Commissioned Bespoke Rituals
Feb. 14th, 2019 12:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jadislefeuPulling this out of my linkdump because I wrote enough on it to merit its own post.
A Design Lab Is Making Rituals for Secular People viaumadoshi
I'm uncomfortable with this. Not the concept of rituals for atheists or whatever, I'm uncomfortable with it being part of the mindset of startup culture. Putting people's spiritual lives in the hands of Silicon Valley--that feels really predatory on a really vulnerable axis. I mean, if people actively want these classes on how to make their own rituals like it says, there's clearly a demand and not everyone is comfortable making their own stuff up on the fly like is common with modern polytheism (and paganism and witchcraft and etc), but... it really puts my hackles up to commoditize spirituality. (Especially in the environment of venture capitalism, where every company eats itself and its customers alive to milk the last drop of profit out of a business model before self-destructing in a rain of fire, because growth is more important than stability.)
Probably I'm thinking about that all the more right now, with the interviews that have come out with the people behind Patreon being unhappy with their steady sustainable profits and their "generous 90% payout model" and wanting to milk their customer base for more money (probably because they were funded by venture capital, which demands more than just return on investment), and the horrible Activision Blizzard layoffs after a year of record profits to funnel more money to the shareholders. CAPITALISM IS THEFT EAT THE RICH okay I'll stop now.
It does say they don't "currently charge", but I agree with the quoted detractors that the commodification and isolation aspects are troubling regardless. And I don't really trust anyone in Silicon Valley to stick to that, anyway.
Also, honestly, a lot of why I'm not currently an actively practicing polytheist is because of the incredible isolation of practicing a bespoke religion without coreligionists and how dispiriting and lonely it is, so bespoke rituals sound like... more of that. So much of our modern culture is isolating, and inventing new isolating spirituality doesn't seem like a healthy or helpful response to that, to me. (And then we're getting into my endless paralyzing indecision about whether I want to consider approaching organized religion to counteract that isolation, and if so, which (judaism? unitarians?), and that's really out of the scope of this.)
A Design Lab Is Making Rituals for Secular People via
umadoshiI'm uncomfortable with this. Not the concept of rituals for atheists or whatever, I'm uncomfortable with it being part of the mindset of startup culture. Putting people's spiritual lives in the hands of Silicon Valley--that feels really predatory on a really vulnerable axis. I mean, if people actively want these classes on how to make their own rituals like it says, there's clearly a demand and not everyone is comfortable making their own stuff up on the fly like is common with modern polytheism (and paganism and witchcraft and etc), but... it really puts my hackles up to commoditize spirituality. (Especially in the environment of venture capitalism, where every company eats itself and its customers alive to milk the last drop of profit out of a business model before self-destructing in a rain of fire, because growth is more important than stability.)
Probably I'm thinking about that all the more right now, with the interviews that have come out with the people behind Patreon being unhappy with their steady sustainable profits and their "generous 90% payout model" and wanting to milk their customer base for more money (probably because they were funded by venture capital, which demands more than just return on investment), and the horrible Activision Blizzard layoffs after a year of record profits to funnel more money to the shareholders. CAPITALISM IS THEFT EAT THE RICH okay I'll stop now.
It does say they don't "currently charge", but I agree with the quoted detractors that the commodification and isolation aspects are troubling regardless. And I don't really trust anyone in Silicon Valley to stick to that, anyway.
Also, honestly, a lot of why I'm not currently an actively practicing polytheist is because of the incredible isolation of practicing a bespoke religion without coreligionists and how dispiriting and lonely it is, so bespoke rituals sound like... more of that. So much of our modern culture is isolating, and inventing new isolating spirituality doesn't seem like a healthy or helpful response to that, to me. (And then we're getting into my endless paralyzing indecision about whether I want to consider approaching organized religion to counteract that isolation, and if so, which (judaism? unitarians?), and that's really out of the scope of this.)
no subject
Date: 2019-02-14 06:33 am (UTC)...did I know you're specifically not a practicing polytheist? I can't remember. Which polytheism are you not practicing, if there's one in particular, and if you don't mind me asking?
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Date: 2019-02-14 06:59 am (UTC)I think you knew at some point, or at least your wife did and I assumed that therefore you did, but it's been a while since it came up, given the nonpractising bit! Hellenic, is what I'm lapsed from. I have a very dusty altar setup in my room that I think Koschei has learned he needs to stay off of. Main focus on Persephone and Hermes, secondarily Hera and Hades, immediately thereafter the rest of the Twelve. (The rest of why I'm lapsed is mostly 'unmedicated depression making it very hard to care enough to do anything at all'.) I wrote my own prayers out and everything, the last couple years have just been a lot. There's a local pagan community, but they're either very neowiccan or they're Norse or both. (And Norse is worrying, around these parts. I went to a talk about Futhark at the last Pagan Pride Day and I'm like 80% sure there was a skinhead at the next table.)
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Date: 2019-02-14 07:03 am (UTC)I'm all excited at the moment because there's now an initiated member of my tradition (Bacchic Orphic Hellenic; can't remember if I or Kate have been that specific) in Tacoma, and some potential new members in town, with whom I even seem to be getting along. I've been a solitary... well, pretty much always. And yeah, it can really get me down sometimes.
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Date: 2019-02-14 07:08 am (UTC)That's really neat, I'm happy for you :)
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Date: 2019-02-14 07:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-14 07:44 am (UTC)(Also, our terrible ex-housemates who never paid one cent of rent and burned candles six inches under a wooden shelf in the closet were notionally Norse pagans, which would be enough to put me off all on its own.)
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Date: 2019-02-14 07:51 am (UTC)I knew-ish (acquaintance-of-and-acquaintance, lived in the same building as for a year) a shot-gun-toting Confederate-flag-waving total dickbag back in Tallahassee who claimed to be a Norse pagan, and who got tattooed on himself Teiwaz-Hagalaz-Ansuz-Raido... for Thor. (He had it on his truck, too, for a few months, which is how I knew he lived in my building.)
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Date: 2019-02-14 07:58 am (UTC)Eeeesh, yikes. That sounds quite scary to know you live in the same building as. And yeah, that's pretty much why I'm not going to associate with any kind of Norse group. The well is just too poisoned to feel safe even in groups that say they're against all the white supremacist crap.
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Date: 2019-02-14 08:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-14 08:07 am (UTC)