This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

I should note the meditative work I've been doing on "natural polytheism" recently, as well as the equinox ritual we attended this past weekend, not to mention my on-going work on the podcast and the work I'm doing as a volunteer naturalist (our training is almost over!).... but instead, I'm going to take a second to Rage in a quiet way.

Last week, Ian Corrigan wrote an interesting post about the use of the word "unsacred" in the title of the blog, No Unsacred Place. He trots out the fairly familiar complaint that the word "sacred" means to set aside as special, and if "everything is sacred" then nothing can be sacred.

I left a comment explaining the context of Wendell Berry's quote, and drawing attention to the very important fact that, first, Berry is speaking poetically (since "unsacred" is not even a proper word, that should have been a pretty obvious hint), and second, Berry is very specifically trying to call our attention to our relationship with the places we create through the act of "setting them aside." Berry is using the word "unsacred" in a very particular way, in order to challenge us to think about how we engage with the very notion of "sacred."

Jeff and I explored this idea, as well as the contrast between the concept of "space" and "place" (which Berry also plays with in his poem), in our most recent podcast episode, which I'm about to finish editing and posting. In fact, I'm working on the show notes, which is how I ended up back at Ian's post snagging the URL to include in our list of links....

When I see that Michael York (academic and author of that book, Pagan Theology) has left a comment on Ian's post since the last time I was there, in which he praises Ian's essay and says he agrees with a previous commenter whose entire comment consisted of a single sentence: "Thank the Gods for people who care what words mean!"

York left his comment after I left mine. There is absolutely no acknowledgement from York (or from Ian) that either of them even understand the more subtle point that Berry is trying to make, or the value of considering the context of the original quote. There is no acknowledgement that my comment has helped to contribute to the conversation. Instead, to be perfectly honest, York's follow-up remark seems very much like an intentional kind of "silent treatment." He refers specifically to a previous commenter's remark, which means he did bother to read the comments that other readers had left before him. My comment was substantive, relevant and brought valuable new information to the conversation in order to expand the focus beyond prescriptivist nit-picking about the technical, literal, dictionary-definition of words. Quite honestly, in this case, "caring what words mean" obviously has to include an understanding and appreciation of the context and use of words (especially words invented by the poet specifically for the purpose of challenging our usual, easy assumptions about how we use those words).

And yet, my comment receives absolutely no response. Ian acknowledges it just barely enough to give his permission for me to re-publish his post over on No Unsacred Place, but beyond that, you could practically hear crickets chirping.

Now, yes, I take this as an affront to my pride. I totally have some ego going on here.

But I think this is also part of what's wrong with the way that celebrity functions in the Pagan community. There is a certain type of Big Name Pagan — I'm not going to pull punches: they're usually white, male, middle-aged or older, and they usually pride themselves on having some kind of academic background, and unfortunately there seems to be a higher concentration of them in Druidry than in other Pagan traditions — who responds to criticism or challenge from others (especially if they are young and female) with silence, at best. Nobody would even know I'd been there. I doubt that either Ian or York will ever refer back to my comment as relevant, interesting or helpful, even if at some later point they decide to re-evaluate their ideas or even come to agree with me.

The fact is: Ian was mistaken. He didn't bother to find out what the context of the original quote was or to think about it any more deeply than the assumption that if someone was using a word (or intentionally invented a word) in a way that bothered him, it must be because they were using it incorrectly. I pointed that out to him (in a way that was respectful and enthusiastic to share some of the more interesting implications of the quote), but the simple reality is that I am young and female and knew full well what I was doing when I chose that title for the PNC nature blog (we even had a conversation about it among the staff before settling on it). All of that meant that there was no way for him to maintain his position of being the One Who Knew More — not only did he not know the context of the original quote, but he didn't know that I knew it and had taken it into consideration when I made my choice.

So Ian responds with relative silence (I doubt I would have received acknowledgement at all if I hadn't asked him a direct question that he couldn't very well have afforded to ignore).

Seeing some uppity young woman being sensible about the whole thing, along comes York and decides that, on top of responding to my comment with very deliberate silence (which he calls attention to by making sure everyone knows he's read the comment thread), he's going to double down on the original, overly-simplistic approach that Ian took in his original post and praise Ian for it.

The Good Old Boy system prevails, old white men pat each other on the back and reinforce each other's prominence and expertise, the more interesting and subtle aspects of the conversation get ignored.... and a couple years from now, we'll be having this same exact conversation all over again. We never make any progress, our theology remains shallow and myopic, and we wonder why other religious traditions don't take us seriously even though we wear shiny things and fancy robes.

This is why we can't have nice things.