The Nine Noble Virtues: why not nine fewer?
Jan 30, 2015 13:55:30 GMT -6
Allec and incognitiously like this
Post by wyrdwanderings on Jan 30, 2015 13:55:30 GMT -6
I recently made a series of posts on the subject, which had excellent commentary added, but I thought it good to cross-post it here for further reading and discussion.
I was asked the following question:
I responded as such:
Both, in different levels and reasoning.
My personal criticisms are threefold and include the Nine Noble Virtues, the Nine Charges, and the Six-Fold Goal. These were written and codified by John Yeowell (AKA Stubba) and John Gibbs-Bailey (AKA Hoskuld) of the OR in 1973, and Stephen Flowers (AKA Edred Thorsson) in 1989, respectively. So if you knew the history behind those names and the overarching stain they’ve left on Heathenry, you would begin to understand my reasons in that regard. But it is also more complicated than that. While I do not necessarily believe that ethics and morals should be as codified as, say, laws, I do understand there is a certain benefit to it in the right context. I personally believe that one’s moral and ethical systems should be more than the sum of their theological text, especially so if that text was transcribed, re-written, and collected through the lens of a scholar whose religious, cultural, and historical context was vastly different than that found in the texts he worked on. Yes, I am referring largely to Snorri Sturluson. Who was kind of a weeaboo for pre-Christian Scandinavia. I don’t like it because I feel that ethics are far more complex than to try and codify subjective things in an objective sense, though I understand that it might be important for some to have a set of them at easy reference. The current means by which this has been approached however, fall so far short that I just want to wipe the slate clean.
That being said, I am honestly quite exhausted with the sheer amount of posturing, circlejerking, and pedestal-raising when it comes to these types of codified systems, especially when they barely scratch the surface of the ethics they are trying to expound. So many people take them to the extreme and use them for purposes I will not specifically mention here, but some examples are as follows: people becoming so rigid about “honour” that they forget what the word means, people using “self-reliance” as justification to berate those seeking financial assistance through crowd-sourcing, people saying that someone should stay in a dangerous, abusive household because of “loyalty,” and I could go on. Regarding the NNV and etc., my general opinion is typically shared in a similarly critical fashion by my contemporaries in critiquing modern Heathenry (see GLE, thorraborrinn, Ryan Smith, answersfromvanaheim, and others for whom I could not find an appropriate post to link) who covered it quite well in their own time. But more than these viewpoints, I think it disingenuous to uphold some sort of status quo of “these are a good thing for beginners, they’ve been with Heathenry for so long,” and other arguments that make so little sense, since just because something has been around for a “long time” does not make it inherently good or useful. This is how people end up defending the names of individuals whose very contributions to Heathenry only serve to set us back even further, just because they have big names and “big influences” in their respective spheres. Never mind some people steal from their families, or practice unethical scholarship, or behave unabashedly racist and transphobic, or have a fit over ancient human remains found on Native American land, or presume to award themselves religious titles that they have little to no right to bear, or have known ties to white supremacist and neonazi movements, or are shunned by 90% of the European Heathen organisations for legitimate reasons, or perpetuate a toxic culture of hypermasculinity that endangers peoples’ lives, or you know, whatever else.
I posted this onto a forum the other night where people were discussing the NNV, and the comments were a mixed bag of ambivalence and support, and I feel that it expresses my opinion on them very succinctly:
That being said, there are parts of the source material from which these “virtues” are derived that are inherently problematic and should not necessarily be taken literally through the lens of a modern-day person; rather they should be analysed critically and reconsidered through your own context and reflected upon, not codified and expressed as a universal, unilateral truth. Which, I should remind you, that the NNV were written from the personal opinion (or something close to UPG in modern terminology) of John Yeowell and John Gibbs-Bailey, nothing more.
Regarding their authors:
John Yeowell was a long-time member of the British Union of Fascists, founded in 1932. In 1937 their name was changed to British Union of Fascists and National Socialists, and continued working in GB until 1940 when they were proscribed as enemies of the state during wartime and forcibly dismantled by the British government. They were legitimately connected with the ACTUAL NAZIS and ITALIAN FASCISTS.
Stephen Flowers has had ties to various groups including but not limited to the Temple of Set, the Odinic Rite, the Rune-Gild, and others. He was expelled from the OR in 1989 for allegations of connections with the ToS. The Rune-Gild is largely based in Guido von List's runic revivalist mysticism and initiatory schools of magic, which are not only misleadingly irrelevant to Heathenry, and pseudo-Theosophic, they were contributors to the German mysticist portion of the late Romantic period toward the end of the 19th century CE, which led to increasingly bold German nationalism in the 20th century CE, and is connected with variously questionable individuals with sketchy histories.
His academic history is highly questionable at best, as I have had notable difficulty even finding proof that he actually earned his PhD, much less defended his thesis. I am of the opinion that he is one of the main authors in modern Heathenry that continues putting forth varying degrees of misinformation and people will still eat that shit up. His works are nothing more than an eclectic mix of whatever movements were the hype when he wrote them down, plus some rune poems thrown into the mix. They have become the basis of many other peoples’ attempted forays in writing about Heathen mysticism, and has continued to propel the ever-obnoxious hype train of misinformation and unethical scholarship.
So that’s another set of reasons why I am not the biggest fan of any of the above.
What are your thoughts?
I was asked the following question:
I had not heard anything against the Nine Noble virtues before. Are you against virtue ethics as a system, or just the chosen nine and their history?
I responded as such:
Both, in different levels and reasoning.
My personal criticisms are threefold and include the Nine Noble Virtues, the Nine Charges, and the Six-Fold Goal. These were written and codified by John Yeowell (AKA Stubba) and John Gibbs-Bailey (AKA Hoskuld) of the OR in 1973, and Stephen Flowers (AKA Edred Thorsson) in 1989, respectively. So if you knew the history behind those names and the overarching stain they’ve left on Heathenry, you would begin to understand my reasons in that regard. But it is also more complicated than that. While I do not necessarily believe that ethics and morals should be as codified as, say, laws, I do understand there is a certain benefit to it in the right context. I personally believe that one’s moral and ethical systems should be more than the sum of their theological text, especially so if that text was transcribed, re-written, and collected through the lens of a scholar whose religious, cultural, and historical context was vastly different than that found in the texts he worked on. Yes, I am referring largely to Snorri Sturluson. Who was kind of a weeaboo for pre-Christian Scandinavia. I don’t like it because I feel that ethics are far more complex than to try and codify subjective things in an objective sense, though I understand that it might be important for some to have a set of them at easy reference. The current means by which this has been approached however, fall so far short that I just want to wipe the slate clean.
That being said, I am honestly quite exhausted with the sheer amount of posturing, circlejerking, and pedestal-raising when it comes to these types of codified systems, especially when they barely scratch the surface of the ethics they are trying to expound. So many people take them to the extreme and use them for purposes I will not specifically mention here, but some examples are as follows: people becoming so rigid about “honour” that they forget what the word means, people using “self-reliance” as justification to berate those seeking financial assistance through crowd-sourcing, people saying that someone should stay in a dangerous, abusive household because of “loyalty,” and I could go on. Regarding the NNV and etc., my general opinion is typically shared in a similarly critical fashion by my contemporaries in critiquing modern Heathenry (see GLE, thorraborrinn, Ryan Smith, answersfromvanaheim, and others for whom I could not find an appropriate post to link) who covered it quite well in their own time. But more than these viewpoints, I think it disingenuous to uphold some sort of status quo of “these are a good thing for beginners, they’ve been with Heathenry for so long,” and other arguments that make so little sense, since just because something has been around for a “long time” does not make it inherently good or useful. This is how people end up defending the names of individuals whose very contributions to Heathenry only serve to set us back even further, just because they have big names and “big influences” in their respective spheres. Never mind some people steal from their families, or practice unethical scholarship, or behave unabashedly racist and transphobic, or have a fit over ancient human remains found on Native American land, or presume to award themselves religious titles that they have little to no right to bear, or have known ties to white supremacist and neonazi movements, or are shunned by 90% of the European Heathen organisations for legitimate reasons, or perpetuate a toxic culture of hypermasculinity that endangers peoples’ lives, or you know, whatever else.
I posted this onto a forum the other night where people were discussing the NNV, and the comments were a mixed bag of ambivalence and support, and I feel that it expresses my opinion on them very succinctly:
I would rather a newbie stick to something much better suited for their personal growth and learning. “A good place to start” is never an excuse for misinformation: would you advise a new Heathen to read literature by Silver Ravenwolf, or buy the Ralph Blum book of runes? I don’t think you would! You would tell them to look for better authors, give advice and suggestions, and have them learn to make their own set of runes. It’s better to take it slow but learn things that are actually true, rather than to feed the fire of instant gratification.
So why put the NNV on a pedestal? They’re literally a list of subjective terms with no supplementary information to support them. But at the end of the day, they’re watered down excerpts from the Hávamál that read about as well as a bullshit thesis statement submitted by a student who’s never taken time to learn how to write. On top of their roots as written by individuals who have since proven questionable in the history of modern Heathenry at-large, I stand unconvinced by them.
So why put the NNV on a pedestal? They’re literally a list of subjective terms with no supplementary information to support them. But at the end of the day, they’re watered down excerpts from the Hávamál that read about as well as a bullshit thesis statement submitted by a student who’s never taken time to learn how to write. On top of their roots as written by individuals who have since proven questionable in the history of modern Heathenry at-large, I stand unconvinced by them.
That being said, there are parts of the source material from which these “virtues” are derived that are inherently problematic and should not necessarily be taken literally through the lens of a modern-day person; rather they should be analysed critically and reconsidered through your own context and reflected upon, not codified and expressed as a universal, unilateral truth. Which, I should remind you, that the NNV were written from the personal opinion (or something close to UPG in modern terminology) of John Yeowell and John Gibbs-Bailey, nothing more.
Regarding their authors:
John Yeowell was a long-time member of the British Union of Fascists, founded in 1932. In 1937 their name was changed to British Union of Fascists and National Socialists, and continued working in GB until 1940 when they were proscribed as enemies of the state during wartime and forcibly dismantled by the British government. They were legitimately connected with the ACTUAL NAZIS and ITALIAN FASCISTS.
Stephen Flowers has had ties to various groups including but not limited to the Temple of Set, the Odinic Rite, the Rune-Gild, and others. He was expelled from the OR in 1989 for allegations of connections with the ToS. The Rune-Gild is largely based in Guido von List's runic revivalist mysticism and initiatory schools of magic, which are not only misleadingly irrelevant to Heathenry, and pseudo-Theosophic, they were contributors to the German mysticist portion of the late Romantic period toward the end of the 19th century CE, which led to increasingly bold German nationalism in the 20th century CE, and is connected with variously questionable individuals with sketchy histories.
His academic history is highly questionable at best, as I have had notable difficulty even finding proof that he actually earned his PhD, much less defended his thesis. I am of the opinion that he is one of the main authors in modern Heathenry that continues putting forth varying degrees of misinformation and people will still eat that shit up. His works are nothing more than an eclectic mix of whatever movements were the hype when he wrote them down, plus some rune poems thrown into the mix. They have become the basis of many other peoples’ attempted forays in writing about Heathen mysticism, and has continued to propel the ever-obnoxious hype train of misinformation and unethical scholarship.
So that’s another set of reasons why I am not the biggest fan of any of the above.
What are your thoughts?
