I realize that using the F-word (Facebook) and R-word (reddit) puts an end to the discussion before it even gets started. 
I see a lot of crowing about the "Heathen worldview", i.e. community, innangard, frith within one's innangard, tribalism, etc. I say crowing because the Heathens I see this from act as if Heathenry invented this and has the market cornered on it. They seem to think that it makes them special and that newcomers to Heathenry know nothing about it.
But I submit that these are concepts that have long been in place among Italians, Greek, Russians, Hispanics and a host of other ethnic peoples. Those of us who are descended from European immigrants had ancestors who lived in small villages where everyone was either related to, or married to, or cooperated with everyone else.
Think of the movie The Godfather. What was portrayed about Sicilian-Americans and family is absolutely frighteningly accurate. Carlo, Connie's husband, though he was accepted into the family by marriage, was never part of the innangard, nor would he ever be. When Michael Corleone avenged the shooting of the Don, he was carrying out not only vengeance and retribution, but restoring honor to the family... an injury was made to the patriarch (and as importantly, the entire family) that could not go unanswered. Fiction? No... vendetta (a Sicilian language word, btw) is centuries old, and there are rules.
It seems that where this is lost is among newcomers to Heathenry who are several generations removed from immigrant families. Even then I could be wrong... these concepts seem to be innate to human nature. My own family, Americans of Italian and Sicilian descent, while we have not carried out any vendette, put family above all else. We've been hospitable to "outsiders", but they have never become more than family friends or acquaintances. But I wonder if those "experienced" Heathens who harp on these ideas are the very ones who were unfamiliar with this in their own lives. A case of "the lady doth protest too much, methinks". If, and I say if that's the case (I could be wrong), it's a shame because it is making something that comes naturally so much more complicated and mysterious than it really is.
I see a lot of crowing about the "Heathen worldview", i.e. community, innangard, frith within one's innangard, tribalism, etc. I say crowing because the Heathens I see this from act as if Heathenry invented this and has the market cornered on it. They seem to think that it makes them special and that newcomers to Heathenry know nothing about it.
But I submit that these are concepts that have long been in place among Italians, Greek, Russians, Hispanics and a host of other ethnic peoples. Those of us who are descended from European immigrants had ancestors who lived in small villages where everyone was either related to, or married to, or cooperated with everyone else.
Think of the movie The Godfather. What was portrayed about Sicilian-Americans and family is absolutely frighteningly accurate. Carlo, Connie's husband, though he was accepted into the family by marriage, was never part of the innangard, nor would he ever be. When Michael Corleone avenged the shooting of the Don, he was carrying out not only vengeance and retribution, but restoring honor to the family... an injury was made to the patriarch (and as importantly, the entire family) that could not go unanswered. Fiction? No... vendetta (a Sicilian language word, btw
) is centuries old, and there are rules.It seems that where this is lost is among newcomers to Heathenry who are several generations removed from immigrant families. Even then I could be wrong... these concepts seem to be innate to human nature. My own family, Americans of Italian and Sicilian descent, while we have not carried out any vendette, put family above all else. We've been hospitable to "outsiders", but they have never become more than family friends or acquaintances. But I wonder if those "experienced" Heathens who harp on these ideas are the very ones who were unfamiliar with this in their own lives. A case of "the lady doth protest too much, methinks". If, and I say if that's the case (I could be wrong), it's a shame because it is making something that comes naturally so much more complicated and mysterious than it really is.
