(no subject)

[haptalaon]

Oh man; I've been digging into a writer about the land and Englishness who I actually really admire, and he mentioned that people had accused him of being a crypto-fascist and that this was unfair. And the more you read, it's like "dude I can totally see why people say this about you; you seem worryingly comfortable with people, concepts, and lines of argument which are nary a step or two away from the ones held by actual racists."

It kinda shouldn't matter. If an argument or an essay is good, then it's good. If an argument or essay seems kinda like what someone pandering to a fascist audience would write - but you still think it has merit - then maybe that merit, and your understanding of it, should be more important than who else you imagine is reading this, and what you imagine they are finding there.

Still, it's...really rather icky and discomforting.

And none of the individual ideas are bad: globalisation is bad; people voted for Trump and I voted for Brexit because globalisation is bad; people are more into environmentalism when it's local and rooted in where they live; people have a deep rooted love for their land and for their national identity. All of this, I agree with. It's when you put all those things together as the foundation of your philosophical stance, that it starts to sound like...the reason why people distrust nationalism and nationalists.

One thing I've been really keen to do when writing my mythos of the Land is to try and proactively alienate fascists. For example, using images of multi-cultural witches and pagans from the get go. I love this green and pleasant land, its clouded hills, its flame in the fen, and I can adore these things without muttering darkly at the presence of Outsiders, thanks. The only Outside in my mythology is the profound and terrifying infinite.

(That's not quite true. The Solar-Lunar current tells the story of the Collective and the Self; we imagine a tight-knit little village under the Sun, peaceful and complete, but also suspicious of outsiders who are under the Moon. This myth is part of the Land. One version of the myth is in Little Red Riding Hood, where the village is safe and the forest is dangerous. Another is in Penda's Fen, where straight, white, middle class, Christian Englishness is an illusion the teenage Stephen - questioning his sexuality, questioning the authority of his military grammar school, his parents faith, his simple and uncomforting belief in national identity - must confront.

So yes, a nationalism which defines itself as opposed to multiculturalism is also part of this story. It's interesting to note that we can travel both ways along the current. Is nationalism a Solar thing - collective, establishment, traditional - which is opposed to Lunar outsiders - strange, perverse, invaders, "not like us", "not welcome here". Or is nationalism Lunar - solitary, private, cut off from others - in contrast to a communal, collective, welcoming, family-of-the-world Solar multiculturalism?

The goal of Landcraft is to give us a language to map these conversations and myths, and then use them in ritual.)

So like, ew. You know? But also, I do want to engage with ideas which challenge mine, and I do want to engage with ideas I actually agree with. Just not if they're fronts for racism, or offer succor to racists, or are a pleasant afternoon's walk amongst the hazel towards the pretty golden glade at the heart of Fascist Forest. How do you get that balance right? Should I even need to ask that question...?

Comments

[ilthit]

Local production is what we want because global production is the breeding ground for exploitation. It used to be slavery--still is slavery sometimes, but also sweatshops and the shrugging of environmental and resource costs on countries and people far away from those that actually benefit, i.e. the west. EU's economic circle jerk might fall within reasonable grounds, the sort that gets to be an example in a neoplatonic economics textbook, but GLOBAL production means sweatshops, slaves, disappearing rain forests, famine, mindblowing poverty and human suffering in those countries that feed wealth to, well, us. Or at least the multinationals, which are looking to advance exploitation in the west as well. But white nationalist populist parties these days aren't really arguing about that, it's just a talking point to get votes. They're as much in the pocket of corporate capitalism as anyone else, with the added evil flavour of blaming all ills on the most vulnerable, exploited members of society (the poor, the immigrants).

I studied environmental politics and I have to say the second year of it was the most depressed I've ever been. I just don't see how it will be possible to break the power of corporate capitalism at this point, and if we don't, the planet's going down the toilet, along with what social equality and social services were gained in the 20th century. So I guess I'm just waiting to see what life will be like in the sewers.

[earthspirits]

A most thought provoking essay. But yes, one can loves one's land / natural environment and rich cultural folklore, etc., without disliking other people, cultures.