"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." Philosopher Eric Hoffer
An aspect of embracing a magical life that I love is that when I'm musing on something, the world tends to jump in to engage in conversation with me. I open books to just the right passage, or overhear conversations that illuminate my thinking. Yesterday I opened the latest copy of The Week to the quote above. Perfect!
Like anything, it doesn't hold the whole truth, but doesn't it speak to something we've all seen? It certainly speaks to what's been going on in my head about three communities I inhabit which are movement/cause based.
This month is Pride month in San Francisco. My girlfriend is an organizer for the Dyke March. What makes the Dyke March both a difficult and a worthy thing to put on is that it's put on completely free of corporate sponsorship. And, they've had offers. Big Ones. The Pride parade is brimming with corporate advertising, and this month there is money to be made in hawking rainbow colored tote bags, hats, and other assorted trinkets from China. I don't think the cause for rights for the LGBT community could ever degenerate totally into a racket, but certainly there are rackets to be developed along the way. If we continue to hold onto our right to be legally married, you can bet there will be a tide of queer wedding and divorce rackets rising up. There's truth that in movements gaining popularity, there's good and bad money to be made.
My post on narcissism got picked up and widely spread throughout the internet Feri community. Feri is a tradition of magic, which I suppose could be called a movement. It started out small, and now is gaining some popularity. Like when Reclaiming was gaining steam, I'm seeing a growing number of people attempting to teach Feri as a career. . My post prompted some great questions, including if the wand system and the idea of a Grand Master draw people to the tradition that are prone to narcissism and needing to feel special. These "merit badges" hold meaning for many, but I'm not alone in fearing they bring us closer towards rackets. I love and respect the holder of the Black Wand I know, but I foresee a day when the business of teaching Feri will degenerate into the racket of selling black wand training to any students who can pay the price.
While this respectful discussion was going on in Feri cyberspace, there was a discussion in the Reclaiming community that came at this from another angle. Reclaiming is a tradition of magic that strives to be a movement and has causes aplenty. Over a year ago I'd suggested that links to blogs by community members go up on the tradition's web page. My suggestion got no argument, but no action either.
Suggesting it again, in response to a request for teachers to send in new or revised links to their pages, created a brouhaha that shed light for me on the split within that community. The main arguments against it were; the webpage is a kind of "front porch" and shouldn't lead to any of our dirty laundry being displayed, reading blogs that say anything critical of Reclaiming would prematurely end the "honeymoon phase" for those new to the tradition, and, last but not least, the web page is for "marketing". Thankfully, for my side of the split, there was a swell of voices who wanted the web page to be a community resource and not purely a recruitment tool. It looks like a list of blogs will go up, and my guess is that they won't affect business as usual in Reclaiming, but maybe they will slow down the degeneration into it becoming simply one more racket.
Writing this, I realize that actually there are four of my communities this discussion is pertinent to. Blogging in itself is a movement. It's a movement I've loved being in, with its different voices and multitude of individual stories, for the most part not selling anything. There are those who have turned it into a business, and my guess is there are plenty of rackets out there too. But what I have appreciated in the blogosphere is being able to access stories of peoples lives and their thoughts and opinions devoid of the motive of profit.
The moment that occurs when there is money to be made in a movement or cause is an important one. That's a moment to seize and really stretch out. I don't know if there is any way to stop the slide into racketeering, but perhaps there are ways to slow it down.
The Dyke March, blogs without advertising, respectful discussions on community e-lists, and websites that are a community resource and not advertising copy, these things slow down the degeneration into the racket which is the predominate culture. But, I'm sad to say, even the Dyke March is selling tote bags this year from China.
Oh, well.
15 comments:
Having a toe (or toes?) in more than one of the movements/communities you mention, I've been following the discussions with interest. And life has been throwing up other examples of the same pattern too, so synchronously I've been musing along similar lines.
I've no answers, but I do think it's a pattern to be aware of, and probably wary of, as it seems inevitable that the pattern will lead to compromised principles.
Yes, it's been interesting to see the Spider discussion. Shifts happen after the critical mass comes around.
When I teach, therer needs to be some sort of energy exchange. Fair enough. Money works for that. But the larger the structures get, or the more often they occur, the more problematic they become.
I work on keeping it very simple.
And making my living at something other than the craft works best for me.
And I can't be worried about making the community bigger. It gets there by fair means or it doesn't. No shame, no blame.
In my 57 years of life, I have noticed over and over, that any life enhancing practice can be modified into a commodity; art, craft, cooking, music, dance, queerness, witchcraft, sex, gardening, health care, etc. This is the gift that late corporate capitalism offers to us all, the gift of measuring every thing by monetary worth. After all, let us not forget, this is the worldview that teaches us that abundance and plenty is defined by financial security and that wealth is built with money. It is also interesting to note that the extended family cannot thrive in a worldview based on corporate capitalism. Units of relationship become smaller. A single person per living space seems to be best for the commodified worldview.
I have not yet met a living human being who has not been infected by this insidious idea. I have smelled its putrid stench in every group that I have ever been in, including all of those I am currently a part of and that I deeply care about.
My response to all of this over the years has been to choose to live simply. In my early 20’s, my first husband Rick and I choose to embrace the idea that experience was much more important that money. We lived accordingly. Our wealth was built on the relationships we grew with our feres, families and friends. We found ourselves living in great abundance and plenty. Rick was surrounded by his beloved feres as he lay dying in our home of beauty. We were wealthy beyond our imagining. My new husband, Mark, and I have chosen again to grow our primary wealth in the rich soils of our relationships; with the living, the dead, the Mysterious Ones and all allies of our Hearth-clan.
In other words, I have learned to not trust movements for my long term wealth nor for my self-identity. I have learned that growing my hearth-clan, my hearth-family, ensures the well being of not only myself and my hearth-clan, but enriches the whole of Midgard.
May we all dare to see with clear eyes and open hearts.
May we all dare to grow wealthy, healthy and compassionate hearth-clans of our own.
Bless the Bees.
Keeping it simple sure seems like the best way deal with this. And not basing a living on a cause/movement/or the craft. I've noticed that honing a skill other than teaching magic is a better way to go. Once we get literally invested in making money of our spirituality, well, this changes the spirit. This creates need for new marketing strategies and spiritual "fads"...new stuff we can sell. Plus, being a spiritual teacher full time...well, it does tend to invoke situational narcissism. Some can fend this off gracefully, but being admired and looked up to full time...it can be addictive.
Hypnotherapy, all manner of the healing arts, and gardening are good ways to build a business that isn't about making a career out of recruiting more witches.
At least I haven't seen a Reclaiming of Feri event/teacher selling tote bags from China.....yet.
This really strikes home on so many levels for me right now.
As an editor at the Washington Blade, D.C.'s gay newspaper (and I use "gay" and not "queer" intentionally), I'm in the midst of developing our Pride issue...and I hate much of D.C. Pride.
Held on a section of Pennsylvania Ave. with the U.S. Capitol in the background, it seems the worst of coporate capitalist hell with various drug companies, alcohol companies, and others throwing their cents into the mix.
I long for something alternative and interesting (even during the parade, where usually people are only dressed in their shorts and tank tops, showing off their corporate gym-perfected bodies.)
I think we also put blinders on our movements/identities. Queer folks, so often on the cutting edge of creating new ways of living, should have at least some awareness that the bags from China are probably poisoning that country's rivers to the point where some are called "Soy Sauce Rivers." Instead, we get hyperfocused on making sure we can buy into the corporate capitalist dream.
This topic also affects me on the level that I'll be leaving my job come Aug. 1, plunging into, what I suspect, is a deep leap of faith. In many ways, I'm totally freaked about it, and after reading this post and the responses, I think it's partly shaking my connection to the uber-culture of American capitalism.
Great post, Oak!
As luck would have it, I came across that very quote this afternoon—it appears in a great New Yorker article by George Packer on the fall of conservativism. I'll be that's where The Week picked it up.
At some point we all have to figure out how to support ourselves, and as Donald says we cannot neglect the connections which are more important than money. But I think that for most Pagans the whole money issue is also tied up with our oppositional identity, and our distrust of authority.
I am much more interested in seeing people who have money or influence and know how to use it for the greater good, than seeing another dirt poor yet rhetorically rich person who has a moving analysis of world affairs but no way to affect them. And there is an argument to be made that some of Paganism has gone straight from being a movement to being a racket, with no money made in the interim at all.
Ultimately, I think it is the space between the extremes that is the most interesting, and the most fruitful. Idealism is great, but only allows for limited engagement in the world. All the rest is compromise, and commerce.
In other words, I have learned to not trust movements for my long term wealth nor for my self-identity. I have learned that growing my hearth-clan, my hearth-family, ensures the well being of not only myself and my hearth-clan, but enriches the whole of Midgard.
Thanks Donald. You speak for me.
Great post, Deborah. Thank you, too!
I have heard the term ‘idealism’ used as a weapon to undermine many grand and sensible ideas over the last 40 years. I have also heard the term ‘realism’ used as the base for specific political agendas in support of the status quo over the last 40 years.
Does choosing to live simply, nurturing my hearth-clan and living an open queer life of integrity shake the foundations of the over-culture? Does openly walking as a Witch and Heathen down the streets and through the malls of mainstream America do more than make witnesses nervous? Is wearing a mohawk and ink nothing but a fashion statement? Does my assumption that I belong wherever I am change the social chemistry of any event I am a part of?
When Mark and I casually and affectionately touch each other in public, worldviews shiver and shake. When Witches go openly to a public meeting, habits are reexamined. Yes, it’s true, I am basically handsome, nevertheless, it seems to be my interesting hair cut and inked priestess marks that invite folks in airports and restaurants to respectfully ask me questions about who I am and where am I going. I have seen over and over that when a person assumes that they are essential to the growing and nurturing of healthy sustainable human cultures, they are.
I have noticed that every conscious choice I make effects all of Midgard.
My choice to live simply, honestly and openly has given me access to many places and situations. My first husband, Rick, and I were invited to meet with senators and legislators because, among other reasons, we lived queer lives of integrity. We dined with city council people, members of county boards and presidential candidates because folks noticed that we were an integral part of communities that folks thought of as essential to their political goals. Our friends came from all areas of life; poor, wealthy, middle class, self-educated, university trained, Christian, Jew, Pagan, Witch, Heathen, Agnostic, Atheist, conservative, progressive, liberal, apathetic, vitally interested in everything, etc. Being money poor has not hindered nor limited my engagement with the world. Neither has choosing to have ideals locked me away from full participation in Midgard. If any thing, living my life openly and unashamed has given me a full and rich life. I suspect that choosing to live shamelessly committed to beauty, balance and delight has been one of the main ingredients in the healing brews that have kept me alive and thriving with HIV and AIDS for over twenty years.
Anne, I suspect that the ‘extremes’ and the ‘space between’ you mention are an intrinsic part of every human heart. At least, no one that I have met so far, actually lives their life totally at the ends of such a linear metaphor of dualistic extremes. It appears to me that we are all living in the ‘space between’.
Openly living an integrated life is a demanding art form. It takes commitment, discipline, compassion and questioning wonder to achieve. I have noticed that realism cannot survive in such a sensible way of living. But I have noticed that joy, delight, abundance and beauty thrive in integrated lives of integrity.
Again I offer this prayer;
May we all dare to see with clear eyes and open hearts.
May we all dare to grow wealthy, healthy and compassionate hearth-clans of our own.
Movements aside, the bit that hit me was the part about ruining someone else's honeymoon.
Well, that's awfully unlikely to happen unless it was on it's way out anyway. We're all kinda narcissistic and we hear, see, read what we want to; what fits for us at the time.
I believe it is a great learning experience about being human when those we look up to, put on pedestals, whatever, fall off! We are then either miserable and disillusioned or we come to learn that we are all human. Can't help it. Hopefully, even the disillusioned can come to this knowledge.
That doesn't actually take away from what we have to give...it makes it richer.
Movements come and go. The best learn from their own mistakes and seek a purpose which is useful and helpful and almost always simple but difficult.
Just stumbled onto your site and am glad I did.
Happy Pride Month!
www.simplyqueer.com
From China? Sheesh! Disappointing to say the very least. I'm learning all about being fierce lately, and this ties in--not being afraid to be vocal, to express views others may find extreme, but to do so and remain respectful is the trick, and I'm finding the use of humour (particularly in my blog writing) is an effective means of getting points across without being seen as 'banging on'.
I loathe the way the market is everything these days. It's ironic in a way that I find myself shopping for 'things' less and less, and now that summer is here I am enjoying the fruit and veg I've been growing for the first time.
I have love, I have a home, I have clothes that fit and everything I need. Most other things, it seems, in the commercial world, are simply tat.
Thanks again for helping me carry my own thoughts forward. x
As I say often, all we can do is act from integrity: try to stay as clean as possible and do our own best work.
The world at large, alas, is beyond our control. But if we each do our own best, clean, aligned work, I do believe it helps the world.
My latest blog post was about spiritual commodification, too.
http://yezida.livejournal.com/157329.html
Sorry, that last was me, Thorn.
I agree completely, so many aspects of (previously marginalised) movements are becoming so commercial. And it's so hard to decide whether it's entirely bad: I hate that important issues like GLBT rights are being trivialised and just made into another market, but at the same time, the funding from corporate sponsors enables the community to reach a wider audience.
As for commercialisation of religion (and I think narcissism is closely related, plus they both detract from the spiritual integrity of any religious tradition), I don't think that can ever be a good thing...
Incidentally, I hope you don't mind, but I've added your blog to my blog roll (on http://elfmage.wordpress.com), I like reading intelligent Pagan blogs :). I don't expect reciprocation or anything, just thought I'd let you know (and I'd be honoured if you take a glance some time!). Mile beannachta
The specific characteristics of the Feri practice is the use of certain powers or the current characteristics of dynamic Feri species. Feri witches usually think of themselves as dead. The fact that many of them not visible, or at least limit is uncertain. In the conventional wisdom has a profound respect for nature, to enjoy and semantic bardic creativity.
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