“The far-right’s selective myth leaves no room for self-sacrifice, humility, or descent. And that’s why it’s fragile.”
This is the same reason why most conservatives that are after a pagan revival, in body but not spirit, are quick to reject Christianity.
Those 3 things they leave no room for, they do not see in modern Christianity and think it a problem with the teachings as opposed to the false teachers.
They somehow think that if teachings/myth can be profaned, then it lacks truth — all the while doing the same act of profanity in masquerading in beliefs that are not theirs.
I’ve been getting tired of hearing many conservatives talk about a new renaissance and return to pagan values because I can feel how empty it is, just as Dawkins wants cultural Christianity without the faith.
Everyone wants the knowledge of good and evil, power, without accepting that it is a direct choice against life: wisdom.
The to what degree plato actually thought it was necessary to lie gets a little complicated. Not helped because of the Straussians taking it and running with it.
I can’t tell you how deeply this essay hit me. During my fifteen years of Jungian analysis I tended to identify more with the Greeks than the Norse, but I read Bullfinch’s mythology and Edith Hamilton, as well as many books by Jungian analysts relating myths of one sort and another with psychological problems and their resolutions. I was brought up a Methodist—no statues of saints in the churches I attended. We barely recognized the existence of saints. So when I encountered Jung, I was ripe for the sensuality of imagery.
I have not lost that love of richness, but I have missed it a lot since I left the Jungian community. Thank you for bringing it back to life!
Excellent analysis, Slick. You shine needed light into the dark recesses of the twisted soul and troubled collective consciousness of the far right. Myth and the power of the symbol is shamelessly misused to achieve domination and regression to an authoritarian hierarchy. As a psycho-historian, I like to hear more about “what hurt you, Julius Evola?” Your summary of Cassierer’s take on myth and his limitations is spot-on, as is your dissection of the hollow-stick figure, the Q-Anon Shaman, who exclaimed ungratefully upon beng pardoned -“Gonna get me some f-ing guns!!”
My ancestors were mostly Germanic. But that's irrelevant here.
What's relevant is that I don't want my cultural heritage to be distorted by people who understand nothing of it.
Stop cosplaying as a defender of an imagined ethnic homeland and go read a book. Look at you. Whatever you think you stand for, your best shot at people is blind-guessing their origins and culture, just so you can hit them with your half-digested, rehashed lingo.
Nothing to make your ancestors proud, whoever they were. And the 'Aesir' would laugh at you, if you even knew what the word meant.
And... a hermetic magus, really? What's your ethnocentric claim to *that* tradition now?
“The far-right’s selective myth leaves no room for self-sacrifice, humility, or descent. And that’s why it’s fragile.”
This is the same reason why most conservatives that are after a pagan revival, in body but not spirit, are quick to reject Christianity.
Those 3 things they leave no room for, they do not see in modern Christianity and think it a problem with the teachings as opposed to the false teachers.
They somehow think that if teachings/myth can be profaned, then it lacks truth — all the while doing the same act of profanity in masquerading in beliefs that are not theirs.
I’ve been getting tired of hearing many conservatives talk about a new renaissance and return to pagan values because I can feel how empty it is, just as Dawkins wants cultural Christianity without the faith.
Everyone wants the knowledge of good and evil, power, without accepting that it is a direct choice against life: wisdom.
Yes. You can empty a thing and subvert it, then claim it wasn't that big to begin with. To some that is called missing the point; to others, victory.
The to what degree plato actually thought it was necessary to lie gets a little complicated. Not helped because of the Straussians taking it and running with it.
Ah, I didn't mean to be unfair to Plato; I did mostly present Cassirer's take on Plato's lie here.
It wouldn't be the first time someone's thought gets a bit distorted in the retelling...
Thanks for bringing this nuance!
I can’t tell you how deeply this essay hit me. During my fifteen years of Jungian analysis I tended to identify more with the Greeks than the Norse, but I read Bullfinch’s mythology and Edith Hamilton, as well as many books by Jungian analysts relating myths of one sort and another with psychological problems and their resolutions. I was brought up a Methodist—no statues of saints in the churches I attended. We barely recognized the existence of saints. So when I encountered Jung, I was ripe for the sensuality of imagery.
I have not lost that love of richness, but I have missed it a lot since I left the Jungian community. Thank you for bringing it back to life!
Thank you!
Life is colourful, deep, nuanced, and no one can take that away from us, no matter how hard they try.
I'm happy to be a weekly reminder, and grateful every time the goal is met--so, thank you!
Excellent analysis, Slick. You shine needed light into the dark recesses of the twisted soul and troubled collective consciousness of the far right. Myth and the power of the symbol is shamelessly misused to achieve domination and regression to an authoritarian hierarchy. As a psycho-historian, I like to hear more about “what hurt you, Julius Evola?” Your summary of Cassierer’s take on myth and his limitations is spot-on, as is your dissection of the hollow-stick figure, the Q-Anon Shaman, who exclaimed ungratefully upon beng pardoned -“Gonna get me some f-ing guns!!”
Lol, Are You Jewish?
What does your question have to do with Norse mythology being appropriated and misunderstood by the American far right?
Lol, yep, really looking Jewish. Pagan religion is by and large ethnocentric, Brezhnen. Stop trying to push universalist slop.
Ahem where's the universalist slop?
My ancestors were mostly Germanic. But that's irrelevant here.
What's relevant is that I don't want my cultural heritage to be distorted by people who understand nothing of it.
Stop cosplaying as a defender of an imagined ethnic homeland and go read a book. Look at you. Whatever you think you stand for, your best shot at people is blind-guessing their origins and culture, just so you can hit them with your half-digested, rehashed lingo.
Nothing to make your ancestors proud, whoever they were. And the 'Aesir' would laugh at you, if you even knew what the word meant.
And... a hermetic magus, really? What's your ethnocentric claim to *that* tradition now?