Daily Words 3/15/6 - Why the Wiccan Rede Sucks
Wednesday, March 15th, 2006 08:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flwydFrom an off-topic email on the Dragonfest discussion group.
See... the Wiccan Rede isn't actually a guide for living your life. It says "If you don't hurt anything, do whatever you want." There are two main problems with this rule.
(a) It doesn't give you any suggestions. Eating Cheetoes on the couch watching reruns of Leave it to Beaver is following the Wiccan Rede to the letter.
(b) It doesn't give any guidance on how to behave when harm is involved. There's nothing in the Rede about joining the Army. There's nothing in the Rede that prohibits punching your best friend. The Rede doesn't even address the Trolley Problem. And really, what's the point of an ethic that can't be used on an out-of-control trolley?
Now I'm the sort of eclectic frood who uses philosophy to provide moral and ethical direction and religion to provide experiential and metaphorical direction, so a loosey-goosey religion like Neo-Paganism is just the thing for me. But for people who are looking for direction in their lives, the Wiccan Rede provides little more than a Magic 8 Ball.
See... the Wiccan Rede isn't actually a guide for living your life. It says "If you don't hurt anything, do whatever you want." There are two main problems with this rule.
(a) It doesn't give you any suggestions. Eating Cheetoes on the couch watching reruns of Leave it to Beaver is following the Wiccan Rede to the letter.
(b) It doesn't give any guidance on how to behave when harm is involved. There's nothing in the Rede about joining the Army. There's nothing in the Rede that prohibits punching your best friend. The Rede doesn't even address the Trolley Problem. And really, what's the point of an ethic that can't be used on an out-of-control trolley?
Now I'm the sort of eclectic frood who uses philosophy to provide moral and ethical direction and religion to provide experiential and metaphorical direction, so a loosey-goosey religion like Neo-Paganism is just the thing for me. But for people who are looking for direction in their lives, the Wiccan Rede provides little more than a Magic 8 Ball.
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no subject
Date: 2006-03-16 03:25 am (UTC)"Do what you Will" implies active engagement of the Will (did Old Gerald and Uncle Al listen to Nietzsche too much?), or so I thought.
I guess there is a wishy-washy will and a directed Will. Not that many people are clear enough to know what to do with the latter, anyway.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-16 06:53 pm (UTC)The whole "harm none" phrase really is pretty useless, once you have the active Will-Love dynamic going on.
It works okay as a generic prescription for happiness: "If it's not hurting anybody, don't get worked up about it." In fact, I think Thomas Jefferson said something like that, regarding the federal government. Something about, "If a man believes in one God, none, or many, it neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket." Same could be said of gay marriage. So I guess it would work as a basic federal mandate.