Exhibit A: proof of political heresy
I just discovered that someone I know, someone I’ve done ritual with (at least I think they were at PLC; the whole weekend is a bit of a blur, to be honest, and I’m not good with faces: all you humans look alike to me) and considered a friend (albeit not a particularly close one) stopped reading my blog after I posted about the #bacchiclivesmatter buttons, depicted above. Another person, someone I consider as close a friend as I have, was also bothered by those posts and didn’t understand what I was trying to get across through the buttons. Both of them, and I’d wager many others as well, were so emotionally affected by this that they felt the need to talk to each other about it and yet I received not one comment, e-mail, private message, text, phone call, etc. from anyone.
Now, I’m sure that there are plenty of valid explanations for this silence. People may think they know perfectly well what I meant and there’s no point debating a bigot; they may be concerned about how quickly flamewars spread through the blogosphere and not want to find themselves at the center of yet another one; they may think I won’t hear them; that I’ll turn cruel and vindictive; they may not want to dig too deep unless I turn out to be an actual monster and not just someone who plays one on occasion; they may only read and care about what I have to say on religious matters and draw a clear distinction between that and my other, more personal views; they may feel there are a multitude of views on this issue and while I chose one of the wrong ones I have every right to do so; they may be fatigued from having these conversations everywhere and all the time; they may be too angry or confused to properly express themselves; they might not actually care as much as they want people to think they do; they might secretly fear that I’m right and wish to avoid having their precious illusions shattered by my diamond-hard truths; and maybe none of us have the relationships with people that we think we do. .
I don’t know.
And like them I haven’t bothered to ask.
So I’m not going to presume I have access to their innermost thoughts or speculate on what I might find if I did.
I think it’s a little sad too many of us, for whatever reasons, don’t feel comfortable just sitting down and talking with one another when there’s confusion or disagreement, but such are the times and ways we find ourselves in.
So, what do those #bacchiclivesmatter buttons mean anyway?
A little history lesson is in order before we get to that. During the seventh through second centuries BCE an obscure city which had grown up along the shores of the Tiber moved to consolidate power throughout the entire Italian peninsula. It drew into its orbit the surrounding North and Central Italian kingdoms and cities in a series of brutal expansionest campaigns and then Rome set its sights on the wealthier and more cultured cities of the Greeks in the South and Sicily. These formed a League of mutual defense under the hegemony of Tarentum and when conflict with Rome proved inevitable they brought in King Pyrrhos of Epiros, a latter-day Achilles, to serve as general of their joint military. Pyrrhos gave the Romans a run for their money, defeating them on numerous occasions – but each victory was hard-won resulting in massive destruction of life and devastation of the land. After Pyrrhos’ untimely demise, the cities of Magna Graecia fell to Rome like so many dominoes. The Tarentines accepted the yoke of Roman rule grudgingly at best and frequently had to be punished for supporting Rome’s enemies, such as the Carthaginians under Hannibal and later the slave revolt of Spartacus, Caesar’s bid to end a corrupt and moribund Republic and Mark Antony’s attempt to thwart the imperial aspirations of Octavian. As we see in early Roman comedy, for instance, to hail from Tarentum was to be automatically suspect and most likely mixed up in insurrection, organized crime and the worship of Dionysos Bakcheios. Not only had he been one of the most popular Gods in the region from before even the arrival of the Spartan colonizers (one of the neighboring barbarian populations had called themselves Wine People) but as this brief who’s who shows, Dionysians tend to be notorious trouble-makers.
This fact had not escaped Roman notice and so when an opportunity presented itself (trumped up accusations brought by a courtesan and ex-convert whose back story reads like something from a Greek Novel) the Senate placed a ban on Bacchic worship and launched a campaign to root out this cult wherever it was found. Unsurprisingly, this pogrom was focused on Southern Italy and Tarentum in particular. Thousands perished, suffering imprisonment, torture, humiliation, and finally execution – often by crucifixion, their bodies left to rot as a warning to others. Whole communities were depopulated – either through massacres, enslavement or people fleeing into exile. Although the Romans were indiscriminate – those of the upper classes were murdered alongside their slaves – the majority of those targeted were women, the poor, migrants and the disenfranchised. The Romans were generally a religiously tolerant people – as long as you didn’t call into question the imperial cult, which technically didn’t even exist at the time of the crackdown – so it’s important to consider the ethnic and political tensions that serve to make this such a singularly horrific example of ideologically based oppression in the ancient world.
While many have voluntarily chosen death rather than forsake their Lord Dionysos over the centuries, that vast host who perished in Southern Italy stand in the front ranks of the Bacchic Martyrs; it is they, primarily, whom I have in mind when I use the phrase #bacchiclivesmatter and in whose honor those scandalous buttons were made.
All well and good, my interlocutors may be saying at this point, but why not “Remember the Bacchic Martyrs” or some similar sentiment? Why steal from the Black Lives Matter movement?
Steal implies possession. Does anyone read that and think, “Welp, Sannion now owns this tag!” To answer my own rhetorical question, no. No one does that. Nor am I trying to draw attention away from the systematic oppression of ethnic minorities by an increasingly militarized police force that serves the interests of the corporations rather than we the people, and the good work folks are doing to resist and actively fight against that.
On the contrary, when you see #bacchiclivesmatter, especially within the context of discussions of what happened in Southern Italy all those centuries ago, I very much want you to be mindful of what’s happening around us right now. It’s easy, from the perspective of history, to see through the lies and rhetoric that the ancient Romans employed to justify their unfair treatment of the Bacchic cultists, how empty and dangerous such phrases as “maintaining order”, “preserving culture”, “fighting an enemy within who wants to rape our women, infect our children with rank superstition and force them to carry out bizarre and immoral rites, all with the explicit intent to subvert our way of life and ancestral traditions” were, mere props to hide the brutal, inhumane machinery of empire. And yet, how many turn on their televisions and electronic devices and sit there mesmerized by the flashing images, mouths gaping open, as they are brainwashed into believing that exact same shit today? Read your Philip K. Dick, man. Rome never fell. Augustus is Charlemagne is Hitler is Nixon is Fremont is Trump. The masks change, but the cold, stony heart and the iron fist remain ever the same.
And yet each struggle is individual.
That’s why #alllivesmatter is justifiably offensive to so many people. It takes suffering, renders all of the jagged specificity out of it until we’re left with this vague concept we all can identify with equally. That’s not solidarity, that’s making it all about your feels.
Isn’t that what I’m doing?
No. I’m saying, here’s a horrible incident and here’s another; both are wrong and caused by the same societal sickness. There is nothing that we can do to stop what happened two thousand and change years ago, but there damn sure is something you can do about it today.
And if you’re seriously committed to the fight you’ll do more than just retweet a trending hasbrown. You know, like go out there and murder the jackbooted thugs without whom empire would not be possible or burn down your neighborhood Starbucks. Oh wait, that’s too radical. We’d rather take pictures of ourselves marching with the pretty protest signs we worked so hard on and trolling comments sections to ensure that ideological purity is ever and always maintained. As an apolitical and misanthropic outsider I cannot tell you how amusing it is to watch people who are more or less on the same side of the argument tearing each other to shreds because of the minute and inconsequential differences in how their support for the cause, whatever the cause happens to be, is infelicitously expressed. Especially when very nihilistic and destructive forces are starting to sweep through the land. You all keep bickering as we move closer and closer to the seeming inevitability of a President Trump and Vice President Palin – or far worse four to eight years later. Which I think is what’s really going on. The American populace is being manipulated and tested to see just how much overt crazy extremism they’ll tolerate in a candidate. I think the Don will actually be narrowly defeated – but the guy they’re grooming in the wings, far more evil and slick and without Trump’s endearing buffoonishness, well, he won’t be.
That should concern you a lot more than it does me. (I mean the breakdown of communication, not the shifts in American politics which are going to end up screwing all of us over if the human race doesn’t outright destroy itself first.) You’re so concerned with being right that you’re not even willing to entertain the idea of dialoguing – let alone collaborating, heaven forfend! – with people who aren’t in lock step with you and spout the exact same jargon. How many potential allies are you turning off and turning away by your rhetoric and your actions? “Well, it’s not our job to educate them,” say those who wish to be viewed as activists. “What sort of person needs convincing when our side is so obviously and unquestioningly right?” The tendrils of empire run deep; decolonization must begin in the mind. And if you ever think that you’ve finished that process, buddy, it’s probably time to start it all over again. You cannot win a battle against empire using the tools of empire. All you do is replace one tyranny with another.
Aren’t I doing the same thing? Maybe. But the difference is, I’m not part of a movement, stopped seeing any point to political action in my teens, and am not really concerned with convincing anyone of anything or even necessarily of being properly understood. If I was I would have written this months ago instead of inserting a cryptic tag in random posts and poetry and having some commemorative buttons made. I am an artist of the sacred, not a politician, or an activist, or even a digital demagogue. The aim of my work is to get you to think, and specifically to question, to reevaluate everything society and self-appointed experts tell you, to seek a truth which surpasses human understanding and find solace in the worship of Gods and Spirits. The specifics of that are up to you and while important are not a personal concern of mine. I’m happy to discuss any of this with anyone who is interested in actual conversation and not just brandishing slogans or tilting at windmills, but it requires actually reaching out to initiate dialogue for that to happen.
