in outside traditions. The only way it could hold legitimacy is if you assumed that someone who had no european blood had a brain shaped so fundamentally differently that they were physically unable to process the concepts of heathen culture and world-view. That bringing in a japanese man would by default force him to involve shinto spirits to the Blot. This is, of course, bullshit.

The thing about world-view and culture is that it has to be learned. And re-learned. You could be 100% Scandinavian with the purest, bluest eyes, the fairest hair and the most majestic of beards. Chances are you grew up christian, and just like our hypothetical japanese man, you would first have to unlearn your previous world-view and culture (christian, in this case) before you could correctly assume the heathen mindset. 99% of Heathens will come from a culture that isn't heathen. Why does their ancestry matter?

I was informed by the Gothi that he would be happy to answer me, but he was at work. He then refused to answer any other messages I sent him.

Drink from your own Well

There is frequently a discussion of something that amounts to a "folk soul." This is argued that the different tribes of people each have some kind of collective heritage soul. Each tribe has its own gods, its own ancestors, its own soul. In this arrangement, the Heathen gods are argued to be one set among many and  Folkish (or at least, this individual person's view of folkish) believe that by letting people into Asatru whose ancestors were not northern European, we are hurting that person's own soul / folk soul / ancestral line, because by allowing them to become Asatru, we are preventing them from finding /returning to their own tribe. On a more mystical level, one could make the argument that we are stealing from these other tribes in the way that the Christians stole from ours.

The real problem with a "folk soul" is first that the very concept didnt emerge until the 1800s, and was essentially coined to drum up a nationalist spirit for Germans during the Romantic era. We may quibble about the authenticity of Snorri, but I'm sure even the most lenient of will recognize that this places the notion about 700 years too late for any kind of authenticity.

The secondary issue is one more of internal consistency. Even if we assume that one is somehow bound to the gods and traditions of their ancestors, this is nothing like how most actually practice. Pan-germanic heathenry is a myth. Each individual tribe had their own arrangement of gods, myths, beliefs and customs. If you take this belief to heart, you cannot simply decide that you have "northern European" heritage and then call it a day. You need to know from where that heritage comes and then practice that specific set of beliefs. One whose ancestors come from Frankish origins would have a different "folk soul" than those who come from German, Saxon, Russian, Danish, or Geat tribes. This is a major inconsistency, given that the overwhelming majority of heathens (myself included) practice a distinctly Icelandic / norse flavored heathenry by simple virtue that it is the world-view for which we have the most data. If you believe that you are tied to the gods of your ancestors, however, that's simply not good enough.

This raises some additional issues as well. If one is both Irish and German, to which set of gods does your soul "belong" to? I've yet to come across the exclamation that person X is Irish and thus their soul belongs to the Dagda, or someone of white features informed that they have some slavic ancestry and thus their soul first belongs to Czernobog.

Ragnarok Commeth

A more interesting argument I've had has been actually involved the invocation of the Ragnarok myth. Before the big climax of the story, what do the ancient heathens see as an ending of their world? Endless winter, starvation, and a world where the bonds of kindship mean nothing. That kinship and blood mean nothing. This argument essentially boils down that blood is held in a higher regard than belief, and that blood>belief is what it means to be folkish, that it is central to the world view. This will occasionally become an argument about the survival of the cultures themselves. Often, discussions of this sort will have a weird undertone as though Scanadanavian / Germanic traditions/culture/mythology are somehow "endangered" and letting outsiders in will "water it down" and somehow corrupt it.

Sometimes this idea is sold in a tune that sounds something like "but everyone's culture and heritage is beautiful and should be preserved" that can catch even well-meaning people off-guard. Unfortunately, the direct implication here is "Your culture is equally beautiful. Now go practice it instead, somewhere away from us."

I don't buy anyof these arguments. The uncomfortable truth is that if our bar for faith is based on ancestry, every single "folkish" heathen out there should spend a significant chunk of their time celebrating their catholic heritage along with their heathen heritage, as the last thousand years of their more immediate ancestry has been christian, almost without fail.

Then we have the fundamental issue "if we let people into Asatru." As far as I know, there is no asa-pope and no clergy to officially recognize who is and isn't Heathen. As argued previously, the very idea that you could bar someone from celebrating gods that you recognize as independent beings is both ludicrous and antithetical to a polytheistic world view.

But for me, the most egregious of the errors at hand is the patronizing notion that you have a right to tell other people what is best for them and have any right whatsoever to make that decision for them. I've repeatedly mentioned that my coming to heathenry was based around attraction to the philosophy involved. If someone else finds that philosophy more appealing than their native philosophy, and embraces that world-view, who has the right to tell that person "I'm sorry, we know better than you that your place is in whatever ancestral philosophy you were born to. It's for your own good." It's a bit ironic, really. As fiercely independent as Heathens tend to be, I would think the heathen response to such crap would be to tell the person to go fuck themselves.

Where do I Sit?

I personally have a hard time paying attention to the debates. There are places in which I can agree with and even sympathize with the Folkish. For me, culture and world-view is the biggest part of my interest in heathenry, and I do place some reverence on my ancestry. There is a comforting feeling of coming home and an almost boastful pride in looking at and learning about their world with the knowledge these were my people. Particularly coming from American standard culture, where ethnic culture has been completely whitewashed away (forgive the pun), there is a kind of longing to reconnect with ones ancestry. However, I don't entertain that this is and can be the only gateway into heathenry. It's more than a "racial heritage." It's more than a religion. It's a culture we would like to see live again. Blood is not a requirement thereof. 

To the Odinist's horror, I would dare argue that the group with whom modern heathens have the most in common would actually be modern Jews. They are both an ethnic group and an insular subculture of their own. They exist both in the world and culture around them, but maintain their own identity and world-view. Conversion to Judaism is not a simple matter. One cannot show up at a synagogue and simply declare themselves to be Jewish. On the other hand, one can try to prove their worth to the community and ask to be accepted into it. This is a model modern heathens would do well to adopt, and with the way in which Kindreds work, we are well on our way.

At the end of the day, the argument is tired. As much as I would like to sympathize with the Folkish, I've yet to come across a good argument for their perspective. At the end of the day, you're still telling me "above all else, I'm going to judge this person not on their values, deeds, or worth, but on their ethnic background." I've yet to find anyone who can argue this in such a way as to be anything other than an asshole. Does this make me Universalist? Maybe, but I think I'm something else entirely:

Someone who doesn't give a damn.

I am a reconstructionist. My only concern is what was and wasn't actually practiced and believed by the historical culture. What is and isn't part of the traditional world view. It's not my right to decide who finds their home in Heathenry, and it's disrespectful to the idea of divinity that my personal biases can speak for them.

The only authority I have is deciding whether someone I can only decide whether I want them to be part of my tribe - my kindred. I can only choose to accept someone as part of my tribe, or reject them, and I should do so by their actions and strength of character. I don't care about race, and I frankly don't care to discuss it. That is, ultimately, the beauty of heathenry. There is no higher organization I have to appease, no human agency to whom I need to appeal. I'm going to do what I need to do, and continue trying to follow the paths of those that have come before, as best as I understand them.