Are you committing “Cultural Genocide?!?!?”

 

A member of our little board on MySpace (who asked not to be identified) wrote me off-list. Apparently she’s been over on the Druid Fellowship for Today’s Druids group, and made the classic mistake of revealing herself as a Reformed Druid. Of course, as has happened before, the Celtic Reconstructionists (CR) came out in droves to kill the witch. Not surprising really, as this has happened to many of us on practically all the MySpace Druid groups, since CR is the dominant Celtic paradigm over on MySpace. But apparently
there’s a new twist. She was accused of cultural genocide.

Apparently, calling oneself a Druid without a strictly Celtic context (something the Reform has always done, as Celticism has always been treated as an option) is “stealing” from another culture and “denigrating” the office (or do you think it was because she is Black?).  I went and looked over the thread myself (It was my Who’s a Druid…. thread, started back years ago- still alive and kicking many years after I left). Indeed, she was accused of “cultural rape” several times.

In another thread, Steven Crimmins’ (sp?) (Archdruid at Carleton in 2006 I think), edited version of the What and Why is Reformed Drudism.. pamphlet (from the ARDA) was used to further bolster the “Reformed Druids are fluffy bunnies who steal cultural elements“argument. In Crimmins new version, he mentions Carleton Groves use of the Lakota Sweat Lodge ceremony. Yet another charge of cultural rape occurs here.

We’re also accused of being Treehuggers.  Which, we are, and so what? What’s wrong with that? It’s a code word for environmentalists  anyway, and I proudly sport the “TREEHUGGER” bumper sticker on my car.

I suppose I should write reviews of all the Druid groups on MySpace and post them somewhere so that Druids don’t wander in to those places unawares and get pounded. Let me say too that I don’t have anything against CRs at all. I think they do fine work and if you are in to that sort of thing they have great resources (we integrated the IMBAS Book list into the  recommended reading list long ago). I have an acquaintance whom I’ve know for some 15 years that is a founder of the CR movement. She’s never been anything but nice to me, and we’ve reprinted some of her articles (with her permission) in Druids Egg.

It seems like it’s just the younger CRs that are coming across like Nazis on the boards. What’s up with that? Why can’t we all just get along? This isn’t Iraq you know. It’s like a Sunni vs Shia thing. Very ugly. Aren’t we all Druids after all?