The North West Passage

Posts Tagged ‘community’

This is only the “short form” of what I would like to say about some of the matters that arose in the comments section of my blog this week. As long as I continued to think about it, the logic of the problem led to wider and larger questions concerning community. Is the pagan movement a community? What would it mean if we are? What would it mean if we are not? As I see it, the question is not as simple as a matter of whether a public speaker or a ritual performer should be paid in money.

Certainly there are precedents in ancient societies for the idea that people who contribute to their communities in certain specialized ways should be supported by the community. One need look no further than the Druids for an example: they were fed, clothed, and housed at public expense. But we do not live in a pre-literate Iron-age society. In fact I have serious doubts about whether the pagan movement is a community. Chas Clifton observed that we are not a community because it is possible for someone to leave the movement with few difficulties and consequences. I find this argument very convincing.

However, I hope that the movement could become a community, a real and live one, in my lifetime. Here I shall propose for all of you one way which I think may make this happen.

the Clann-maker