Paganism has become associated with right-wing political movements and ideologies such as conservatism. Despite what some modern extremists would have you believe, the people of Europe thousands of years ago who practiced the worship of these deities did not have an understanding of race or racism as we have today. Those are colonial constructs and pseudo-scientific because the entire idea of race was made so Europeans could have a sense of solidarity with themselves as they went and plundered other nations and it made anyone not considered “White” as a valid target for plundering or war. Medieval people did not need such a justification
The vikings did not have any issues raiding or plundering other white countries, and even had issues with the United Kingdom. They had trade routes and colonies all over the world, which resulted in many foreigners living in their towns or coming over as merchants or for work. The idea that their faith would be implemented into any supremacist ideology seems to be more reflective of the desire of those involved to be seen as strong, warlike, or masculine (Or other traits associated with the vikings or Germanic peoples) than an actual part of the faith or lifestyle itself. Viking war bands themselves were also not ethnically exclusive. I’m not saying that Vikings lived in a multi-racial utopia or something we would consider inclusive today, but a lot of what reactionaries claim about paganism is historically revisionist at best and an intentional desecration at worst.
The Nazi party of Germany is partially responsible for distorting history to create the idea of a proud warrior culture as well. Esoteric Hitlerism is a thing, but is rarely discussed in conversations because nobody would admit to practicing such a thing to anyone who was not a sympathizer. Within the political party of Germany during the war, there were known occultists and this is the case with Japan’s nationalistic state religion at the time as well. Reactionaries have put a lot of work into distorting various forms of religion for their own political gain, and many religious figures are persecuted under them simply for knowing the truth. Being a legitimate Shinto priest in Japan under the Tojo regime and not being on board with state Shinto was dangerous. Not only are reactionaries desecrating their traditional culture, they are basically against it if it does not serve their totalitarian ambitions.
Germany today is considered one country and one ethnicity, but the origin is a bunch of different tribes like many countries in the world. The ethnicity, cultures, languages, and ideologies of people today are the result of nation-building whether we like it or not. In cases like Thailand, that’s cultural integration of a bunch of tribes at once. I bring this up because in order to properly understand that the ideologies and cultures we have now simply did not exist. If I said that Kemetic paganism is feminist or that Greek Paganism is Anarchist, you would be correct to roll on the floor laughing. I would be injecting not only my own interpretations onto it but also my ideas about it.
So to answer the question in the title, paganism is not an inherently rightist practice. You see extremists trying to claim it because they believe in some genetic component while neglecting to actually research and know what their ancestors would have actually believed. The extremist Norse pagan probably makes their viking ancestors very confused or ashamed in why they dislike foreigners so much. If the past was a different country only 50-100 years ago, then the past of thousands of years ago was a completely different world entirely with people that most likely would not have opinions about society or modern life that fit neatly into our political ideas or could be easily categorized by our modern ways of thinking.
"Paganism" isn't a thing in itself, it means not Abrahamic. The Norse peoples worshiped the Norse Religion. Modern "Paganism" inherently identifies itself in anti-Christianity (and anti-Judaism, anti-Islam) terms instead of as the tribal religions they are cosplaying as things in themselves. It's a form of "noble s*vage" anti-Modernity, which is why it fits so well into Nazism. They don't understand what non-Christian Germanic society was like or how it worked because they only understand it through the narrative of White Supremacy/Christian Modernity that paints the Vikings as violence obsessed primitives (sound familiar?) that were the type that sacked Rome and gave Christian/Roman kingdoms trouble.
Studying historical societies scientifically is a totally different thing that these people aren't doing.
all religions are inherently rightists. also why in this community seems like the wrong place for this.
no they aren't, religions just exist under class society, like any mass movement there is a struggle to be had
what are u talking about? religions dont just exist under class societies they create class societies and have been the bases for many very much class filled societies.
Uhh nah, religions likely existed before the sexual division of labor aka proto-Patriarchy into slave-economies aka Patriarchy.
Religions since time-immemorial are built around myths to explain relationships to food production and healthcare. An example of this would be the First Foods and Longhouse religions of the PNW that explain a calendar, how to recognize ecological disturbances, and how to manage salmon runs.
More exists in the world than Eurasia.
"UM ACKCHYUALLY capitalism isnt capitalism, and it has always existed capitalism is actually just markets."
if u wanna be that guy and call things other than what they are, feel free, but i personally try not to engage with such people, yeah spirituality is a thing i dont care about it, i care about religion i was talking about religion not merely myths or spirituality but religion if u want to call those things religion i cant stop u and i dont really have anything to say to u.
“UM ACKCHYUALLY capitalism isnt capitalism, and it has always existed capitalism is actually just markets.”
where was this said
if u wanna be that guy and call things other than what they are, feel free, but i personally try not to engage with such people, yeah spirituality is a thing i dont care about it, i care about religion i was talking about religion not merely myths or spirituality but religion if u want to call those things religion i cant stop u and i dont really have anything to say to u.
They are definitely religions, you're perpetuating the Colonial concept that religion has to look like the Abrahamic ones to be considered legitimate. The religions of Indigenous American communities were outlawed and then brought back under Freedom of Religion. American hysteria against the Ghost Dance religion culminated in multiple massacres, most infamous the Wounded Knee Massacre. So the Colonizers consider them religions (now, after trying to prohibit them), the followers of these religions consider them as such.
so when u said pre class societies that didnt have sex based labor division u meant... Indigenous people from the great plains 200 years ago??????????
No, religion has a class character and it can be proletarian (look at liberation theology).
I agree the comm doesn’t apply, but it’s basically OP’s personal blog, so I’m not surprised.
if ur threshold for not being a rightist is so loose that people who worship a book full of slavery and imperialist propaganda falls in the leftist side of things then we have a fundamental disagreement on what the left is.
Just to clarify, we talk about institutional religion? Or more broadly religion itself...
This post is calling out a tendency of rightists to hijack things.
I don't think European neo-Paganism (to differ it from the usual term of the word, which is basically just Abrahamic religions looking down on other religions) is inherently rightist, no. Certainly not any more so than, say- the European (and particularly western-derived) sects of Christianity, which basically set the stage for, and pioneered, many of the hallmarks of modern rightist ideologies, from the religious/demographic wars and "spreading of civilization," to the "defense of the Christian/western/white/etc world, even beyond its borders," the dominionism (mentioned of in the bible and first emergent under this term in the 1960s~, but clearly present within western philosophy, ethics, etc. for centuries if not millennia prior), etc...
I don't think one can say that neo-Paganism is "inherently rightist" (though the notion of a broad and not at all unified variety of beliefs being "inherently" anything is also a bit nonsensical) without first saying Christianity is exceptionally rightist, and moreso as such (but even then I'd argue it's not inherently rightist, though in our modern, "post-colonial" context, or even in the context of its spread throughout Europe with the institutions of the Roman empire, the various northern crusades, etc. I think a decent enough argument could probably be made it is as a primarily non-indigenous belief system imposed through mental colonization- I'd not fully agree to it being inherent all the same, but it'd be very close)
The reason I posted this in this community is because the recruitment and propaganda tactics of the enemy are things we should talk about if not work to disrupt. I know this is a secular community but this case study on how reactionaries hijack social movements applies well to their general modus operandi.