Lance Foster (The Sleeping Giant) raised some points in respect of my blog post entitled “Animism:Souls or Relationships?” that got me thinking about the language related to ‘new animism’ and ‘old animism’ and has left me feeling a little uncomfortable.
Core to any animism seem to be “ways of relating”, but in contemporary western society, the use of the words “old” and “new” are synonymous with “out-dated” and “improved”… as a distinction, I’m not sure that it is a respectful one… with an implication that “New, improved, animism” is shinier, more iPhone friendly.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that this is an attitude inherent in those who ascribe to the new animist perspective and none of the above was implicit in anything that Lance has said, but words have a way of relating that is all of their own. I think I might prefer terms like “deep animism” and “animistic rationalism”. Descriptive at least rather than purely distinctive.
Lance brings up some really valid points. Mostly, I settled on New Animism because of the solid work of Graham Harvey and others to re-evaluate and re-define animism in the realm of academia and anthropology, and poking around animist related blogs it appears to be the most common self identifier out there. I have never been comfortable with the “New” and “Old” connotations (being a difference in understanding what animism is and not a difference among animists, but Harvey provides a good way to explain what “New” and “Old” animism are. It is a slight improvement over the suffix Neo- which generally indicates an adaptation, revision, modernization, conjuring up images of a hip internet friendly gadget ready romanticism. but without that explanation, I do see how confusing it can get. I do like the way Deep Animism roles of the tongue though