The New Paganism and the Rise of the Nietzscheans
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- Опубликовано: 26 июн 2024
- As the liberal order continues to collapse, rival voices have gained popularity-groups that aren’t content secularizing religion, but rejecting Christianity altogether. Old pagan arguments are resurrecting: the aesthetics of power, might-makes-right, vitalism and tyranny. Alex Denley and Dr. Andrew Willard Jones discuss their new series “The Politics of Paganism” and how Christianity can understand and defeat the pagan attacks against it.
If you’d like to read ahead for the series:
1. Selections from the City of God by St. Augustine
2. The Republic by Plato
3. The Politics by Aristotle
4. Laws by Cicero
5. The Treatise on Law by St. Thomas Aquinas
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THANK YOU! I was waiting for a catholic response to BAP and the Nietzschians. I don’t know if this was mentioned but please go through his book similarly to how the Gender podcast went over Judith Butler.
Also I know you guys see a lot of issues with his Vitalism, but there is a growing movement online to a return to authentic Catholic masculinity/vitalism. Twitter users such as @ChivalryGuild have MASSIVE followings and are promoting the authentic masculinity of the medieval knights which you guys support rather than the Bronze Age pagans . Please make sure to emphasize this positive element rather than just critiques of pagan vitalism. The issue of feminism and male loneliness is real (speaking as a American male in his 20s) alot of guys get influenced by the BAPists and get a false view that Christianity (or how it’s presented) is a religion for girls... The lack of catholic criticism of feminism has perpetuated this and put off many men who don’t know the real Christianity of the medieval era.
I will share this podcast with my friends. Thanks!
Thanks for the enthusiasm and feedback Daniel. I'll try to bring up some of those issues in future episodes -Alex
Looks like I have a new channel in which to subscribe. Thank you for taking this on.
Fascinating insights! Love to see the discussion.
Looking forward to the rest.
I look forward to the series, and understand it's the first entry, but given what other work I've seen from you guys on the far right (broadly speaking) I think it's warranted to worry that this may not serve as a serious answer to these people or even a way to understand them better, so much as additional reasons for people already opposed to them to feel better about that.
Even if you mean it when you say they raise many good points, this still sounds quite dismissive. You've done so much better against liberalism and these "neo-pagans" are among the people most aligned with your analysis of modern problems, and even your solutions sometimes. That includes most Christians and even most practicing Catholics outside the far right, so I just hope to find a message substantially different from "bless their hearts, they should go outside more."
Despite the abundant insight that the pre-Christian world can offer us as *analogy*, the use of "pagan" as the umbrella term for this is uncomfortable. "Pagan" was an insult in the Roman Empire, poking fun of the religion of the rural people; a religion that was natural and traditional to humans. The Pre-Christian religious world of the cities were in decline, as convincingly portrayed in Chesterton's Everlasting Man, and recently in an interview on Pints with Aquinas, Cardinal Burke hinted at a similar interpretation of the Aztec religious world; which was echoed in Benedict XVI's speech on Guadalupe. The recent Pachamama episode is a product of totalizing ideology (of diversity, inclusion, globalism, liberation, environmentalism, Gaia, etc.) NOT a generous if misguided attempt to give recognition to an actual indigenous goddess. Neo-Paganism is descended from occultism and magical practices, not pagan religious views (except in Egypt, "normal" religious believers feared witches as much as the late Middle Ages). After Christianity's rise, it's true that the word "pagan" began to be used to refer to non-Christians in general, but that was an extra slap in the face to the unconverted, as it essentially meant something along the lines of "yokel" or "hayseed". Pagan literally means "a field-dweller".
What we're talking about here is Oriental statecraft, demonic economies, agrilogistics, slave and grain economies... CIVIC religions. It's the logic of the City. Of god-kings and decadent bureaucracies. Nothing done today resembles the 'religion of the yokels'... ancestor veneration, care and fear of the non-human world, radical attachment to tribe and family, a sense of the spiritual. Everything is industrial, technocratic, plastic... it resembles Gnosticism or some other heresy. It resembles Assyria. I think you're opening yourself to the critique of Lewis in his poem "Cliche Came Out of Its Cage."
I don't know what better nomenclature there might be, but if you could comment on what exactly "pagan" means in this context, perhaps that would help me. The recent excellent book by John Daniel Davidson didn't really address this either, though it is the major theme.
Cliche Came Out of its Cage
1
You said 'The world is going back to Paganism'.
Oh bright Vision! I saw our dynasty in the bar of the House
Spill from their tumblers a libation to the Erinyes,
And Leavis with Lord Russell wreathed in flowers, heralded with flutes,
Leading white bulls to the cathedral of the solemn Muses
To pay where due the glory of their latest theorem.
Hestia's fire in every flat, rekindled, burned before
The Lardergods. Unmarried daughters with obedient hands
Tended it By the hearth the white-armd venerable mother
Domum servabat, lanam faciebat. at the hour
Of sacrifice their brothers came, silent, corrected, grave
Before their elders; on their downy cheeks easily the blush
Arose (it is the mark of freemen's children) as they trooped,
Gleaming with oil, demurely home from the palaestra or the dance.
Walk carefully, do not wake the envy of the happy gods,
Shun Hubris. The middle of the road, the middle sort of men,
Are best. Aidos surpasses gold. Reverence for the aged
Is wholesome as seasonable rain, and for a man to die
Defending the city in battle is a harmonious thing.
Thus with magistral hand the Puritan Sophrosune
Cooled and schooled and tempered our uneasy motions;
Heathendom came again, the circumspection and the holy fears ...
You said it. Did you mean it? Oh inordinate liar, stop.
2
Or did you mean another kind of heathenry?
Think, then, that under heaven-roof the little disc of the earth,
Fortified Midgard, lies encircled by the ravening Worm.
Over its icy bastions faces of giant and troll
Look in, ready to invade it. The Wolf, admittedly, is bound;
But the bond wil1 break, the Beast run free. The weary gods,
Scarred with old wounds the one-eyed Odin, Tyr who has lost a hand,
Will limp to their stations for the Last defence. Make it your hope
To be counted worthy on that day to stand beside them;
For the end of man is to partake of their defeat and die
His second, final death in good company. The stupid, strong
Unteachable monsters are certain to be victorious at last,
And every man of decent blood is on the losing side.
Take as your model the tall women with yellow hair in plaits
Who walked back into burning houses to die with men,
Or him who as the death spear entered into his vitals
Made critical comments on its workmanship and aim.
Are these the Pagans you spoke of? Know your betters and crouch, dogs;
You that have Vichy water in your veins and worship the event
Your goddess History (whom your fathers called the strumpet Fortune).
Uhm excuse me but please don't use the P-slur, folk religion is rooted in anti capitalism not your white male privilege
Agree that pagan was initially a pejorative term. This will be addressed more in the next episode on St. Augustine. Pagan means "man under sin and without grace;" man thoroughly within the City of Man. Such an analysis is only made possible by the revelation of the City of God.
@@NewPolityPodcast Thank you for addressing this. This definition works just fine for me, but I think y'all are going to consistently be misunderstood using this terminology. Maybe you're okay with that, which I also would understand--maybe to make a sharp distinction between Natural Religion as defined by the Catechism (which is what most people conjure up in their minds when they hear the word "paganism") and the City of Man would be useful as a segment or disclaimer.
Thank you so much for all you have done, are doing, and plan to do. I can't believe that this is available for free. Love your work, keep it up. We're listening.
u should reach out to someone in BAP sphere and gace tgem for a talk.. dialogue woukd be p productive..
I'd love to hear you talk about Rene Girard. There's A lot of common ground in the analysis of paganism you give here that I would enjoy your take on.
Wait so you'll actually accept these Straussian readings of Plato? Oh boy. You are better than this.
Guys, Nietzsche is overplayed. I get that Bishop Barron had some interesting takes a few years ago, but that only points to the fact that few today really understand him. It’s the legacy of Heidegger, of the existentialists who play a bigger role.
Nietzsche is a product of Christianity, a negation secreted by Christianity. And it is the inner logic of Christianity that it'll then seek to sanctify and integrate this inversion it itself has produced - Nietzsche as God-seeker. Such are the dialectics that brought us here...
I mean that's an interesting thought. What do you mean by that though? Nietzsche opposed himself to Christianity, are you saying he wasn't thoroughly pagan by doing that?
he isnt a negation of Christianity, he negates any platonic world view and believes that truth is discovered by living in a passionate manner
Non-competitiveness is super boring. I want to compete with other people and have mediums through which I can prove my superiority, strength, and vigor
Aesthetics are deceiving by their nature, and that is why they have to be put in their proper place. Bapism is clearly decadence, he says as much himself. The reason why values can't merely be justified through Nietzschean romanticism because the core human motivators for imposing values on the world are faulty. And this is why BAP himself takes part in so much debauchery, he isn't making his own values, he's just obeying motivations men are already pre-disposed to indulge in excess.
In a nutshell the most important thing to understand about neopaganism, is not only that it rejects Christianity, or any theistic religion, but that it also explicitly rejects Platonism. And, if Aristotelianism is a modification of Platonism, which it is, then the neopaganism of today has no place for universals or essences. Add to that that all Pagan ontologies are pantheistic, i.e., all paganisms are metaphysically monistic, and what you get is the only thing left to determine right or wrong, good or bad, just or unjust is power. Power is the fundamental principle upon which neopaganism is built.
A lot of neopagans are platonist..
Being a monists doesnt leave you with power to determine morality...
@@anthonycostello6055 and thus Augustine was right all along
Loads of pagans are platonists...
The link between monism (God is everything) and power morals is completely unjustified.
Loads of pagans are platonists. Aquinas is bad aristotle.
Morals based on power doesnt follow from momism.
Guys, you’ve gotta read the person you’re critiquing a little more deeply. Most of these criticisms of BAP and Nietzsche are very weak and addressed directly in the things they’ve written. So much wacky psychoanalysis as well. There are real historical and philosophical arguments for the longhouse stuff and vitalism. It’s not just because men upset with women lol
They also conveniently left out thousands of years of "pagan" texts from across the world in order to hyperfocus on Plato and Nitchze...
Bugmen can never get it.
It seems to me what you're essentially saying is that paganism is characterized by finitude and Christianity is characterised by the infinite.
The finite is necessarily competitive, closed, and subjective. Christianity points beyond these limits to transcending reality, and that makes all the difference.
If we having nothing "beyond" to strive toward, all we have is the "here and now."
Thats an interesting criticism since we have something beyond to strive towards in all lf the pagan texts...including Platonism
@@crushinnihilism all you say? You're quite well read! I was thinking more of the popular conceptions of the gods vice the philosophical systems of Plato and Aristotle, but yes, you are correct. Plato really pierces the veil, or at least seeks to do so, in his pursuit of the Good. Aristotle is more debatable, but obviously his thought was of inestimable value for later Christian philosophers as well.
@@LewisVine Plato literally creates a metaphysics later adopted by the Church fathers. Christian metaphysics is paganism.
Open up the rig veda. Read the upanishads. The platonic monad appears in earlier indian texts. Look at the theology of the Norse. Check out Buddhist texts.
All these pagan systems have a world beyond for which one is to strive for. They also have a variant of Hell realms.
@@LewisVinea better verios of Plato and aristotles ideas appear in hindu texts thousands of years prior.
@@crushinnihilism boy you are all over the place.
Great episode
Comment for traction
"There's a fight that's raging within that frame. But... I recommend getting out of that frame." @40:03
Excellent. Spot on. What a great articulation of this frustrating phenomenon.
Hey, totally out of the blue here. This popped up in my feed as i enjoy watching religious content, but this is an interesting speculatory video for me. I am a neopagan and would love to chat about stuff like this because i agree that neopaganism doesnt accept some sort of knowable objective baselines in some cases, but i also would pose the point that I dont think Christianity does either (despite it asserting it does). I dont think this is a negative thing in either case and am curious why you all would think it is other than it may just feel wrong to yall in some sense? If anyone wants to chat feel free
I recently finished my senior thesis on Augustine's City of God, and in it I exposited the teleological disparities between the city of God and the city of man; it was fascinating to analyze in pagan cultures all of creation is merely a means to serve that which is other than God, and how in Christianity all things are to be used for the will of God.
thats super cool
You guys clearly dont understand paganism.
care to elaborate?
@@mostlydead3261 read Tacitus. Read the Mahabharata.
@@mostlydead3261 read literally any "pagan" texts.
You cant just use that word to mean "thing I dont like."
They're using "paganism" in a way that the Church fathers did. It's not rigorous, I agree. But they are truly responding to Aristotle, Plato, Cicero, etc. Not the historical religion.
However, they absolutely understand Christianity. Willard-Jones' books (both of them) are absolutely stunning. You ought to read them. Along with Eamon Duffy's Stripping of the Altars. Their critique is right, but the word "paganism" is so shaky.
Also, it seems thoughtless to tell a Christian professor of Christian history working at a Catholic university that he doesn't understand Christianity; are you implying that you do? Some anon on the internet? These guys are putting their careers and reputations on the line to say something that they hope will contribute to the wider conversation, and making their expertise and many years of careful thought and scholarship available to us for free. The least you could do is elaborate on your critique.
If you want to spout ungenerously and effortlessly, kindly pick a different channel. And may Christ open your heart.
@@crushinnihilism can u explain in ur own words?
Yes, secularity opens us to neo-paganism. If done right, this is a good thing, to balance excessive Humanism.
Vitalist STAND UP!
Pagans rising!