What’s New….
Two Sexes, Many Genders and the Perils of Thinking in Dichotomies
The NeoPagan community has been divided over issues of gender and sexuality, particularly the appropriate relations between natal and trans-women. While this controversy deals with important issues, its vehemence is due to mistaken ways of thinking about it, ways rooted in Christian styles of thought which strengthen looking at the issue in dichotomies. The result is framing the discussion in zero-sum terms.
When we deepen our understanding to grasp issues of sex and gender are shaped by context and relationship, they can be addressed fairly and reasonably for all sides. In particular, many Pagan societies have viewed their world as involving many genders, all of which are respected. Using examples from Native American societies in North and Central America, we can grasp that the term “Two Spirits” describes trans-people in ways fair to all. It recognizes the legitimate differences and similarities between natal women and transwomen.
To make its case, this paper – presented at the Conference on Current Pagan Studies, Jan. 26-17, 2019 in Claremont, CA – weaves together actual cases and ongoing controversies with philosophical analysis.
Looking Deeper: Kavanaugh, Women, the Culture War, and Us.
The controversy over appointing a ruthless political operative, perjurer, and probable sexual predator to the Supreme Court has led many people to put the blame on old White males and their culture of privilege. While there is some truth to this argument, it does not go nearly deep enough to shed adequate light on these crimes against the constitution. Going more deeply also sheds light on the rise of NeoPagan religion in this country.
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman recently wrote a particularly good analysis of the issues underlying the Kavanaugh controversy from a mainstream progressive perspective. Krugman emphasized Trump’s base is not motivated by economic issues, but rather from rage at losing their accustomed status in a society where more and more Americans are people different from themselves. The result is hatred of others, racial resentment, and a deep rage by white men in particular. more »
Two Spirits, Two Sexes, Many Genders
This post is from my August 8, 2018, blog at Witches and Pagans.
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Z Budapest once stirred up strong feelings, ending in a demonstration, by holding a biological-women-only ritual at Pantheacon. The previous year another group had also excluded trans-women from an all women ritual. Some people decided it was time to challenge the legitimacy of such practices. It was quite the kerfluffel for a while. I was one of Z’s defenders.
Since then, more than a little ill-feeling has erupted between some biological women and men and some trans women and men. One group claims only biological women are women and the other that trans-women are as much women as biological women. Representatives on both sides have used abusive language towards the other. It has gotten ugly.
As a straight man, at one level this is not my fight. I am not welcome at either kind of women-only ritual.
But at another it is. It disrupts the Pagan community about which I care deeply, and reflects what I consider to be a deeply mistaken view of what it is to be a human being, ironically, a mistake with Christian roots.
Why arguments against abortion fail
I am struck with how the debate over whether or not abortion is morally acceptable has become a battle of slogans rather than of reason. I think the major culprits are on the so-called ‘pro life’ side, but at this point there is little rational discussion on either side. This paper seeks to correct that shortcoming, and will argue there is NO good reason for opposing abortion as murder, or anything like it. Because I give reasons for this claim, the anti-abortion folks have an opportunity to rebut me. They can’t.
“Connecting the Dots: Hayek, Darwin, and Ecology” COSMOS + TAXIS, vol 5 | issue 3 + 4 2018
Social institutions viewed from a Hayekian perspective closely match evolutionary and ecological perspectives in biology. All rely on the same systemic relationships of variation, selection, and inheritance. What Hayek called spontaneous orders are variations of a larger range of related phenomena. Concepts developed in one such field can enrich our understanding of analogous phenomena in others. Among the most important concepts explored here are individuals, organisms, species, and ecosystems. This integration carries important implications for how human societies can exist sustainably on the earth.
To read more, find the article here.
Transforming the Cultural Appropriation Debate: Pagan and magickal insights.
The common academic issue of whether or not one engages in ‘cultural appropriation’ has divided the Pagan community. I have been very explicit in my dislike of the idea, but in working out just why I dislike the concept I have been led to a very different understanding of just what culture is and what our place in it amounts to. Exploring this issue transformed my understanding of culture- and in a way deeply enriched with some common magickal and Pagans insights.
Thoughts on shooting Congressmen and the dissolution of America
The attempted murder of several Congressmen and shooting of one marks another step in the progressive dissolution of the U.S. occurring before our eyes. That the shooter could have been either from the right or the left indicates how close we have come to widespread political violence. more »
Why would Russia want Trump to win? And why would Trump go long with it?
In an inexplicably naïve article Brendan Gauthier at Salon argued that Russia was the only country that seemed to want Donald Trump to be president. But rather than asking why this is so, or wondering what Russia might reasonably do to promote that outcome given that it is so, Gauthier simply repeated a conclusion from a NYT article that referred to unnamed FBI sources saying there was no Russian connection to Trump, at a time when the FBI is obviously seriously partisan. The Times did no more to offer reasoning for its conclusions than he did. Perhaps pride at being scooped by Slate and Mother Jones is the explanation for their openness to claims a careful reporter would want backed up.
What’s in it for Russia?
In fact Russia’s interest in Trump makes plenty of sense and does not involve Trump being a knowing conspirator serving Putin. It simply involves Trump being Trump- an exceptionally vain man who responds to flattery and with a fairly well established record of very poor business judgment. Further, what has already been uncovered makes perfect sense. Here’s why and how. However, it requires taking a Russian point of view.
Russia has a vested interest in weakening the US. more »
Circles and Lines in “The Wolf at Twilight”
I was started along this line of thought while reading Kent Nerburn’s powerful, moving, painful and hauntingly beautiful The Wolf at Twilight: An Indian Elder’s Journey through a Land of Ghosts and Shadows. There are many levels to this book, perhaps more even than the author intended, for one that lies within the narrative throughout is the difficulty of people entering into and understanding other cultures from both sides. But for us Pagans it is particularly insightful in its depiction of the profound differences between a deeply Pagan view of life and the modern view. One of the most central of these distinctions is captured in the images of a line and a circle. more »
The Trance of Belief: Part I.
I have been both fascinated and appalled at how quickly mostly the political right has abandoned reason and evidence in favor of assertion and arrogance in discussing issues. Here is what I think is going on. I published it in Patheos.