Once upon a time, there was a jar of peanut butter. We'll call him ... er ... Peter Jeff Sumcker (that seems fairly non-endorsement-ish enough). Now this Peter Jeff Sumcker had come to be what he was in the Old Way, and his peanut-butteriness came from a traditional Georgian runner peanut background. Though his peanuttiness was mingled with some other ingredients, nevertheless, he was still 91% peanut in his doctrines and ethics (and in fact the legal definition of peanut butter requires at least 90% peanut content, with no artificial sweeteners, colors or preservatives). As I say, Peter Jeff Sumcker had come to be in the Old Way, so his ingredients didn't include corn syrup, but rather, just a bit of pure cane sugar, as well as sea salt and oil. Indeed, there wasn't even any stabilizer in him to keep the oil from separating, so old-fashioned was his making. Peter Jeff Sumcker was also a glass jar of peanut butter with a metal lid, rather than a plastic jar with a plastic lid. Some might think all of this was outrageously old-fashioned, but Peter Jeff Sumcker knew other jars of peanut butter which were even more old-fashioned in their makeup. While the peanuts that made him up had not been harvested and sorted and cleaned and grinded by hand, he was a commercial 21st century jar of peanut butter, after all, and not a jar of homemade peanut butter in the 19th century.
One day, Peter Jeff Sumcker went out walking, and he saw a group of jars hanging out in a grove of trees, so he moved in their direction and spent some time getting to know them. As is inevitable in such encounters, the talk eventually turned to discussion of how each jar had come to be. There were different labels on the different jars, with different names and different colours on those labels. Some were glass jars with plastic lids, some were plastic jars with plastic lids. Some had corn syrup instead of cane sugar, some were made without any sort of sweetener. Some had iodized salt instead of sea salt. Some had different kinds of oils. What was common to all of them, however, was that their beliefs and practices were all at least 90% peanut in their origin. While they might wear different clothes (labels) with different styles (colours) and might have different sectarian affiliations (names), while they might be of different physical ancestry (glass or plastic or even mixed), while some of them might be female or feminine (those with sweeteners) and some might be male or masculine (those with no sweeteners), while they might have different sorts of liturgies (salt) or different expressions of Mysticism (oil), nevertheless, their doctrines and ethics were, in each case, at least 90% peanut.
On another day, Peter Jeff Sumcker went walking again. On this day, he also saw a group of jars on a beach, and some of them had similar labels, with similar names and colours as some of his peanut butter friends. So he sat down with them and they proceeded to get to know one another ... and Peter Jeff Sumcker was astounded to learn that these were not jars of peanut butter at all, but jars of peanut butter spread (a "peanut butter spread" is essentially the same thing as peanut butter, in terms of taste and nutrition, but has a lower fat content, and is composed of only 60% peanuts). He wasn't quite sure what to make of these jars, but he reckoned most of them were probably alright; they didn't seem tremendously different, although some of their language and behaviour was a bit unusual to him.
Then there came a day when Peter Jeff Sumcker went out for a walk again, and yet again saw a group of jars in a suburban park. Once again, he went into their presence and they proceeded to get to know one another ... and if he was astounded before by the jars of peanut butter spread, he was absolutely shocked by these jars, for, though they all wore labels that proclaimed them "peanut butter" or "peanut butter spread," there wasn't a single one of these jars whose doctrines and ethics could be said to be even 20% peanut! Peter Jeff Sumcker was really not sure what to make of these jars, but he didn't think they should be wearing those labels, because doing so would mislead unwary shoppers, but the jars got hostile when he tried to point that out, so he left.
Finally there was a day when Peter Jeff Sumcker went out walking yet again, and on this day, he saw yet another group of jars in a grove of trees. And again, though somewhat shaken by his last encounter with unknown jars calling themselves "peanut butter" and "peanut butter spread" who were neither peanut butter nor peanut butter spread (according to the definitions of "peanut butter" and "peanut butter spread") or who might at best be called "diluted peanut butter spreads," nevertheless, he wandered into the midst of this grove with these new unknown jars, and they all proceeded to get to know one another. Now, again, these jars all had a variety of labels, but each label proclaimed that the jars were of "peanut butter," and one among them even had a label that said "old-fashioned peanut butter," and yet another had a label that proclaimed "premium peanut butter." Peter Jeff Sumcker thought he could probably relax, seeing a jar of "old-fashioned peanut butter," but as the jars all talked, Peter Jeff Sumcker became alarmed and upset, seeing that not one of these jars, not even the one that was supposedly "old-fashioned peanut butter," nor the one which claimed to be "premium peanut butter" were even 1% peanut in their doctrines and ethics. One of them, in fact, held to doctrines and ethics which were a blend of beans and tofu, another's were a blend of beans and rice and apples, still another's doctrines and ethics were a hodge-podge of ground pork and duck and turkey and chicken with a large dose of tofu and a sprinkling of lemon pepper! In spite of attempts to convince these jars that their labels were inaccurate and misleading, not one of them would admit that he/she was not in fact peanut butter, and they ridiculed Peter Jeff Sumcker till he left them to their foolishness, but he also determined to warn shoppers about this sort of counterfeit peanut butter.
The moral of this story involves questions. Can one mix chicken and beef and pork and venison with tofu and still call it "a vegetarian dish"? How much soybean can be mixed with hamburger meat before you can't really call it "hamburger meat," or even "meat," anymore? How about taking chicken and pork and duck and cod and mixing it with tofu and then calling it "peanut butter"?
Although many Neo-Pagans claim to dislike "labels" (even as they apply labels to themselves), there are reasons for such designations. Without them, without nouns that have specific definitions, communication becomes impossible, and you might wind up going to a restaurant, ordering what you think is going to be what you expect it to be, but then eating some kind of food to which you're allergic, going into anaphylactic shock, and dying. This latter hypothetical situation is, perhaps, exaggerated to the point of being ridiculous, but it does show the need for "labels," for clearly defined terms which will not mislead the diner, or the Seeker.
Unfortunately, there are many well-known examples of people calling themselves "Druids" who have not earned the office, who have not studied the myths and legends, the law and ethics, the poetry and prophecies, nor really much else, of even a single Celtic culture, and are not part of any tribe. But somehow they've got the notion that little or nothing is known about the ancient "Druids," and that the ancient "Druids" were Nature Mystics and/or Nature Mages (and little else), and they blend that notion together with a wide variety of ideas from other religions and cultures, even including religions which are inconsistent with Celtic Heathenism, such as Christianity, even including ideas which are, from a Celtic Heathen perspective, quite alien, such as hyper-relativism (the idea that there is no objective truth, but only opinion, and that everyone is therefore right, and noone is wrong) and solitary practice.
There are others who would "borrow" this and that God, Goddess, myth, and/or whatever, from Irish and/or Scottish and/or Welsh and/or other Celtic cultures, and mix those with this and that God, Goddess, myth, etc, from Religio Romana and Greek Paganism and Khemetic Paganism and Christianity and Vedism and Brahmanic Hinduism ... but still want to call what they do "Celtic," or want to call it "Druidism" or "Druidry." At what point, though, does all the other stuff overwhelm not just the "Celticity" or "Druid-ness," but even any specific cultural and/or religious designation, rendering it inapplicable to the new system?
Although many of the people who engage in Neo-Pagan eclecticism may believe that they are honouring their various cultural heritages by blending bits and pieces of each of them, when those cultural heritages are near the edge of extinction, blending bits and pieces of them with other, unrelated and inconsistent ideas does no Honour to the Ancestors, and further endangers those cultures. It is, to borrow terminology from Star Trek, Borg assimilation. It is the strip-mining of cultures. It is exploitation, misappropriation, cultural rape.
It is true that there were Pagans in the ancient world who engaged in the blending of ideas from different philosophies and religions, from different cultures. These were typically the inhabitants of "cosmopolitan" societies in imperialistic nations. The period known as "Hellenistic," for example, at the end of the Greek Empire and beginning of the Roman Empire, was characterised by such blending, and later the "interpretatio Romana" was a policy of the Roman Empire with regard to the religions of conquered peoples. In the case of Hellenism, however, what you had was more syncretism than eclecticism. The "interpretatio Romana," on the other hand, probably deserves to be branded as eclectic. The difference is very simple: eclecticism, as I have noted elsewhere, is unconcerned with whether or not the resulting blend is self-referentially consistent or not, whereas syncretism strives for a consistent blend.
There is, perhaps, another difference, and that is that eclectic persons tend to feel somehow entitled to behave in this manner, and they consequently become quite hostile when culture-specific Traditionalists, Revivalists, and Reconstructionists point out the disrepect and disservice they are doing to those cultures which they are strip-mining by their eclecticism, and even go so far as to insult custodians of the authentic Traditions, insisting that "everything is simply opinion and you have to be tolerant of me, you fundamentalist jackass," and so on.
But there is more than opinion: there are facts, there are guesses based on reliable information, there are even still-living Celtic cultural Traditions, and they still include Heathen elements. The word "Druid" does not mean "if it feels good, do it," nor does it mean "anything goes." The word "Druid" means "a member of an élite Priesthood within the cultural context of a Celtic Heathen Tribe or Tribal Confederacy." It is not a blank slate upon which anyone may write whatever they want. Still less should a person who "makes it up as he goes" insist that his definition of the term is just as good as anyone else's; he's inventing his own system, and should listen to those who do know what the term means, or go make up his own term. Truth is of paramount importance to a Draoidh.
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This article is © Copyright 2005 by Croman mac Nessa. All Rights Reserved.
Page last updated: 18 October 2005.
