EcoMaoism: Animal Liberationist, Environmental Mao Zedong Thought

Paganism has become associated with right-wing political movements and ideologies such as conservatism. Despite what some modern extremists would have you believe, the people of Europe thousands of years ago who practiced the worship of these deities did not have an understanding of race or racism as we have today. Those are colonial constructs and pseudo-scientific because the entire idea of race was made so Europeans could have a sense of solidarity with themselves as they went and plundered other nations and it made anyone not considered “White” as a valid target for plundering or war. Medieval people did not need such a justification

The vikings did not have any issues raiding or plundering other white countries, and even had issues with the United Kingdom. They had trade routes and colonies all over the world, which resulted in many foreigners living in their towns or coming over as merchants or for work. The idea that their faith would be implemented into any supremacist ideology seems to be more reflective of the desire of those involved to be seen as strong, warlike, or masculine (Or other traits associated with the vikings or Germanic peoples) than an actual part of the faith or lifestyle itself. Viking war bands themselves were also not ethnically exclusive. I’m not saying that Vikings lived in a multi-racial utopia or something we would consider inclusive today, but a lot of what reactionaries claim about paganism is historically revisionist at best and an intentional desecration at worst.

The Nazi party of Germany is partially responsible for distorting history to create the idea of a proud warrior culture as well. Esoteric Hitlerism is a thing, but is rarely discussed in conversations because nobody would admit to practicing such a thing to anyone who was not a sympathizer. Within the political party of Germany during the war, there were known occultists and this is the case with Japan’s nationalistic state religion at the time as well. Reactionaries have put a lot of work into distorting various forms of religion for their own political gain, and many religious figures are persecuted under them simply for knowing the truth. Being a legitimate Shinto priest in Japan under the Tojo regime and not being on board with state Shinto was dangerous. Not only are reactionaries desecrating their traditional culture, they are basically against it if it does not serve their totalitarian ambitions.

Germany today is considered one country and one ethnicity, but the origin is a bunch of different tribes like many countries in the world. The ethnicity, cultures, languages, and ideologies of people today are the result of nation-building whether we like it or not. In cases like Thailand, that’s cultural integration of a bunch of tribes at once. I bring this up because in order to properly understand that the ideologies and cultures we have now simply did not exist. If I said that Kemetic paganism is feminist or that Greek Paganism is Anarchist, you would be correct to roll on the floor laughing. I would be injecting not only my own interpretations onto it but also my ideas about it.

So to answer the question in the title, paganism is not an inherently rightist practice. You see extremists trying to claim it because they believe in some genetic component while neglecting to actually research and know what their ancestors would have actually believed. The extremist Norse pagan probably makes their viking ancestors very confused or ashamed in why they dislike foreigners so much. If the past was a different country only 50-100 years ago, then the past of thousands of years ago was a completely different world entirely with people that most likely would not have opinions about society or modern life that fit neatly into our political ideas or could be easily categorized by our modern ways of thinking.