I’m going to step outside the realm of Heathenism here for a minute to talk about something that we Heathens (and other recons) have been dealing with for a while. In fact, all Pagans have been dealing with this for a while. Turns out, we’re not alone. Who would have thought that we polytheistic personages would have anything to do with the Atheist and Gamer communities.

Full discloser, I am not a gamer. I get bored playing video games. The longest I have ever played a video game is probably Smite, and that’s largely because I can play Hel (and she accepts it as a form of devotion since I am wining glory in her name). Assasin’s Creed 3 is about the deepest I’ve gotten into a game, and I still don’t think I’m half way through it. Gaming is fun, it can be engaging and have amazing stories, but I just lack the coordination and patience to deal with it. I read.

But I do like stories, and I love political philosophy, and I have a very strong sense of honor. So when I heard about something on CCS’s podcast called #gamergate and a quinnsperacy, vaguely involving something about corruption in game media, I decided to duck over and look. It took a bit of looking first, but I found stuff.

It wasn’t good.  Here are some links. First one is a quick summary of the situation, the other three have a detailed list of things happening…but even it isn’t a full list.

 

Now the biggest thing about all this, which has gotten gamers in a rage, isn’t that Zoe Quinn had an affair. I dare say it isn’t even who she had the affairs with. It was the fact that these affairs took place, were covered up, and clear favors were gained from these affairs. This violates journalistic integrity. So questions were raised, people asked about it. So far, not really a big thing.

Then there was a unified front to shut down all discussion, censor information, and lambast the gamers as nothing more than sexist, misogynistic, violent assholes who were only asking these things and demanding answers, because they hated Zoe Quinn on the basis she was a woman. Now, if you watch the videos, none of this has to do with her gender. In fact most of the people who are being raked over coals are men. But it started a bombshell the likes of which no one could guess.

Because Zoe Quinn wasn’t the only one. In fact…it was everyone. Every major game media site. Coordinating to silence discussion, even declaring that “gamers” as an identity was dead and an entire subculture gone. The censor ship has spread so far that 4chan, a place of dark infamy where anything can be discussed and shown…censored and banned users for discussing the corruption in the game media.

The rabbit hole goes even deeper.

And at the heart of it all…Social Justice.

Remember how I said some of this linked back to us, well it turns out that we aren’t the only ones who get our community derided as a bunch of racist, sexist, misogynistic assholes. I was aware that social justice was kinda running around everywhere, dear gods I have enough posts about people who have made social justice the foundation of the Pagan path, regardless of the fact that None of the old gods I know of really embraced any of the ideas of social justice, or the fact that social justice is literally Christ’s teachings, without the christ.

Like lucky charms without the cereal part.

And the Atheists have been getting it too. Atheism prides itself on its rationality, everything is reason with them (even when they are unreasonable and their reason gets a bit screwy). Still, out of all the religions out there, Atheism is probably one of the most fun one’s I’ve come across, along with Satanism. I mean, you get to wear a pasta strainer on your head at the dmv and your fake god is a bunch of spaghetti who may touch you with his noodily appendage to grant you reason. How fun is that? The closest we got was Loki tying a goat to his nuts.

But their dealing with something called Atheism+. And to give you an idea of what the racist, mysoginistic assholes over at Atheism are dealing with, Richard Dawkins is a perfect quotable person:

And we’ve seen this in Paganism, in our media. There is a strong Social Justice Narrative, to the point where you’d think Paganism wasn’t any different, except for you know, all those recon mysoginistic racists. They want to recreate Norse culture with its honor and #1 in gender equality in the history of the ancient world, those white supremacist misogynists who don’t respect women’s voices.

(In a side note I recently left a Seidr group pretty much because of that attitude. Apparently Heathen men do not respect women. Considering that in pretty much any heathen place, no one gets respected regardless of gender, didn’t matter).

Or those Greek recon misogynists, with their emphasis on ancient Greek traditions. You know, like reason, truth, logic, etc. I’ve lost the articles on those guys but if anyone has any or stories to share, please do. Hel, even the Celtic guys and gals are getting it.

While we haven’t had anything like #gamergate in the Pagan community yet, I’m just waiting. We already have censorship going on on the media sites like Wild Hunt. I don’t even comment over there anymore because you can’t have an academic discussion. If you don’t hold the SJW line, you get banned. I was by all methods I have of judging, an infamous troll who argues for months and months about some of the bs that was going on. We see it at our conventions, where “recon” groups are largely denounced as racists, where the Wiccans get shit all over because of their “privilege,” and groups like the Dianics, who are largely made up of rape victims, get torn to pieces for being trans-phobic. I’m tired of the bullshit. And from what I can tell, it’s on every site. SJW as pagan dogma, and god help you if you don’t believe.

If you’re as tired of it as I am, the help spread the word about #gamergate. Help spread the word about how corrupt these SJW people are over there, and we’re bound to find it in our community as well. I know there are Pagans out there who are gamers as well, our communities have cross over. If we ever want Paganism to grow as a collection of religions, to help bring back the old ways, then we have to be vocal. We can’t let ourselves and our paths be salience because they offend someone. And if we are to have any honor or integrity, we have to stand with others when they face the same.