It is kind of uncool to imply (directly) that somebody made some kind of "public post" about any of this; the Thracian did no such thing, at all, at any time, anywhere, so far as I can tell. The quote you've lifted above was from a COMMENTS section on social media (informally and not remotely a "public post" in the sense that your phrasing implies). Your previous usage of the word "post" in this article indicates "blog post", not "informal social media comment replies", especially one which might well have been a reply to a silly pop-culture image meme in a thread discussing several different topics at once.

The inclusion of this quote, as described and presented, is dishonest with the apparent intent of confusing and deceiving readers.

If you're going to sink down to snagging by-lines from social media like a creeper in the bushes of Volunteer Park waiting and eavesdropping on fragments of conversation, at least don't try to pass that banter as any kind of formal "statement".

That said...

Yeah. Satanic Panic was a real thing which is still a living concern for a lot of people. It is a source of pain for those who went through it, and this kind of irresponsible writing is exactly the sort of thing that ignites that kind of severe and potentially widespread safety concern. Lives were ruined. Endangerment was rampant. Back then, nobody involved on the wrong side of it thought that they were doing anything wrong... they all felt solidly righteous in their positions.

It isn't that the topics that your article flirts with aren't important ones, it is that there are ways to address important topics without inciting a random mob response. Those ways, the responsible and mature ones you pretend at but fall short of, are ones where consequences are considered in advance, and adult-like professionalism is at least in some way flirted with as much as the edgy radicalism. The responsible ways, which factor in causality and consequence of the sort any 5 or 6 year old would be encouraged to consider when learning interpersonal problem solving in the sandbox, do not include blindly throwing nets of paranoia at entire religious communities. (The United States had enough of that in the early 1990s, with the Satanic Panic, and then once again in the 2000s with the "United We Stand" sorry excuse for Patriotism declaring an indiscriminate target on anyone of Middle Eastern appearance, background or religious identity.)

There is a way to write about touchy and edgy subjects with integrity, Rhyd. There is a way to do unpopular things with honor, tact, and grace. As the person you dishonestly quote above has publicly shown time and again. As you yourself have pointed out with admiration of his work in your past writing. There is even a way to do so while swearing or prying open very uncomfortable subjects and bringing attention to tender spots of consideration, concern, and so forth (even when a whole society or community wants to plug its ears and "La-La-La-La" through the awkward parts). This piece of writing of yours was, as pointed out repeatedly by others in this thread alone, clumsy and so far off of its probably-intended landing zone that it can't even be said to have been targeting the actual named concerns at all. This is kind of like the US drone strikes you probably love to criticize that happen throughout the world, with all of their atrocious collateral damage. If "the man" had done what you did, you would probably be the first in line to condemn it as exploitative and corrupt.

It is clear that you want to be a radical who "holds up uncomfortable mirrors" and "goes to the dark places that others won't to shine a light", and that is a hard and admirable and important and challenging role, but this is not the way to do it. Irresponsible wide-thrown nets are not the way to do that. They never have been. Those are how charisma cons incite applause and property damage, not how responsible voices promote education on important, dangerous subjects.

Whether intentional or not, you dress up your theories to be things you have discovered on your personal journey, and sometimes like to hide behind the fact that you're a 'firebrand' and/or lack the ability to write with nuance - and while nothing is wrong with those things in a vacuum, when you do this at the same time as you implicate entire traditions, cultures, and categories of spirituality, this is AT BEST profoundly lazy, negligent, and irresponsible. You may not be doing this at all, but it is very easy to see it this way - and this in and of itself illustrates your lack of consideration toward the possible consequences of how and what you write. And IF you're doing this consciously, it is all of that and far worse…

The responsibility of being a torch bearer to light the way into the places others might not want to look (or where most people today have been conditioned not to look), is that you need to make sure that your torch is not going to ignite all that kerosene you have been pouring around haphazardly. Which is to say responsible parties probably shouldn't pour kerosene everywhere and play-act incredulous surprise and alarmed innocence when the torch you brought and waved about with careless and righteous abandon sets it off, and people get all hot and crispy.

Claiming innocence or right intentions in this is like helping somebody get a poisonous spider off of their neck by shooting them in the neck with an elephant gun and then saying "THERE I FIXED IT. WHY ARE YOU ALL LOOKING AT ME?"

Actually...it is like trying to help somebody get a poisonous spider off of their neck by throwing kerosene all over them, and their friends, and their religions, and their beliefs, and random pedestrians, and on-lookers, and their second-grade-teachers, and then lighting it up with a flash-bang to disorient and blind while saying "SEE HOW MUCH THEY SCREAM WHEN YOU HELP THEM? THAT MEANS THE SPIDERS ARE ALREADY INSIDE THEM. IF IT FLOATS IT IS A FASCIST AND IF IT SINKS IT IS FULL OF FASCIST SPIDER EGGS."

Feeling "honored and humbled" that you are the torch-bearer privileged to bring this conversation about is a sentiment that drips with hubris when it is a conversation that never needed to be the conflagration that it has become. These are important discussions about dangerous topics, with a current fever pitch that has been set by you, Rhyd, because you seem to give no shits about what consequences your words might have, and instead are solely concerned with how right (you think) you are. This is clear to see when the only feedback you are open to is a single-word addendum of "some", but otherwise hear no legitimacy in the litany of misgivings that your haphazardly-considered writing has inspired. Others have absolutely contributed to the temperature as well, but their words are in large part reactions to your own.

You can do better, Rhyd. The audience you write for deserves better. Stop being lazy and do it.

Hi, I rarely comment but I read a lot of what you write. I wanted to offer my support to you. From what I see, you are saying that paganism and polytheism can overlap and be influenced by nasty New Right/Far Right fascism. And then you went on to explain some of those ways. That's completely fair, and I believe you to be absolutely right in your analysis. I think you analysis is very clear, and very well written. The truth is, there is no way you or anyone could have brought this up that wouldn't get this response. The tone/clarity argument is one people bring out when they can't argue with the substance and so are grasping for some ridiculous reason to ignore it.

I think the problem that leads people to accuse you of these things is one of stung pride and blindness on their side. Pagans and Liberals alike want to believe that we are better than the Right and the religious. That somehow we always rise above the noise, and never have any bad habits, or any bad politics. That's a dangerous belief. It leads to blindness, and that is what allows those very things to happen. It's like people who are highly intelligent and analytical and think that means they can't be fooled by advertising or Fox News. Of course they can. And the fact they think they can't makes it even more likely they will be.

I also see a lot of similarities between the responses to you and the responses that social justice posts get. Any time a woman says that this culture is sexist, and that sexism can and does exist in geek culture or Liberal culture, they get this exact response. If you want to see a particularly nasty version of it Google for #gamergate and then find a punching bag. Basically, people are hitting back at you because you identified an area of privilege and blindness no one wants to deal with.

They'd rather slander you than drop their egos. Or even ask for clarification. They decided you must be these things because the alternative of questioning their own superiority is not one they want to do. I'm experiencing this myself, with some people. I understand it.

I think your answer here does a lot to show that you are in the right. You're angry, of course. But you are still taking the time to calmly and reasonably explain more about your thinking and about who you are. You aren't hitting back. You aren't even saying they are terrible people. (Which they aren't. They are just blind). You are being understanding and gracious. If nothing else, I hope people learn from that grace under fire.

Cheers
Rhie

Imagine you make a post where you make a break down of terrorists and use bullet points to list which religions, countries and cultures birth the most terrorists. You include a (or multiple) big huge bolded caveat that the article is only about individual terrorists and is in no way representative of the religions, countries and cultures mentioned therein.

The bullet points only contain the names of the countries, religions and cultures and some basic information about terrorists who come from them. Nothing else about them at all, just info regarding terrorists.

What will happen? What will people come away with? What will forever be the interpretation of the writing? What will people believe you believe?

The answer is simple - Islam is bad, Muslims are evil, they should go back to their own country.

Oh people reading won't necessarily agree that Muslims are bad, no a lot of them will go on hate filled rants about how awful you are to talk about Islam that way. But the large majority will all agree that you hate Muslims. And those who do hate Muslims will suddenly use your article as a rallying point for how evil Islam is.

Is it because people can't read or comprehend the caveat? No. Not everyone is stupid. We can all read the caveat, we can all comprehend that such information is not representative of everyone. BUT when you present something a certain way, omit legitimate examples that oppose your facts, speak only of the bad stuff, when you don't discuss your points, but just list them with snippets of information - people will think that YOU, as the writer, do not believe the caveat.

And therein lies the problem. People read the caveat. They just didn't read that you believe the caveat yourself.

Personally, I could see that while I read the G&R page, so I didn't make that assumption about your beliefs. But I can see where others might - and that can lead to problems (as in the terrorist example, people may use your post in ways you would find abhorrent, like outright slamming and attacking certain pagan groups and systems). So while you probably don't think that all of the people in those groups and systems are new right fascists or anything, you may become a rallying point for those who do think that way.

What you imply is never as important as what people infer.

Actually, in my experience, people rapidly forget caveats.

Depends on the caveat. I begin plenty of things with "I am way generalising here" and, well I don't recall anyone accusing me of over-generalising when I have added that caveat.

So I think placement of the caveat, how the caveat is done and the subject matter make a difference. But otherwise you're right.

It's especially true in the case of bullet points. The bullet points are the subject matter and everything else is optional. They also don't allow for a proper analysis of the points.
Bullet points are a recipe for disaster in most topics that aren't a list of "I like these books."

It was done to the Christians, and people reacted as expected.
http://www.washingtontimes....

That's sadly amusing.

Hiya - like Sable Aradia, I think the message (which I agree with you on) got lost in the clumsy way it was delivered.

Your heart is in the right place, and that is what is important. I certainly disagree with some of the battier claims about you to come from this - "out to destroy polytheism" etc.

Anyway, when this all settles down, the message here still needs to be talked about.

Lee

For what it's worth, Rhyd, when I read the post for the first time I seem to have read in the spirit you've described here; and, while I don't think it's above being critiqued or has nothing that should be critisized, I also can't help but see much of the reaction to it as grossly hyperbolic, to the point that I have lost much respect for some of its criticizers.

For the record, as one of the G&R writers, I think your article was clumsily written, Rhyd, and I see why people might have gotten the wrong impression. But as to the issues of New Right ideas intersecting parts of the Pagan community in dark corners where a significant and troublesome nasty minority grows -- I don't think you're wrong. I'm sure you didn't even intend for this to be an exhaustive list, just the places you've seen it. People wanted to ignore racism and transphobia in the community, too, until large groups of people started to draw attention to those issues. While I am neither a firm polytheist (in the sense that people are using it in the community; I'm a Wiccan witch who generally believes in direct Divine experience but accepts there may be other explanations for it) nor am I a firm anti-capitalist (I'm more of an anti-corporatist and a politically-aware social democrat), I, like most of us at G&R I think, share the view that these issues of kyriarchy are all interconnected and I think we need to talk about the elephant in the living room once in a while, no matter how uncomfortable it makes us. We're not perfect and I don't think we should pretend that we are.

it is the ideas which are the problem, not the people.

I have to disagree. Was Communism the problem or was it some of the leaders? Pol Pot, Mao, Stalin, etc. were the problem.

Well... even when it's the people, it's not just the leader. Someone just pointed out to me a thing that's worth repeating-- the leader's circle is just as guilty as the leader for not pointing out their leader's shortcomings, for not trying to check that person's bad tendencies. A bad group-- or a bad government, which is just a difference of scale-- is a bad decision tree with a ton of points where it could have been changed/prevented/ended that all went the wrong way.

I think trying to tease out whether the ideas are the problem or some psychological tendency of the people involved are the problem gets complicated and difficult. (Although if those ideas nearly *always* lead to a terrible execution and a terrible decision tree, that weights more heavily in favor of bad ideas.) The cure for this, imo, is more speech. More conversation. More probing, careful questions about what went right, what went wrong, where did this idea come from, how did this idea influence decision-making, how is this idea transmitted now (and is it different from whatever its source is), and so on.

Agreed it isn't just the leader, but the followers too. And while I agree that more speech may be at least a partial cure, free speech has to exist - too often in history, free speech was the first thing a despot curtailed.

This is where I disagree sometimes with John Beckett - even offensive speech needs to be heard - so we can shoot it down!

This is a nitpick, perhaps, but not all followers, not if the group is big or entrenched enough. If it's an old, long bad decision tree, a whole bunch of followers have f-ed up enough to produce a leader insulated by so many concentric circles of yes-men that a new follower has neither power nor standing to do much of anything about it but leave (I've been there, hence why I'm willing to pick the nit). There's something of a time limit on really calling a bad leader on their shit-- wait too long and even inner circles lose their potency while the power goes increasingly to the leader's head..

Fair enough. I think though that I was using follower in a different context - more like acolyte perhaps. I find myself in the exact position you have described right now and am about to leave - once I have a different opportunity lined up. But then, does this make me a follower or a rebel?

Frankly, the response to the article indicated how close you cut to the bone, and is a real credit to you.

This new Right bullshit is deeply implicated in a number of poorly thought out Pagan community positions, and people would rather not name their bullshit, because then some flicker of conscience might awaken and they'd have to do something about it.

My ideological leanings are similar to your own, Rhyd - when I became Pagan in 1982, I was heavily involved in the anarchist left and one of the first public Pagan acts of mine was to establish an anarchist-Pagan journal and network (Pagans for Peace). For thirty-odd years I've been part of this religious movement and the struggle continues between the authoritarians of various stripes (outright fascists, New Age "Great White Brotherhoods") and the often unthinking proponents of conservative 'separating religion from politics'.

Venceremos!

Confirmation bias is a thing.

"The piece in question was posted on the 24th of March as a resource supplement to a long-read article by Shane Burley on Augustus Sol Invictus."

May I suggest that it might be a good idea to note that on the page in question? Because many of us read it without having that context, which might be obvious to you, but was not to others.

"From this I take to mean that my caveats were either not read or were seen as dishonest."

What people are saying is that they are insufficient to convey the meaning you wished to convey instead of the meaning you actually conveyed to the people who are upset about this. Perhaps a better way to communicate what you meant instead of what people heard would have been to list off how and why you believe certain beliefs are vulnerable, instead of naming groups of people. As soon as you did that, you were telling people that there was something wrong with them, and your caveats came across as "some of my best friends are..." rather than changing the meaning of what you said.

If you are responsible for your writing, then you are responsible for what you communicate with your writing. This was an utterly predictable response, as you proved you knew by putting that in TWICE. You knew people were going to be offended by you listing groups, and if you really are the skilled writer people say you are, you ought to have known that those would be insufficient.

"...As soon as you did that, you were telling people that there was something wrong with them, and your caveats came across as "some of my best friends are...""

He's commented like this to the disabled before.

Not challenging your allegation, just asking for a source on it.

...because as a disabled person, the mere notion of a person talking like that to any disabled person is something appalling.

I am disabled, and I challenged Rhyd on something he wrote that impacted PWD and found him to be incredibly open and receptive. One of the best conversations I've had on disability in a Pagan setting in a very long time.

Perhaps he's changed his tune, but G&R seems to keep running in to problems.
http://grimnirs-child.tumbl...

"He"? The journal is a collection of a few dozen writers. Your constant conflating and broad brush strokes are just tiring. Yes, there are a few critiques. Any publication has its critiques. Its a common critique. The fact that such critiques exist does not give you the right to paint a broad stroke as you do and state that G&R is against 'the disabled'. If you are personally offended, I respect that. Stop talking for everyone else. You have two other disabled people in this thread alone who are making it pretty clear that you don't speak for them.

Editors and managing editors are not responsible for the content of their publications?

And where exactly do I claim to speak for everyone?

And that of course doesn't even begin to touch the fact that what we're talking about here is someone's perception as opposed to something set and tangible.

There's a difference between responsibility and agreement. One can stand behind articles they don't agree with. Rhyd does that constantly as editor of G&R.

Oh I disagree. If I ran a publication and published something hateful or in otherwise poor taste by someone's ideas I disagree with then I am responsible, even if I didn't write it. And in fact I would expect people to critique me on it.

If you set out to publish challenging, difficult material meant to make people really think through their perceptions and ideals and you *didn't* ever publish something some people found in poor taste, I'd think you weren't doing your job very well!

I'm not against challenging or difficult material, but there's a difference between encouraging new ideas, and promoting very problematic ones. You may mean well, but this kind of mentality could help justify publishing neo-fascist friendly tracts if not outright troll audiences for its sake.

Its not a 'mentality', its the realities of being an editor. ALL good editors take risks, publish challenging things, and when they get called or questioned or critiqued on them, they respond (like the article that we're commenting on now). Rhyd has more than adequately responded to critiques brought to him around his position. And his views are not synonymous with the G&R writers as a whole, and vice versa. And again, what you're complaining about in the first place is a matter of perception that 'the disabled' as a group definitely do not share unanimously. Frankly, you seem pretty determined to make a fight out of nothing here. Kinda like you did yesterday.

You know dear, for all my willingness to engage with arguments you still choose to get in to arguments with me now, as well as a few other people. :D

Secondly, if you run something, you're in charge of it. I don't think I should be running a political blog roll anytime soon, but hey, if I did, I fully expect to be held responsible for its content. Maybe I don't fully understand the anarchist mentality, but personally I for one would implement a lot of rules in order to maintain quality standards.

ETA: I'm not forcing anyone to do as a advise, but when it comes to politics, that involves people, which is why I'm such a judgemental bastard.

Forgot to add, as one of The Disabled, I fully agree, which is why I like to speak up about my lack of problems with term like The Disabled. :D

I call you out on your bullshit, yes. But you start it every time, including specifically starting it with me yesterday. You are the aggressor every time. And there are rules and standards, thanks. Again, you're trying to press your personal opinion here as a factual bar that we are not meeting. Get over yourself.

You have failed to change my opinion, I fear your method of argumentation remains much to be desired. But admit it, you love engaging with me here, what else could you be doing now, something important, like activism. But it's me you really want to talk to.

Once again you are missing the point.

'The disabled' are no more of a monolithic group than Gods&Radicals is. I've seen multiple jabs from you over the past year in multiple forums about Rhyd's attitude towards 'the disabled', and not only are your repetitive criticisms as misleading and intentionally derogatory as everything else that seems to come out of your mouth, but the way you frame this one as Rhyd and G&R against 'the disabled' is especially disingenuous, even for you. Seriously, just cut it out.

I AM disabled, and I'm not bothered by that type of language.

I'm disabled as well, and I find the way that you characterize G&R's position and Rhyd's words to be incredibly insulting.

What's worth defending? There were and are much better ways to defend one's stance than this incident I was referring to:

https://aediculaantinoi.wor...

I think you need to learn how to interact with people outside your circles first before getting in to fights with random bloggers, you're NOT helping the anti-capitalism cause.

As several others have pointed out to you in the past few days, including those who otherwise agree with you, its YOU who needs to learn how to interact with people, not me.

I think you need to learn that posting a link doesn't prove that you're right. I also think the degree to which you project when you tell others what you think they need is hilarious, but I digress.

Yes, I read that when it came out, and as much as I respect PSVL I think e was off the mark on that one, and was working off somewhat inaccurate information as well as an inaccurate understanding of Rhyd's position.

I'm assuming you didn't notice my lengthy comment at the end of that article, as well as e's response where e admitted that e "blurred the lines".

Are you ever a piece of work...

I agreed with PSVL in that and I had some pretty negative opinions about Rhyd at that point about this. But the way Rhyd has engaged on disability since tells me he heard these criticisms and took something from them-- to me that's a mark of integrity. I think we're all in a position to learn from one another and grow at a tremendous pace. That link is a year old; I think many of us have grown a lot in a year (I know I have). Those hurtful DGR ideas were kicking around, and it made a difference to say them out loud, to talk about them out loud. I don't understand the people who seem to be against questioning, against self-criticism-- IMO the best way to inoculate against harmful ideas is to talk about them.

Agreed.

I have a problem with the survivalist mentality though, especially now. We are facing extinction, not merely an environmental disaster. Survivalism is false optimism.

Most of us do not have a 'survivalist' mentality. I can't absolutely speak for everyone at G&R, but I know most of them are not anti-civ.

I actually did follow that thread, but you are missing the point. You see, it doesn't matter if the OP was wrong, just because the person was incorrect on things doesn't mean the response to it was reasonable, it's not like they're a VIP activist with a huge activism following. Not everyone in the blogsphere is correct about politics nor have to be, and its a waste of time trying to convert people like that. I am a socialist, but I'm not staying up at night worrying whether or not a neopagan or polytheist blogger with liberal leanings is correct about everything.

One can argue their position in the name of activism without this kind of life and death attitude, because it's not like where real work is done. People were not turned off by you guys because they're evil and many of us are not even right wing, it is the approach, but you seem more interested in arguing that you are right with arguments that I don't believe are too great in the first place.

And I say this as a person who is very aware of the problems of my personality. I'm not an activist, and in fact believe I'd probably be a liability, but the key difference is that I have self awareness and don't believe just because I'm right I'm going to give people guilt trips or talk about what great acts I've done to someone with medical problems dependent on insulin.

And besides, one can just PM or email someone privately instead of turning it into a big public spectacle.

If it hadn't been a public spectacle all of those "they all think like DGR" worries would never have been aired, and I'd still be sitting here suspicious of people whose work has turned out to be incredibly beneficial to me. Even when they're painful, big public conversations like these can do an immense amount of good when it comes to planting the seeds of contemplation that eventually change people.

I think you're missing the point, but lets agree to disagree.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you seek to make a correction to a piece of writing, isn't that specific piece of writing itself revised? You've come here as a guest author to clarify some things and issue a correction (which conveniently can not be found in the original article), and thus you continue to mislead your readers. This 3,500+ word piece was published 3.5 hours ago to long-windedly suggest that you might wish to go back in time in order to add the word "some" to a sweeping generalization made about Devotional Polytheists, in order to make it moderately less sweeping. And as of yet, the post on Gods & Radicals remains unaltered.

Rhyd, your overtures about stating things more clearly are absolutely meaningless unless you actually correct the original article.