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Some thoughts on Paganism/Druidism
I was thinking the other day about how much of the Neo-Pagan movement has a heavy "back to nature" slant to it.
To me, this sounds too much like what I call "Golden Ageism". That is, the trend of people to look at the past, and fantasise about how good things were in the past. This rose covered view of the past is caused by the time dilation that is caused by how we grow up. When we hit twenty, we have gone through high school, puberty, started college/university, and maybe even have finished by then. But those "teen" years represent fully half of our lives at age 20. Thus the canvas of our memory ends up with very broad strokes painting those times for us, as there the canvas is now half full depicting our teen years.
Jump forward to age 40.
Now that almost ten year period is only a quarter of our lives, but as it was painted with broad strokes, many of the nuances get lost. and thus we only see the colours in the distance. So it looks better to us, as we are pre-disposed to seeing the good instead of the bad. But during those years, so much of our lives are set in stone.
One of the touchstones I use is music. Many people I know become stuck on the music of their teenage years. The War Generation teen years were dominated by Big bands and Jazz Singers. Baby-Boomers, early Rock or "Classic Rock", the music of the 50s-60s-70s. Gen X, Goth, Industrial and Punk. Gen Y, Grunge & Pop. Today's youth, Hip-hop, Emo. Again, broad strokes, but it gives you an idea. Any time you go more than two generations or more younger than your generation, chances are, you can't stand their music, may complain how it is noise. Their fashions grate against your sensibilities, and you just can't understand what they find about "that noise" that is musical.
OK, enough for now, in a day or two, I will talk about how this relates to Neo-Paganism, and "Back to Nature".
ttyl
To me, this sounds too much like what I call "Golden Ageism". That is, the trend of people to look at the past, and fantasise about how good things were in the past. This rose covered view of the past is caused by the time dilation that is caused by how we grow up. When we hit twenty, we have gone through high school, puberty, started college/university, and maybe even have finished by then. But those "teen" years represent fully half of our lives at age 20. Thus the canvas of our memory ends up with very broad strokes painting those times for us, as there the canvas is now half full depicting our teen years.
Jump forward to age 40.
Now that almost ten year period is only a quarter of our lives, but as it was painted with broad strokes, many of the nuances get lost. and thus we only see the colours in the distance. So it looks better to us, as we are pre-disposed to seeing the good instead of the bad. But during those years, so much of our lives are set in stone.
One of the touchstones I use is music. Many people I know become stuck on the music of their teenage years. The War Generation teen years were dominated by Big bands and Jazz Singers. Baby-Boomers, early Rock or "Classic Rock", the music of the 50s-60s-70s. Gen X, Goth, Industrial and Punk. Gen Y, Grunge & Pop. Today's youth, Hip-hop, Emo. Again, broad strokes, but it gives you an idea. Any time you go more than two generations or more younger than your generation, chances are, you can't stand their music, may complain how it is noise. Their fashions grate against your sensibilities, and you just can't understand what they find about "that noise" that is musical.
OK, enough for now, in a day or two, I will talk about how this relates to Neo-Paganism, and "Back to Nature".
ttyl
no subject
let's not do the time warp yet again...
I remeber beinga teenager and loathing much of the music of the time and feeling like I was stuck amongst an alien tribe. I must be some sort of freak, but I enjoy all sorts of music from big band stuff and dixieland things that were popular in the 1920's through to the 1940's; 60's pop and vocal stuff, music from musicals, some 70's but mostly I loathed what I grew up with (though) I will admit an affection for *some* prog rock, Alice Cooper, Queen, and Abba, mostly because I love anything with a vocal aesthetic and some theatricality. Which means, of course, that I am of course fond of goth. Some 80's stuff is OK, a lot of it, like 70's pop, was utter crap. I enjoy *some* punk, most grunge (which, after all, is just retreaded neil young but with embedded lyrics, so far as I can tell), plus some hiphop and acid jazz, and indie and world almost anything. I even like some electronica and the supposedly industrial 'Amphibious Assualt' which to my ear sounds like goth went through electronica.
I don't much care to get stuck in an era whether it's musical or fashion or whatever because, after awhile you look like a big dork who's inflexible. I used to hate opera, rap, C&W and disco but then someone played me some artists that were actually good. And I changed my mind.
I think that's the essence of it: people get stuck in an era because they get scared of the time that's passing. I see them do it with clothing and hair all the time too.
There are a lot of styles that work best for certain age groups and I think people tend to be more flexible or else risk being miserable for half their lives and looking stuck in some sort of ill-fitting (or sounding) time warp.