Last week I shared my thoughts about an editorial that appeared in The Atlantic back in December. This week I will focus more on the publishers of that editorial.
Briefly, the editorial in question was written by a highly respected, widely read teacher of his faith. The editorial was a lengthy diatribe excoriating Pagans and Paganism. It was needlessly hurtful and insulting. And it was largely fact-free.
A few points made by the author, which are correct:
• Humility as it is taught in the Abrahamic faiths is not high on most Pagans list of virtues.
• Hitler and his murdering thugs did misuse elements of Germanic Paganism in an effort to further their aims. Their present day ideological descendants are doing the same.
• "Paganism" is a catchall word applied to widely disparate views.
However, most of the editorial under discussion was grossly uninformed. As an example, I offer what was, for me, the single most terrible sentence contained in it-
"The Nazis...were reinvigorating a pagan ideal."
This is simply appalling. Misusing elements of a religion does not equate with "reinvigorating an ideal".
That single line is bad enough. The entire editorial painted, with the widest brush imaginable, Pagans and Paganism as the ultimate cause of a host of problems afflicting our society today.
Suppose this were turned around, and an editorial was written blaming monotheism for assorted issues like the dismal state of American healthcare, child hunger, war, climate change, reality TV shows, corporate greed, and dresses without pockets. How well do you think that would be received? Would it be published in The Atlantic?
It's safe to assume that the majority of The Atlantic's readers identify as members of Abrahamic faiths, which are monotheistic. Those readers are likely to be unaware that Pagan forms of monotheism exist. (Apparently the author of "The return of the pagans" is himself unaware of that.) They'd likely feel offended by the use of the word "monotheist" to describe so many awful things. Even though church attendance is declining in the US, the majority of Americans still identify with one or another of those Abrahamic faiths. (According to the Pew Research Center, as of 2020 the percentage of Americans identifying as Christian stood at 64%. Factor in all the Americans who identify as Muslim or Jewish, and the percentage of Abrahamic monotheists is of course higher.) Insulting them wouldn't be a wise thing to do.
But suppose that, for whatever reason, The Atlantic considered publishing that hypothetical essay.
Maybe they really like the author. Or the general topic; "What's wrong with the world" tends to be a crowd pleaser. "Us versus Them" is also popular. Maybe they were hoping for a bit of attention-getting controversy. People who seldom read The Atlantic might read it for that. Negative attention is still attention, right? And attention can be monetized.
But publishing such a piece can be risky. The publisher could be boycotted. They might be penalized by social media platforms. There could be damage to their reputation and credibility; they could lose subscribers, advertisers, and income. If someone claimed injury, they could be sued. Even with that nice Get Out Of Legal Hot Water Free Card, commonly known as a "views expressed" disclaimer, they could suffer considerable losses. The kind not handed down by a court.
Why would they risk that? What might persuade them to go ahead with it?
The only answer I can come up with is, if the group being targeted seemed a safe one to target. Meaning, any potential pushback would be minor. No great threat to their bottom line.
I suspect that my hypothetical opinion piece would have been shot down faster than a police drone hovering above a meth cook's shed. Because the editors of The Atlantic wouldn't have considered it safe to denigrate those groups, or even just appear to do so.
Pagans however have been a safe target for a very long time, and we know it. We can be harassed in public, discriminated against in the workplace, bullied and threatened online, slandered from church pulpits, and apparently now, scapegoated in the pages of high-profile mainstream publications. And not very many people outside of our community seem too bothered by it. Our numbers may have been growing in recent years but we will always be in the minority. A safe target.
If I could ask the editors of The Atlantic just one question, it would be-
What the hell were you thinking?
A friend has suggested to me that the "pagans" editorial is so out of character for the author as to raise questions about his current state of mind. That the author is recently retired, may be suffering again from serious health issues, and may be suffering from the pain and shock of recent events in Gaza. That any of these things (or something else entirely) may be affecting his judgement. Having read some of this author's earlier writings, I'm inclined to agree that's a possibility. And if that turns out to be the case, I'll save every ounce of my wrath for those who published it. And again raise the question for the editors who approved it-
What the hell were you thinking?
For the past several years Pagans in the US have been closely watching the rising tide of far-right politics allied with far-right Christianity. Their vilification of and legislated cruelty towards groups considered antithetical to their ideology. At the moment we're not getting as much attention from the Christian far-right. But we know we'd likely be in their crosshairs as much as any other group that didn't toe the Christian nationalist line, should they actually take over. Make no mistake, that is their goal. (It was preached in my parents church back in the seventies. The conflating of Christianity and "American greatness" goes back much further.) There have even been discussions about what we might do, should a time come when just keeping a low profile might not be enough to keep us safe.
There's no valid reason to assume that religiously motivated hate could never escalate against us in this country. For us to pretend otherwise would be foolish. And rubbish like that recently published by The Atlantic would fuel the fires.
The Atlantic is a magazine famed for over a century for it's journalistic excellence and as a trusted source for news and insight. For it's editors to assume that it was okay to publish that atrocious nonsense was the height of irresponsibility. Whether motivated by a desire to create attention-getting controversy or not, it was simply disgraceful.
It was unworthy of them. And a mistake which I sincerely hope will not be repeated in the future.
What the hell were you thinking?
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Oh, and just so you know...we aren't "returning".
We never left.
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Thank you for reading. This is an open thread, all topics are welcome.