Pagan Values and Who Gets to Pick 'Em
Friday June 5, 2009
At some point, word got passed around the Internet that June 2009 is apparently Blog About Pagan Values Month. I'm not sure who made the original decision that this is what we're supposed to focus on, but it's been spreading like wildfire throughout the Blogosphere. As a Pagan, and a blogger, I'm not entirely sure I should be writing about "Pagan Values", and here's why.
Because it's a pretty broad brush, and we can't all be painted the same way.
I know there are things I do and believe because they work best for me, but I also accept that they may not work well for someone else. Likewise, there are practices that other Pagans incorporate into their daily life that I simply don't do. So who gets to determine what a "Pagan Value" is? Much like "Christian Values", it's a very gray area. Not all Christians believe the same, nor do all Pagans. First and foremost, people are people. Just because some of us self-identify with similar labels doesn't mean we all have identical value systems.
Over at Walk of the Fallen, Labrys makes the valid point that there is "the need to take back the concept of HAVING values and yet BEING pagan. Because you see, there are those out there who think being one of those “damned to Hell” sorts means we have no values at all. Or at least nothing worthy of the name." She also reminds us that the things many of us consider to be values -- charity and love, for example -- are values that are important to people of many faiths, not merely Pagans or Christians.
So I'll echo her sentiment that I am a Pagan, and I do have values, but I won't be categorized by labels such as those applied to religion. I'll not bother trying to push my values on anyone else, because I believe someone's value system is a personal and individual thing. I'd never presume to speak for *all Pagans*, nor would I expect any of them to speak for me. Instead, we can only speak for ourselves, and hope that somewhere along the line we can all find some common ground.
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Because it's a pretty broad brush, and we can't all be painted the same way.
I know there are things I do and believe because they work best for me, but I also accept that they may not work well for someone else. Likewise, there are practices that other Pagans incorporate into their daily life that I simply don't do. So who gets to determine what a "Pagan Value" is? Much like "Christian Values", it's a very gray area. Not all Christians believe the same, nor do all Pagans. First and foremost, people are people. Just because some of us self-identify with similar labels doesn't mean we all have identical value systems.
Over at Walk of the Fallen, Labrys makes the valid point that there is "the need to take back the concept of HAVING values and yet BEING pagan. Because you see, there are those out there who think being one of those “damned to Hell” sorts means we have no values at all. Or at least nothing worthy of the name." She also reminds us that the things many of us consider to be values -- charity and love, for example -- are values that are important to people of many faiths, not merely Pagans or Christians.
So I'll echo her sentiment that I am a Pagan, and I do have values, but I won't be categorized by labels such as those applied to religion. I'll not bother trying to push my values on anyone else, because I believe someone's value system is a personal and individual thing. I'd never presume to speak for *all Pagans*, nor would I expect any of them to speak for me. Instead, we can only speak for ourselves, and hope that somewhere along the line we can all find some common ground.
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Comments
The suggestion originated with Pax over at Chrysalis and snowballed from there. Nearly three dozen postings as of today.
Speaking only for yourself, and respecting the fact that others may have different values sounds like a pretty broad pagan value to me.
why is it that every time I come to this bLog, I see an advertisement for LDS?
Sandy ~ because the Mormons are willing to shell out big bucks for advertising, so that Pagans can read this site for free
What’s With the Mormon Ads?
patti
My values come from a lot of different sources… Bushido, Tantra, Druidry… and those became my values because they resonated with things that I’ve learned over the years.
Thomas Jefferson once said “it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” The way I see it, if I’m not running around picking pockets and breaking legs, then my spiritual values are none of anyone else’s concern.
The answer to your question “who gets to pick ‘em” is all of us! I believe this whole idea of blogging about Pagan values is very admirable and I can’t understand your prickly response to it. Obviously there is no king or queen of Pagandom, blogging to us our values from on high! This is just an exercise in people taking a moment to think about what values they choose for themselves on all their various, glorious, beautifully different Pagan paths. Not “trying to push my values on anyone else” as you would believe.
I think since we have an emerging community here, it is only natural for people to poke, prod, inspect and re-inspect their beliefs and share it with others. It’s a journey of self-identification, each person striving to align with his or her own True Will. It’s NOT about defining and setting in stone one set of “Pagan values.”
Elysia – I think you make excellent points. Indeed, we are an emerging community, and one that is far less “in the broom closet” than we were ten or even just five years ago. I agree that as the Pagan community grows, it’s a good thing for all of us to figure out what values we have as Pagans, but I would suggest that it’s also important for all of us to look at our values as human beings, not only as Pagans.
My point is that while I know what my own value system is, I’m not sure I’m comfortable declaring it as a “Pagan value system”, because I know that not every Pagan feels the same way. What I do believe, though, is that there are some common threads that tie us all together — Pagan, Christian, Muslim, etc — within our acknowledgement of what is right and wrong, and that by exploring our own value system and accepting those of others, perhaps we can find a connection with people who are often so different than us.
I didn’t have a problem blogging about Pagan values, because my post on the subject is descriptive, not prescriptive. I have written about the values that I have observed that most Pagans share. In my next post, I will write about my personal values.
I think it is important to have a conversation about what our values are – it doesn’t imply that we’re imposing them on others, just enables us to have a conversation in which we can reflect on and perhaps deepen our values.
I think it is pretty silly to talk about Pagan Values because there is no such thing. In order for there to be such a thing there would have to be some authority dictating values. While one might talk about the values many Neopagans seem to share & what sources one might draw values from, they aren’t, in the end, Pagan Values. Nobody who considers themselves Pagan has to ascribe to any set of values. I think the very idea of Pagan values comes from the attempt of some to make Paganism palatable to the wider community, a way of saying “see we are good people” which, in my opinion, does more harm than good.
I am disheartened by some of the reactions to blogging about Pagan values. I think Pax’s suggestion was well-worded and inspirational. Never once did he ask for or imply that we were creating a “Pagan values system” or that we would be imposing our thoughts on anyone else. In fact, many of the related posts that I read were written from first person experience and did not try to generalize for all Pagans. Nor did they imply that all Pagans follow the same path or hold the same virtues. “This is just an exercise in people taking a moment to think about what values they choose for themselves on all their various, glorious, beautifully different Pagan paths.” (Well said.) As members of emergent paths without dogma or declarations passed down from on high, it is very important that we take time to reflect on these things regularly. And I believe it only strengthens the broader community of Pagans when we share.