The French in Modern Mode

North Western Winds

The First Born Daughter
The Danger of Exculturation

As the author [Danièle Hervieu-Léger] recalls, the term “pagan” is a recurring one in French pastoral literature. It is enough to cite to the well-known work “La France pays de mission?” by H. Godin and Y. Daniel, published in 1943. In it, they denounce the danger of dechristianization, understood as a return to paganism: the “new pagans” of the cities and the factories live in the social vacuum and the moral corruption of a society characterized by a purely materialistic vision of the world.

Fifty years later, in a work that attracted a good deal of attention, “Vers une France païenne?”, Hippolyte Simon, bishop of Clermont, revisited the question of paganism, updating it to meet the new reality. He writes, in fact, of a “new paganism,” which consists of the passive acceptance of the world that just as it is: the new paganism is the slavery of fatalism. For Simon, this paganism could lead to the destruction of the French model of society, and of its secularity in particular. If the idea of justice found in French society is connected to the Christian ethos, and this ethos is diminished, then there is the risk that the very idea of justice would be lost.

It is an interesting way to look at what is happening here in our culture, to see its version in France. And this rise of the neo-pagan is also something to take note of. While it is referred to in this article as the result of modern thinking, the fact is that there is also a revival of paganism in its more historical forms, also.

As more writers wonder about the connection between the Left and Fundamental Islam, I do think Curt, of North Western Winds, made a telling comment: “After all, some might find it hard to imagine how the idea of justice could be lost.”

That comment sums up the blindness and the assumed immortality of the free society of the West that characterizes the vandals of our culture.

Yes, I said that: vandals. Disaffected and alienated, but still enjoying the safety and wealth of their society, they are unmindful that if they actually succeed in damaging the underpinnings of freedom and justice, they may not like the result.

It might be good for modern pagans of all ilks to remember how Islam feels about tolerating them.