Paganistan: Notes from the Secret Commonwealth

In Which One Midwest Man-in-Black Confers, Converses & Otherwise Hob-Nobs with his Fellow Hob-Men (& -Women) Concerning the Sundry Ways of the Famed but Ill-Starred Tribe of Witches.

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Why I Don't Like Bernie

Well, I've finally figured out just what it is that I don't like about Bernie Sanders.

Here's the thing: I'm a storyteller. When I listen, I always listen for the underlying story.

When it comes to overarching narrative, Bernie's story is just like the Buffoon-in-Chief's. For them both, the guiding narrative is the same lying, Abrahamic story that has wreaked so much ill in the world down the centuries: Us versus Them. Black vs. White. Good Guys v. Bad Guys.

All their ideas come with an enemy attached.

The enemy may be Muslims and brown people, or it may be corporations and rich people. But they're still the Bad Guys of the old, simplistic story, and they're still out to get Us.

For all its cultural omnipresence—pick a Hollywood movie, any Hollywood movie—moral dualism is not a universal story. More importantly—to me, anyway—it is not a pagan story.

It's not that pagan stories lack conflict; it's conflict that makes a story interesting, after all. Look at the great pagan epics: the Iliad, the Táin, the Mahabharata. They're all about wars. But look more closely: Who are the good guys here, who the bad? In a pagan world, conflict arises naturally because people have differing needs and obligations, not because one is good and one is evil.

Oh, in deep ways Sanders and the Troll-in-Chief are very different, of course. One is a not-very-bright, self-serving, cynical bully; the other is intelligent, capable of compassion, and actually believes what he's saying.

That's why I'll vote for Sanders if it comes to that. Of the two, he's by far the better human being. Our only real hope, this time around, is that Democrats (and democrats) are smart enough to realize that voting against is far more important than voting for.

But if I do, I won't be happy about it. At thirteenth and last, I'm a pagan. In my marrow, in my bones, I distrust stories with bad guys. As pagans, we've been the Bad Guys of the stories for the last 1500 years. We know the harm that those lying old stories can do.

Pagans, at heart, are realists. We know that antagonists are not necessarily enemies.

The night of the New Hampshire primary, just before falling asleep, I listened to Sanders' acceptance speech, railing against plutocrats and the military-industrial complex.

That night I woke up twice, each time jolting out of a nightmare.

Now, at least, I understand why.

 

 

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Poet, scholar and storyteller Steven Posch was raised in the hardwood forests of western Pennsylvania by white-tailed deer. (That's the story, anyway.) He emigrated to Paganistan in 1979 and by sheer dint of personality has become one of Lake Country's foremost men-in-black. He is current keeper of the Minnesota Ooser.

Comments

  • Anthony Gresham
    Anthony Gresham Friday, 14 February 2020

    I read in "The Road to Serfdom" by Friedrich A. von Hayek that centralized planning requires an enemy to justify itself, and explain away central authority's failures. I plan to vote for either Amy or Pete on super Tuesday, and I'm praying for big voter turnout. I figure that the more people who show up the less the extremes will dominate the results. I hold to the adage that everyone votes their own self-interest, and I automatically distrust anyone who asks me to look beyond my own self-interest.

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