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A number of problems face Heathenry today. Many of these regard how we, in our diverse ways, incorporate the insights of the Troth into our daily lives, and bring to our understanding of Troth our late 20th-century sensibilities and awarenesses. Sometimes these understandings clash in obvious ways, sometimes in ways not so obvious. This article is not intended as prescription, but as stimulating ideas and discussion in the Troth community about what 'community is', as I think we need to do if it is truly our intention to construct Heathenry in today's world as something other than dressing up in the name of the Aesir and Vanir.
Many people today who follow the ways of the Troth do so in relative isolation. Some of us have kindreds, large or small, but for others, their acquaintance with other heathens is chiefly through magazines, books, newsletters, email, and occasional excursions to gatherings, either local or national, those at which heathens are in the minority or those which are specifically heathen. For this article, I'm going to set aside (for the moment at any rate) the question of Living Tru on a daily basis, and the management of kindreds, and focus on those moments when people come together to create an event, to share a common experience and a common goal. For I consider that this may illuminate some aspects of today's Heathenry on which we need to focus our attention.
If we look to the past, to the time when a (yet unnamed) Heathenism was at once religion, spirituality and ethical foundation for daily living, and people lived in a community that included Wights of land, sea and air, together with their own ancestors, and the God/esses (probably in that order, at least for most in the community) -- if we look into this past, a festival, large-scale blót, moot or thing was a special event in which communities came together or people came from around, who shared symbols, culture, language, a sense of community and a basic knowledge of what to do, what was appropriate to place and season. These people would not, for the most part, think of themselves as 'religious', or as coming together for reasons of faith or belief, but of simply doing what one did. We can look to what happened when the pattern was broken -- the example of Hákon, who having accepted christian baptism did not wish to drink to the God/esses (or perhaps particularly to Ođinn) and made the un-customary cross-sign over his horn, and Jarl Sígurđ who attempted to restore the customary pattern, by declaring that the king had merely signed a hammer over his drink, as did those who wished to trust in their own might and main. This to me indicates not only the wish on the Jarl's part to patch things up, restore frith, and bring back Hákon to a sense of his proper responsibilities, but something else: the sense that culture, custom and knowledge, not religion as such, was what governed this event.
Now, today's gatherings almost reverse this sense. Today we come together, from our individual, isolated corners of North America or the world, because of a rather self-conscious attachment to our religion. There are other reasons also, which I will address shortly, but the religion, doing the religion, is the overt reason, the excuse, for the gathering. Currently, so it has to be. For that weekend we are apart, shut off, from the rest of the world -- and yet we bring the world with us, in our expectations and assumptions about what we will meet.
At today's gatherings, chiefly highlighted is the question of responsibilities and rights -- what are the responsibilities of organizers towards participants, and vice versa? Are organizers entitled to act in ways that curtail people's rights to free expression -- Do people get to smoke in the main meeting hall? The most currently favoured answers to such questions, at least within North America, seem to indicate that organizers have 'rights' to act in ways that support the 'rights' of other participants, and of other interested parties such as site owners, and that an evaluation of these 'rights' should form the basis for decision.
I would like to phrase -- and frame -- this topic somewhat differently. To what extent are we a community? Do we, as a community, act in ways that are distinct from, or subsume, or even supersede or supplant individual behaviours and practices?
The reason we gather together, the reason we talk to each other through journals or email, lies in our common orientation towards the religion and culture of Ásatrú. So what does this mean? We acknowledge Aesir and Vanir as Elder Kin. We are drawn together through the commonalities of our approach to these beings, to other wights, to the Earth herself. We come together because collectively we can approach our truth in ways that go beyond what is possible on an individual or small group level. We come together to share knowledge, story, song. We come together for mutual support. We come together, deliberately, to create something, a moment, an instant where we feel truly part of something that goes beyond ourselves. We come together to teach, and to learn. We come together for so many reasons that go beyond the simplest one of meeting congenial people and having a good time. And when we leave, many of us take with us the memories of moments of great inspiration, solemnity, profundity, beauty — and laughter.
I would like to suggest that these memories come from the fact of working as a community. We are not at a gathering to be 'entertained', but to share in the live and work of others and to contribute to the festival. There is a difference between going to a regional gathering, or to Trothmoot, and attending, say, a musical event. No matter how much we are moved by the music, it remains the case that 'performance' is what is happening and 'we' are an audience. This should not be the case at a Heathen gathering. We do not attend to have rituals done for us or in front of us, but to participate.
In 1997 at Trothmoot the organizers experimented with attempting to create spaces in which people could participate in numerous ways: the districts, where talking, singing and storytelling, and sharing and showing of skills and crafts were encouraged. This did not please everybody. 'Not sufficiently organized', said some. Compared with the previous year's workshop structure, there was indeed a lack of timetabling: possibly the structure was too loose, but for those people who went along with it, it seemed to work well despite one or two complaints from people who 'missed the skalds' competition' because they were looking for something more, well, formal. In my view, the structure was experimental, and needs some further refining. However, this still leaves open the question of participants, what they take from an event, and what their responsibilities are in attending it. Here I'm going to get sociological, so watch out.
In the early years of this century sociologist Émile Durkheim spoke of the 'conscience collective', that peculiar phrase which can be translated as 'collective conscience' or 'collective consciousness' depending on how you look at it. He was speaking of that particular awareness which defines a community, the sense of what must be done and what can be done, who belongs and how they know they belong, where the bounds of community and good living lie, the collective awareness of being which in his view governed peoples actions and choices, how they lived and raised their children and even died. Now, Durkheim's view of community has been critiqued as too sweeping and as having led to a later over-emphasis on 'socialization' into following unthinkingly community norms and mores. (If people break laws, it's because they have been inadequately socialized, in this view.) Durkheim himself tended to seek explanations of many phenomena in the extent to which people 'belonged' to their community, as compared with those for whom the community bonds had been broken, or never developed. He distinguished between the 'mechanical' bonds of a traditional community where everyone had the same values and knew everyone else, and 'organic' solidarity of complex industrial society, where people's relationships with a wide variety of others were based on their needs and their interdependencies, but saw both as important and as creating 'belonging' within individual psyches. However he did not describe the construction of community.
Other sociologists have conceptualized the traditional/modern split differently: pitting the Gemeinschaft or 'community' of the traditional village, with few specialized occupations, and families who had lived in the same house for generations, against the Gesellschaft or 'society' of industrial life, with its detailed job descriptions and mobility of individuals. Some see this through the eyes of nostalgia for a (largely imagined) past, and decry the fragmentation of modern life (and even more, of postmodern life) that for them is associated with crime and social breakdown. Others reverse the value judgement, viewing traditional societies as stultifyingly denying individual will, worth, and preference, lauding the emphasis on individual choice and freedom that they see associated with the anonymity of life in the modern word, particularly the industrial city.
The discursive processes evident among such social scientists can be found also in popular ideas about 'community' and the relationship of small-scale/big-scale, past and present. On the one hand we see, in popular culture, presentations of previous supposed community life as caring, nurturant, full of connection and belonging; on the other, ideas about 'progress', science, invention and discovery, living in a time more enlightened, more free than ever before, with each person being able to succeed to the best of her or his ability, not restricted by ties of family or background. Mixed in with this somewhere is the concept of the individual, standing alone, with need to answer to none and be responsible for no-one except him or herself, in such a way that sometimes the pioneer or the lone hunter is seen as the independent individual (standing out from the herd), sometimes the scientist who will pursue her or his dream. Look at the presentation of TV ads: Grandma's cooking, cheek and jowl with 'dare to be yourself' and the ideal tampon for the 21st century. 'Dare to be yourself' suggests that deep within each of us is a core which makes us unique, apart from the herd.
We can trace major discourses of 'community' versus 'individual' back in time, of course.
The concept of 'the individual' has a long history within Western thought, though it has rarely been as prevalent as it is today. Staying within Northern Europe, we know that in the literature of the middle ages we can find narratives of people and their behavior: while their behavior is clearly related to society and based on social concepts of proper conduct, they are indeed portrayed as individuals, with unique properties and feelings. At this time the dominant ideology seems to have been that of every person with their place in society, but there was indeed some room for individualism of a type we might recognize today, and people could gain respect for qualities such as wisdom, strength, understanding.
However, it was much later that the concept of 'the individual' became central to Western Society. The American and French revolutions had their philosophical bases in Liberalism: in reaction against the old order of the feudal system. So the emphasis on the individual, as we know it today, is of comparatively recent origin: the 18th century, the 'Rights of Man', the liberal/capitalist revolutions of the US and France, and the rise of capitalism elsewhere, are the events we associate with this concept.
Liberal individualism suggested people were individuals, who acted, based on rational self-interest, to further those goals that seemed good to them. Society came to be seen as composed of interacting, goal-directed people. In the 19th century, the philosopher John Stuart Mill considered that we could understand society by understanding the motivations, action and goals of its individual people.
Men ... in a state of society are still men: their actions and passions are obedient to the laws of individual human nature ... Human beings in society have no properties but those which are derived from, and may be resolved into, the laws of the nature of individual man.
Much of today's social psychology is still based on this concept of 'economic man', the individual, the (usually assumed to be) male actor who based his choices for the most part on rational self-interest, seeking to maximize pleasure or profit of some kind. In popular discourse this becomes a more 'rugged individualism', whereby the (male) individual is expected to put his interests before those of others, to 'stand up for himself', to assert his rights, and to seek success whether in financial, mercantile, military, athletic or romantic activities.
Above I indicated that this was not necessarily how our ancestors saw themselves and those around them. Bil Linzie, in his web-page article on shamanism, writes that 'The modern idea of 'fierce individualism' apparently did not exist for our ancestors.' It is this strand, and how it connects with our present-day reconstruction of the Elder Troth, that I wish to pursue further with this article.
'Who am I?' is a question that people sometimes spend their lives pursuing. Most answers to it are cast in terms of individual worth, skills, accomplishments. Yet when I ask it of myself, and reflect on its meaning, as an Ásatrúar, as a social scientist, I find it is not something I can answer by referring only to my own deeds. What I do and how I do it occurs within a framework constructed over generations, a framework involving not only my own physical ancestors but all the people that constructed and modified the social, economical, legal and physical environment that we are living in today, in our many countries. And this happened differently in different places.
For the most part, our ancestors turned away from Heathen belief, while still managing to maintain some Heathen values and practices but modifying them to adjust to changed economic times and changed belief systems and rulership structures. We have had a thousand years of such modification. Where does this leave us today, and what are our connections with the Heathen past?
For a start, any ways we have of thinking about ourselves and our communities are likely to be different from how the old Heathens would have seen it. The sense of being embedded in family, and carrying collective responsibility for the doings of your kin, is something that is very different from the sense of 'The Individual' that's been developing over the last 300 years. Most smaller-scale societies have tended to work along lines of mutual obligation and responsibility, and these run not only through the current community but to connect its members with present and future. No person is without obligation -- no person except the one who exists beyond the bounds of society, the outlaw, who carries no responsibility towards the community or its future -- or often its past.
Our current societies have no 'outlaws', in that each person, including those convicted of an offence, are covered by legal provenance and have 'rights'. Yet we hear many people speak as if they personally have, or should have, no obligations.
So what are we trying to do, as Heathens or Ásatrúars? I hear a lot of talk about individualism, and I hear about personal relationships between people and their God/esses. I hear much less about how we got to where we are today, both in terms of the development of Heathenism and in terms of how Heathenism connects to the numerous problems the world (and not only North America) is facing.
Now I did not create these problems: nor for the most part did Heathenry. Nevertheless, they form part of the framework, the structure of the society in which I live, have my being, raise my children and worship my God/esses. My task, surely, is not to assign blame or guilt, but to get on with the process of asking what can be done, now, to help construct a community that is *better* for raising my children and worshipping my God/esses: with the aid of these beings, if I'm working for an end that they desire. In saying this, I am acknowledging obligation: to you, to my children, to my children's children, to the God/esses and to Earth.
To give an example: The earth is pretty well messed up, and becoming more so. The industries of Britain, including the part of Scotland my folks were living in, during the 19th century, were highly pollutive: therefore my direct ancestors played a large part in creating this mess. Should I feel guilty? No. Guilt is paralyzing and hampering, and usually results in denial, not action: all good reasons for not engaging in it. But I cannot believe that our Elder Kin find the current state of the earth, of Jorđ, either pleasing or acceptable.
So should I revile my ancestors for creating this mess? The God/esses forfend! My Scottish kinfolk were good people who lived in their ways, in their times, trying to raise their children, engaging with society and their environment, honoring HouseWights and keeping the old stories alive even at the same time as they worshipped their God -- and in the process some of them became seekers, turning from Christianity to become Freethinkers, still retaining their knowledge of some of the older ways, and eventually producing me. Revile them? I honour them, and respect them. As a Heathen I'm trying to find ways to further my connections with them. At the same time, I try to find ways to clean up the mess they've produced, and to myself tread lightly on the earth, in the knowledge that while as an individual I can achieve little, as a member of a community of God/esses, Wights and folk I have power to change much: and that as Heathens we have collective responsibilities to future generations, that we can we aware of when we look to the God/esses and take a long view.
So where does this leave us in terms of thinking about community and responsibility?
First, I reject the view of people as only 'fierce individuals', as I have attempted to show. Instead, I focus on people within community structures, including both structures that they find liberating and structures that they find oppressing. Many heathens have spoken to me about problems with their families of origin, and the communities in which they had their upbringing, and yet these same people carry something with them that has come from these communities: memories, experiences that will remain part of them, even while some must remain deeply painful to contemplate.
However, I likewise reject Durkheim's view of the need for belonging, driven as it is by a judeo-christian ethos of the imperfect nature of humanity, and the problems that creates. In Durkheim's view, people must belong, or society is endangered. Yet when I look at the world I see problems with people who seek too much to 'belong', creating structures of racism, homophobia and sexism through their fear that they may otherwise not find acceptance in a pluralistic, modern or post-modern society. In today's Ásatrú we know about such people.
As a social scientist I do on occasion use the descriptions of Gemeinschaft community versus Gesellschaft society, but have some doubts about the use of the terms. They are useful as description, but they do not encapsulate everything about communities: and particularly they do not allow for the way people are today deliberately creating communities of belief and culture, such as I hope Heathenry can become. One missing dimension is the work -- often tedious, hard, or dangerous -- that people do to construct and maintain community life. These old-style heathen communities didn't just get that way. Yes, children grew up seeing the daily practices of others, hearing the storytellers, enjoying the festival foods. These practices, that food preparation, learning and telling these stories were all part of the work that maintained the community and its culture. In some present-day communities, when these are under extreme economic stress, people give up, and cease doing this community work: and that is when a culture dies.
So we come together, in our gatherings and our kindreds and our email lists and our newsletters, in some sense to create an event, to share a common experience and a common goal: to create Ásatrú. What I would like to suggest is that it is hard to create a religion based on the concept of individual 'rights', or even 'rights and responsibilities'. I would like us to start thinking of how our individual being and becoming, our past and our present, link together to create something that goes beyond individualism, though it also contains it: community. At this year's Trothmoot, as I've said already, the organizers experimented with a new form, the districts, whereby some sense of community could be created through 'viking games', poetry, song, crafts... As one who participated, let me tell you this was work: very enjoyable work, to be sure (and certainly not on a par with the work done by the organizers), but work none the less, as a form of cultural production. Another type of work was done in the kitchens, which produced not only food, but their own culture...
Let me conclude with a glimpse of the Well of Wyrd, the great Tree Yggdrasill rising from its roots, and the Norns sitting at their spinning. As Troth clergy, we know all about this... or do we? In the well, all fates are mingled. As we come to Ásatrú from our diverse backgrounds and upbringings, bringing our unique gifts, skills, talents and needs, we join with others to create our vision of the future. But the third Norn is not 'future', but Skuld, 'Should', obligation. We do not come to today's Heathenry only to take from it, on an individual basis. We are today's Heathenry, and its future depends on our actions in the present. This includes how we work to shape the culture of the community, and also who we include as 'community', which other Heathens are the friends of our friends.
I see the Troth today at a turning point. We can continue to be individualistic, self-conscious heathens, dressing up to meet others and impress them and have a good time at a party: Or we can decide that we are a community, and that each person brings to it their individual skills and expertise, but that our purpose is each to contribute to the whole, to shared goals, which include maintaining the well-being of the community and its members. Can we take the achievements of present-day living, the talents and skills, the understandings that result from living in a scientific, post-modern state, and draw upon these in such a way that they become part of our Heathen community of God/esses and folk -- with its roots in distant time, its being solidly in the present -- and of those other communities, of work, family, neighbourhood, that we each form part? Clearly, there are people attempting to do this. Shall you and I join them?
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