{"id":9153,"date":"2018-03-18T16:16:47","date_gmt":"2018-03-18T22:16:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9153"},"modified":"2018-03-19T16:44:36","modified_gmt":"2018-03-19T22:44:36","slug":"9153","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9153","title":{"rendered":"Does Anyone “Own” the Vikings? The NY Times Wants to Know"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Jasper Juinen for The New York Times<\/p><\/div>\n

Some years ago \u2014 the late 1990s? \u2014 I had a Swedish freshman student in one of my classes. Looking over his shoulder as he was typing at his computer station, I noticed that he had a silver Mj\u00f6llnir (Thor’s hammer) pendant on a thin chain around his neck.<\/p>\n

Naturally, I wondered if he was following Norse religion or just proud of his heritage. I complimented him on the pendant, and he told me that he was interested in the Viking Age.<\/p>\n

“But if I wear this at home,” he said, “they call me a Nazi.”<\/p>\n

I told him that I did not think he had to worry about that in Pueblo, Colorado.<\/p>\n

Now here comes the New York Times <\/em>plodding down the Nazi\/Heathen trail \u2014 in Sweden.<\/p>\n

Amid a boom in Viking-related TV shows and films \u2014 and a corresponding surge in Viking-inspired tourism and advertising campaigns \u2014 there is increasing political tension and social unease over the use of various runes, gods and rituals from the Viking era.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Watch a group of Swedish followers of the old religion deal with the usual tired questions: “Who Owns the Vikings? Pagans, Neo-Nazis and Advertisers Tussle Over Symbols<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Here is another way of approaching such reportage from a leading establishment media voice. Maybe it’s not about “Nazis” at all, except that is the insult of the moment, a way to dismay something disturbing to the materialist world view. These elites are good at dismissing Christianity \u2014 it is all “fundamentalist crazies,” “deplorables,” and people who “cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Religion is dangerous. The people in power have always realized this. Either they must tame it \u2014 make it all about how King Zork enjoys the Will of Heaven \u2014or keep a heavy, cast iron lid on it.<\/p>\n

The trouble with religious people is that they are not always loyal enough<\/em> \u2014 to the king, to the government, to the Party, to the corporation.<\/p>\n

Nowadays Paganism(s) is growing. You can’t call the Pagans “deplorables<\/a>” or “bitter clingers” or “fundamentalist crazies.” Those insults<\/a> just don’t fit.<\/p>\n

But you can call (some of) them “Nazis” or “racists” as a way of marginalizing them, a way of making it clear that no bien pensant<\/em><\/a>, “woke<\/a>” or “progressive” person would want to have anything to do with that experience that they are offering.<\/p>\n

As a commentator on law professor Ann Althouse’s blog wrote, “[Christianity, in this case] is simply the enemy culture. It has to be disparaged and reduced in social status.<\/a>”<\/p>\n

Or when they say that your Olympic ski sweaters “raise alarms” about neo-Nazis<\/a>, that’s a warning shot too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some years ago \u2014 the late 1990s? \u2014 I had a Swedish freshman student in one of my classes. Looking over his shoulder as he was typing at his computer station, I noticed that he had a silver Mj\u00f6llnir (Thor’s hammer) pendant on a thin chain around his neck. Naturally, I wondered if he was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[76,130,95,134,176],"class_list":["post-9153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-asatru","tag-heathenry","tag-journalism","tag-norse","tag-sweden"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-9153","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10533,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10533","url_meta":{"origin":9153,"position":0},"title":"Swedish Social Democrat Politician Wants to Ban Runes?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 24, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Back in the late 1990s, I had a young Swedish student in my English 102 (second-semester composition) class. I noticed that he wore a small silver Thor's hammer (Mj\u00f6lnir) around his neck on a chain, under his shirt. Was he a Norse Pagan or just making a cultural statement, I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Norse\"","block_context":{"text":"Norse","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=norse"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/runes.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/runes.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/runes.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/runes.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":7240,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7240","url_meta":{"origin":9153,"position":1},"title":"The Persistence of Runic Memory","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 24, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Why buy a book on learning runes from Llewellyn or Weiser when you can learn from the people who clung to them the longest? But you say that they stopped using them a century ago? That is nothing in the spiritual tourism market. \"My grandfather taught me the secret tradition\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"runes\"","block_context":{"text":"runes","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=runes"},"img":{"alt_text":"Seventeeth-century runic inscription from Sweden.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/dalruner_sverige_beskaaret.jpg.crop_display.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":615,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=615","url_meta":{"origin":9153,"position":2},"title":"Vinland 2Part 1Fake or not,\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 14, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Vinland 2Part 1Fake or not, the Kensington Runestone was fervently defended by one Hjalmar Rued Holand, a local historian. His promotion resulted in a 1940 Smithsonian exhibition and later the creation of a museum in Alexandria, Minnesota.Nevertheless, expert opinion remained generally skeptical. The 1967 Newfoundland discovery seemed to obviate any\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1214,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1214","url_meta":{"origin":9153,"position":3},"title":"Did a ‘Pagan’ Bury the Staffordshire Hoard?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 25, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The \"Staffordshire Hoard\" is a cache of 7th-century Anglo-Saxon sword jewels and other items recently found in England (and a great boost for metal-detector sales, no doubt).The caption on one slide of the golden hoard suggests that because a gold cross was folded in on itself before burial, the person\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12490,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12490","url_meta":{"origin":9153,"position":4},"title":"Who Benefited from the Vinland Map?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 27, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"The Vinland Map has been controversial since the 1960s when it popped into public view. Did it really record a Norse partial-mapping of North America? Its modern history is viewed as scandalous. Most scholars who examined it leaned toward its being a forgery. But from when? And for whose benefit?\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Canada\"","block_context":{"text":"Canada","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=canada"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/vinland_map_hires-300x208.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":11332,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11332","url_meta":{"origin":9153,"position":5},"title":"From Viking Re-enactor to Practitioner","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 25, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"At the BBC, a short video with a man who started doing re-enactments and ended up adopting Norse religion. Fighting with the Wuffa Viking and Saxon Re-enactment Society, he did not expect that his hobby of more than three years would help him find his own belief through Norse mythology.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Asatru\"","block_context":{"text":"Asatru","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=asatru"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/wuffa.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/wuffa.png?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/wuffa.png?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9153"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9170,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9153\/revisions\/9170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}