Is it still possible to be a noble pagan? This is one of those questions I muse on occasionally, in my car or the aisles of a Walmart. If the world is indeed “dechurching,” might that open a space for a resurgence of unbaptized paragons of virtue? More heroes in a (literal) Herculean mode?
Interest in paganism has indeed been rising of late. People have a range of feelings about that: Some wish to celebrate it, while others are screaming in panic at (what they perceive as) its rapid advance. I certainly think that paganism, in some forms at least, can have its own beauty. But I also have to note that the people who are presently most anxious to brand themselves “pagan” aren’t very beautiful. Some are downright hideous. It’s not unkind to observe this, because these are people who revel in hideousness. They want to be monsters. (And if that sounds harsh, please note that “monster” is derived from the Latin verb for “to show.” The same word that gave us “demonstrate.” It’s exactly the right word for someone who embraces performative awfulness as part of a quest to be seen.)
There are exceptions. I’ll name a few at the end. I think noble pagans do walk among us, but I also think that shape is extremely hard to hold in our day. It takes immense strength and a comfort with being a curious outlier. Also a classical education. Or at least, every person I can think of who carries a whiff of the Roman senator also had extensive immersion in history and classical texts. Hardly anyone can pull off the “noble pagan” in our time. But a considerable number have rejected what I’ve termed “the love-centric universe” in favor of unredeemed nature, basically plunging themselves into barbarism. They have succumbed to the siren song of “nature most foul.”
The truth is that the bell has been rung. Christianity has radically rewired the pagan world, to the point where banishing Jesus from your life almost certainly won’t turn you into Marcus Aurelius. It’s perfectly fine to be fascinated by Greeks, Romans, Celts, Etruscans—all those peoples of the ancient world who still hold for us a certain majesty. Even for a Christian, it’s pretty normal to read Edward Gibbon and feel a pang for what was lost when the pagan altars were converted into baptismal fonts. But history doesn’t move backwards.
I must hasten to clarify here that I am not arguing that non-Christians are all doomed to collapse into barbarism. Not at all. Non-Western cultures are a pretty different ballgame, so I’ll just set them to the side for the present. (Is Hinduism “pagan”? Kind of, but… let’s talk about that another day.) Here in the West, Christianity’s influence has been so immense that a furious rejection of it tends to push a person to dark places. But it’s perfectly possible to have a positive relationship to that heritage without being a confessional Christian.
Many people broadly accept a Christian-ish worldview without fully embracing the faith, and some cleave to other established traditions which are distinct but still harmonious. The best example of the latter would of course be Judaism, which developed alongside Christianity, made significant contributions of its own, and now shares considerable ground while also retaining its own rich, distinct tradition. My Jewish friends aren’t looking to banish Jesus; they are themselves deeply invested in the “love-centric” Western architecture that both of our traditions worked to build. Obviously they aren’t the problem.
There are unfortunately just a few self-identified Catholics who are part of the problem, and it’s excruciating to see Catholics (albeit, yes, a tiny and totally unrepresentative fringe) using the phrase “Christ is King” to bully Jews. But I actually think this funnels right into my central point: People who want to throw off the West’s full-blooded legacy (that daunting metaphysical edifice! those demanding ethical principles!) need a target for their performative awfulness. If, like Nick Fuentes, you wish to capture a certain Christian-traditionalist element, Judaism is your main option, and there is an appalling appropriateness to the selection of “Christ is King” as their abusive slogan. A very earthly king, presumably, which is precisely what he refused to be. They have definitively chosen “Caesar,” and not a benevolent or loving Caesar.
Nature has many faces, and though her complexities are fascinating in themselves, the viewer’s broader worldview necessarily provides the frame. St. Francis of Assisi saw nature as the mirror of God’s love. Francis Crick, by contrast, saw it as a mass of meaningless material forces, with human beings amounting to “nothing but a pack of neurons.” The angry revanchists of our own day seem largely to accept this reduced, post-Enlightenment version of nature. They inhabit a universe that has already been stripped of its magical and mystical elements, as well as the ennobling civic virtues of a Cato or a Hector.
Sometimes they dabble a bit in wacky, bloody rituals, like Jack Donovan’s Wolves of Vinland, but that aesthetic rarely goes much beyond the internet memes. In general, theirs is a sorely reduced nature, devoid of sprites or fairies, and unconducive to magnanimity. Like Crick, they embrace it as raw material, but with no interest in winning Nobel Prizes.
Men like Costin Alamariu (Bronze Age Pervert) or Raw Egg Nationalist care little for science, and only slightly more for Druids or the occult. They want to use raw nature as a playground for self-assertion. The typology is pretty clear, really. They’re baby Nietzscheans.
The “baby” part is important. Knockoff Nietzscheans are legion in the present age, but where the original was at least extremely brilliant and insightful, his progeny have considerably less to offer. I’ve read some! The falloff is quite dramatic! I’m not suggesting one can’t learn anything from a Sam Francis or an Alain de Benoist (or, fine, Alamariu), but they seem to excel first and foremost at working Nietzschean themes into just-so stories that fan the prejudices and resentments of their audiences.
The disciples of “nature most foul” do provide a poignant illustration of where things tend to go when the love-centric universe is rejected. The branches of the Judeo-Christian worldview have spread so very far at this point that you have to walk a good long distance to escape their shade. Some people make the trek! But they don’t end up as thriving Nietzschean supermen.
For me, the reading experience is perhaps similar to what a man might feel when reading a popular romance novelist or a cheap female-empowerment guru. “Yes, I can see why this thrills a certain kind of audience, but seriously, it’s trash.” If it’s offensive to compare Alamariu to Danielle Steel, let’s make it Margaret Atwood. The Handmaid’s Tale is effectively a feminist rape fantasy, which I’m comfortable dismissing as “trash,” but it’s not entirely lacking in literary merit. Alamariu seems similar to me. No, he’s not entirely lacking in talent, but really, who cares?
The greatest irony of the baby Nietzscheans is that they revere strength but, as a group, are remarkably marginal and frankly weak. This reality is familiar to anyone who’s encountered them online. They seem prone to emotional breakdown at the smallest provocation. They flip in an instant from roaring about their vitalist powers to weeping over their unjust victimization at the hands of the feminists. (But why were they able to do that, boys, if you’re all so strong and manly? Of course, Nietzsche has an answer to that too, which they seize with wild eagerness, but we needn’t explore that rabbit hole right now.) The performative awfulness, the literal monstrousness, is obviously a cope—a bad-toupee solution for a deficiency that everyone can see. In their self-exile, visibility and delusions of grandeur are all they have left.
This is of course a small group of people overall, petty and probably fairly inconsequential, unless an unhappy convergence of other forces opens a window to momentary influence. (Insofar as one “needs” stormtroopers, assassins, concentration camp guards, and the like, they are generally drawn from this sort of set.) On balance, distorted Christian ideals are surely doing far more harm in the world right now.
But the disciples of “nature most foul” do provide a poignant illustration of where things tend to go when the love-centric universe is rejected. The branches of the Judeo-Christian worldview have spread so very far at this point that you have to walk a good long distance to escape their shade. Some people make the trek! But they don’t end up as thriving Nietzschean supermen. If they truly go all the way, descending to the absolute depths of anti-heroic monstrousness, they may end up dying in a public building somewhere, committing a few meaningless murders before being (justly) crushed by the modern state that they abhor. And a few days later, the world resumes its course almost exactly as before. They’re not Hitler, just some crank loner with “adjustment issues.”
I mentioned above that we might still have a few noble pagans. I think we do. Occasionally one does run across a strong, slightly eccentric person who nevertheless projects a classical sort of majesty. Winston Churchill, perhaps. Rudyard Kipling. I’ve always thought my friend Helen Dale has something of a Roman air to her, in a good way. Even for them, the world is obviously dramatically changed from the days of the Caesars, but the noble-pagan ethic seems rekindled in them in a recognizable way, and it’s pleasant to hear a few of those echoes. They remind us that non-transcendent nature can still have its own nobility.
Most of us can’t be Churchill, though. We aren’t going to become Rudyard Kipling. For most of us, the best option by far is to live in a love-centric universe, accepting the weight of its obligations and using the resources of great faith traditions to elevate our baser impulses. Most of us will be our greatest, truest, and strongest selves if we reject nature’s foulest manifestations and instead say: I believe.