Back
in December John Halsted wrote “TheFirst Commandment of Paganism: “Thou Shalt Not Judge” (and whythis is a problem)”, a
brilliant, controversial piece that you should read if you aren't
familiar with it. I've been thinking about the piece in detail for
a few days now and decided there are some points that are worth
sharing.
Actually
that's my first point. I read the piece, I reacted to it in the
privacy of my own mind, I straightened my thoughts out till I was
happy with them and no longer in the position of sensitively clinging
to them, and now I'm releasing them to a wider audience for their
review and potential feed back. As a writer, this is a process I am
intimately familiar with and used to.
First
I write. Then, I adjust, review, and attack it with my own internal
critic. I consider it's merit—and sometimes it's only meant for me
or a small audience. Sometimes it's ready, but I'm too emotionally
invested in it to stand critique.
Sometimes
hours and sometimes months after creation, I release my writing for
others to consider. I can of course continue to write and adapt my
style on me own in a void without other input, but for the most part,
I've grown the most in my writing and thought patterns through
comments and suggestions from others.
I
think the process merges perfectly with one's ability to evaluate
others religious experiences.
That
said let me drop a few disclaimers:
1 .Writing
revision is not always done alone. Sometimes writing is done in
teams or small groups where they limit judgment to help to improve
the creative process and encourage each other to come forward with
authenticity. To me, this is where/how we create safe spaces to
listen to experiences of others without deconstructing. There is
definitely a place in the process for safe space—I just do not
belief this space should be the end goal or the default.\
2. Not
all critics are equal. Just because someone has feedback for you
does not make it valuable on the face of it. I might encourage
people to listen to all the feed back but that's not the same as
incorporating it all. Even a qualified person may not have
feedback that is relevant to your interpretation or experience,
which is cool. Sometimes all we are meant to take from critique
is a better understanding of what we emphasize and what others
emphasize.
3. There
does need to be space between ritual and critique. Creating and
performing group ritual is a leap of faith and trust. Creating
solitary ritual can be a leap in faith and trust. Beyond that,
ritual is a living breathing thing. It doesn't just happen and
release immediately. It needs time to be and do. I've had
rituals that felt like duds or felt stilted in performance but
were powerful in return. Perhaps I wasn't meant to have my moment
of the profound in ritual, but to experience it in pieces in my
actual life. I've had experiences that were profound and
continued to be deeply impacting for months afterward. How could
I have given a constructive critique right off the nose? Further,
though this has never happened for me, I am willing to believe
that I could be part of a ritual with deep meaning for another
that has no meaning for myself. And I am more than willing to
perform work that is transformative for another with no benefit
for myself, actually opening a ritual up to feed back so I know
what another experienced would for me, be helpful to know what I'm
doing “right” or “well” for them as well as myself. I
would think instead of forbidding critique each group needs to
state a time when they will be open to receiving said information.
Or, if ritual is too personal to give feedback on directly,
perhaps work-shopping past formats or generic formats for ritual.
We
as pagans do not like to censor. We do not like to shut others down.
I've often gotten the impression from pagans that we believe the
judging state is a lower state of mind we have risen above. To
facilitate this 'upward' movement, we tell ourselves lies like 'what
does it matters if Bobby Q Crazy believes or does that in his
practice?' he isn't hurting me. This statement IS NOT universally
true and without critical review there is no way to discern which is
harmless difference and which is dangerous.
To
take from P.
Sufenas Virius Lupus
comment below John's writing he offers: “Three
people see the same person walking toward them. A police officer
describes them as "a mid-forties Asian male of average height
and weight." A student describes them as "that quirky
biology teacher who wears bow ties and sings Led Zeppelin tunes while
doing labs." A daughter describes them as "daddy." All
of them are right. All of them are interpreting this person based on
their own experiences (or lack thereof) with them, their feelings
about them, and so forth. If you started to criticize the daughter's
description as incomplete or not the best interpretation because it's
too personal and puts too much emphasis on her prior experiences with
that person, and thus her biases and "orthodoxies" (so to
speak!) that are based in her own particular context--i.e. the "echo
chamber" of family life for her, her parents and siblings--how
can that feel like anything other than critiquing her long history of
experience with that person (who is her father)?
“
I
agree with his point, and in the case if these three perceptions all
are true and acceptable and safe. While there might be further
discussion with the daughter on what else “daddy” is or is not,
and there might be discussion on what each job means to each person,
no individual is wrong or should be scolded or whatever negative it
is we're worried about happening.
I'd
like to extend the example so I can highlight the potential for
danger. What about the police officer's partner who saw the
mid-forties Asian male of average height and weight with a weapon in
his hand, who may or may not act based off of the perception of a
weapon? Are we supposed to wait until the officer shoots and hurts
someone to address his mistaken impression (assuming it's mistaken,
which based off the three other witnesses who mention nothing in the
man's hand, its safe to at least consider)? Granted in this
scenario, there may be no other option, but this isn't the case in
faith. We don't have to wait until someone does something extreme to
intervene. We can not be so afraid to judge or interpret a person's
experience that we don't step in when what the person is saying may
lead to self harm, or dangerous action. Granted, we might have a
long debate on what is harmful action. I suspect the pro and con
modern medicine folks have a lot to work out before we can set real
guidelines.
I
further suspect that mental stability is very touchy in the pagan
community and as such plays a complicated role in judging or not
judging others experiences. Mental illness and the pagan community
are not topics I'd like to combined into subject matter for group
sharing at this point in my thought process because I'm certain to
bungle it terribly. I will say that mental health and paganism has
been muddy waters in great quantity because we as a community were
misunderstood by the larger modern society, a problem the
psychological community is still rectifying, but that doesn't mean
that paganism doesn't have it's share of truly mentally ill people
whom I worry we don't provide the correct support for.
Another
argument I hear a lot to critically discussing religious experience
is “who are you to tell me what I saw/heard/felt/know”. I am no
one in particular. I consider myself someone with above average
intelligence, good listening skills, and sometimes good insight, but
I don't have like a special license or qualification for it. Still,
we seek advice from unqualified people all the time. I talk with
strangers fairly often in line to check out or while looking at items
and ask them for advice on clothing or where to go to find X kind of
food and do they like their dance instructor and tell me more about
their home school program. I know this is all minor stuff, but I've
had strangers come up to me and tell me their mother passed a week
ago and they are having trouble dealing with it, or that they are
pregnant they don't know what to do or that they're taking care of
their kid's baby and their kid is into drugs and they don't know what
to do. You do not always have to be qualified to help and sometimes
as apparently was the case for these people who chose to confide in
me, being silent was more damaging than sharing with another person.
What's
key here is that I did not go to these people and demand they share
and I never claimed authority when talking to them. They came to me
and laid their situation out in the open with little more than a
pleasant greeting to grease the wheels. People need and want
feedback and will take it from almost anyone in desperation. I think
the way we present the space to offer feedback, the polish of the
feedback we give so it can be critical but not cruel, thoughtful but
not condescending, compassionate but firm is far more important and
interesting a conversation than whether or not we should judge
others.
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