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Exploring the overlap and relevance of Modernist philosophy, literature, art, music, culture, and modern life with paganism.

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Modernist Pagans Welcome Here!

Greetings and salutations, Pagan Square! I'm Ruadhán J McElroy, and I've been offered a blog here as a means of spreading my own unique insight amongst the ever-expanding community of Pagans, Polytheists, and related religious and cultural communities. Interestingly, I'm one of those polytheists who tends to eschew the term "pagan" because while it "fits" by academic use, and certainly by the dictionary definition, within the pagan community itself, there are often implications that either don't include or actively disclose certain elements of my own life and personality.

I'm going to purpose this blog as a voice for "modernists" in the pagan community. I'm defining the term a little bit loose, but using guidelines set by Modernist schools of philosophy, literature, art, and subculture. I did a similar blog focus on one of my own sites, before, but I took it even more specific and tried to keep the focus specific to my own religion, which is Hellenic Polytheism, and with that narrow a focus, even I lost interest in even writing about it, just cos of the pressures to keep the focus that narrow, as if trying to blow a bubble around the concept to keep out other influences --and that's the thing about Modernism, it can be pretty difficult to maintain an isolationist stance. Modernist paganism and polytheism isn’t "radical traditionalism" as in "returning to the origin and fundamentals of these traditions", but "radical traditionalism" as in "holding strong convictions and favoring reforms within the traditions". For as much wisdom as there is in the ancient ways, that's not all there is, and unless one chooses to go complete Luddite, cutting off all modern technology and conveniences from one's life, it's impossible to genuinely and completely live by the ancient ways --and if you're reading any of the Pagan Square blogs, clearly modern ways, as a whole, are not your enemy; you take what works for you, and revive what works for you, and live a blended lifestyle.

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Ruadhán J McElroy is a Helenic polytheist recon (Boeotian traditions) currently living in Lansing, MI, and maintains a blog focused on Boeotian religion and his own Neo-Cyrenaic Pluralism philosophy that blends the fragments of Cyrenaic Hedonism, the pluralistic philosophy of Empedocles, and some proto-Hedonism from Democritus. He also writes a series of fiction focused on the Mod subculture, has a shop on Etsy, and occasionally works as a DJ of Mod Revival and Ska music.

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