Pagan Coffee Talk
We will discuss topics related to the Pagan community. All views are from a traditionalist's point of view. The conversations are unscripted (no preparations have been made ahead of time). A special thanks to Darkest Era for the use of their songs: Intro- The Morrigan, Exit - Poem to the Gael. Check them out at http://darkestera.net/.
Pagan Coffee Talk
Beyond the Pedestal: Navigating Knowledge and Value
Are we placing too much emphasis on degrees and formal education? In our latest episode, we tackle this thought-provoking question as we explore how society often values individuals based on their degrees rather than their hands-on experiences and practical knowledge. With the pagan community as our backdrop, we dissect the commonly held beliefs that elevate authors and professionals with certain qualifications onto pedestals, leading to perceptions of superiority that can overshadow real skill and insight.
Join us as we question why we tend to assign authority based on higher education while neglecting to appreciate the multitude of wisdom available outside the classroom. By encouraging listeners to reflect on their worldview, we aim to dismantle the notion that expertise comes exclusively from traditional education.
Moreover, we delve into the impact of technology and social media on knowledge dissemination, considering how the barriers to entry are weakening traditional gatekeeping roles. Anyone can now share their voice, emphasizing the need to broaden our definition of expertise to include various perspectives and experiences.
Ultimately, this conversation urges us to rethink how we measure knowledge and authority. Let’s start valuing personal journeys and recognizing that true wisdom can emerge from many different avenues, not just those adorned with accolades. Tune in, and let's challenge the status quo together! Don’t forget to subscribe, share the episode, and let us know your thoughts!
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Welcome to Peg and Coffee Talk. If you enjoy our content, please consider donating and following our socials. So what would you like to talk about? You had an idea.
Speaker 2:I had an idea all right when there's certain things in the pagan community is started to annoy me a little bit mm-hmm someone has a degree someone has a bachelor's degree or someone has a master's degree suddenly they become all important because they have that degree. Or when somebody in the community suddenly publishes a book and we're supposed to look at them differently. And I see more and more witches out there that seem to have these titles or these things and they're using them more, as I'm better than you.
Speaker 1:Could this?
Speaker 2:just be a perceived well much much like how people perceive us as like the stiff shirts of the pagan community well, I see this outside the pagan community too, because I see the same behaviors when it comes to doctors and lawyers and stuff like that. Why, while they're great at their field, why in the world do we automatically assume they know everything about everything everywhere? Else.
Speaker 2:Do you see what I'm saying? Yeah, just because you're Stephen King, do you really have the right or the authority to go and speak on political matters? That really is not your subject of field.
Speaker 4:Are you?
Speaker 1:with me, yeah, yeah yeah, All right.
Speaker 2:I mean it'd be like me trying to go talk to a bunch of Christians about Christianity Right, while you do know a good bit.
Speaker 1:It's not what you practice on a daily basis.
Speaker 2:It is not my field of expertise, right? What is the problem with no one understanding? Stay in your lane, stay on your field of topic, and just because you have a master's degree does not make you a master of everything.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:All right, and again I've got to push back on the community. But we all do it.
Speaker 1:We do tend to, and I think part of that is because when you've got somebody who's like that, you treat them as knowledgeable. You know what I mean. They're kind of like the sages.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:At least that's how they get back to its perception.
Speaker 2:No, no, let's go back to my perception of this. I go to get my hair cut. The person cutting my hair is the professional, right? They know what they're doing. I don't, right. So why would I not look at them going? What do you think, after looking at my hair, how it grows in the whole nine yards, what's the best haircut you think? You're the one doing them all day long, not me.
Speaker 2:Okay, but this is not the person that you're going to go to and talk to about writing a book no, now I might have a conversation with them, but it's not like I'm going out and asking for my butcher's advice on cutting your hair.
Speaker 1:I'm cutting my hair, I'm not asking my just because he's good with a knife or a pair of scissors, right I mean, but I'm not sitting there asking them for talk.
Speaker 1:Stock tips either, right, but that's what I'm saying, I think. I think part of that comes down to. It's a perception thing, right, much like let's bring it down to the coven level. How many times have we had students come in? And because you are very knowledgeable about this tradition and what we believe and where all this information comes from, they automatically perceive you to be like the ultimate wise sage again, and you have to bring it back. You have to get them to come to that place where, no, you don't know everything well, again, I will give it to you.
Speaker 1:Yes, I know a lot about my tradition, I know, but what I'm saying is is that, because of that right and because you come across as very knowledgeable about so many things, a lot of times they get the perception I don't't know if you know this, I don't know if it's something that I've, just because I tend to mingle a little bit more than you do yeah they tend to perceive you as like the ultimate knowledge base.
Speaker 1:I am the world's biggest human database, right and it's something that you have to bring them back to, because they might come to you with something and you'll be like you know what I?
Speaker 2:don't know a thing about that, but I've said that I've done that more than once. And I think you've heard me even sit there and tell people straight to the eye.
Speaker 1:Right, but you see where I'm going with this. I think it's the same thing that we do with authors, we do it with lawyers, we do it with people who are in those positions and do have a lot of knowledge.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:We tend to automatically assume and perceive them as someone who can talk about anything.
Speaker 2:I guess my point is is why in the world do we think, just because you've got this little piece of paper and you've went to school for umpteen years, that you're smarter than the rest of us? I, I know very intelligent, very smart doctors who would not know how to come out of the freaking rain.
Speaker 1:Right, I mean, there's my point, but yet I had a science teacher in junior high who was super smart, knew all the stuff he didn't even need a book to teach from man, had no common sense no, but yet we're told, because this person has a degree or something, we should listen to them on everything.
Speaker 2:Or are you with me on this? I am having a problem because I don't. I don't want to take away from those people who do learn. I mean, yes, you have to go to school to become a doctor, you've got to become an engineer. There are certain skills you have to learn.
Speaker 1:I understand that I'm with you on this to a point. I don't think it's something that we're told. I think it's just something we do.
Speaker 2:Well, again, we're Gen X. I think it's just something we do. Well, again, we're Gen X. Yeah, all right, we were told for years.
Speaker 1:Hey, if you're going to get ahead, you need to go to college? Yeah, but that doesn't mean we were told that just because we had a degree that people would treat us like we knew everything.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry, no, I was literally told to my face from teachers if you do not go to college, if you do not have a degree, your life won't be worth anything. Okay, but again, that doesn't go back to how people are going to perceive you. Well, again, is that not laying that down, that these people who got to go to college are better than you?
Speaker 2:because they got to go to college and your life ain't worth crap because you're just a high school dropout who happens to own their own business and a house and all this other crap.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:But you're not as successful because you don't have that piece of paper. Is this not where this starts, where we're sort of told that because you didn't do the debt, because you didn't do this, I guess, so yeah. Are you with me?
Speaker 1:I think it could start there.
Speaker 2:I don't really know why or where it started Because I've always seen college as just a further of specific goals. Mm-hmm. That you know. You go to college to learn how to be a chemist. You go to college to learn. You don't go to college to necessarily learn how to work on cars or build a house. Right, you go, get those jobs and they teach you on them.
Speaker 1:Unless it's a trade school Right. And that's a trade school Right. And that's what they're doing they're teaching you how to run a business.
Speaker 2:But even then I remember kids Growing up in high school. In the whole yon yards the trade schools were sort of been in special ed. Trust me, they pushed those really, really hard and they did not have a shame of sitting there going well, you know, y'all are special ed Right.
Speaker 1:Well, I can't speak to that.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean there's my point, though Y'all will never get degrees. You will never do this. Y'all can only do these jobs because they want to look down on the carpenters and the farmers and all this other stuff. Yeah, all right. I mean, I don't know too many kids that went around high school going.
Speaker 1:Oh god, I can't wait to grow up and be a plumber I don't either, but but yeah, I, I'm sorry, I've hired plumbers.
Speaker 2:They're not making no small amount of money. No they're not, I mean, you're with me. So this is what's confusing me here all Because, again, I see low-skilled workers and all this other stuff that actually make good money in these industries and stuff like that, but yet why do we look down on them? Why do we automatically assume they're less knowledgeable just because you don't have a piece of paper?
Speaker 1:See, I can't answer that question. I'm not that way. You're not, Well, no because I'm the person I was always told. You know, yeah, you should go to college, you should get a degree Right. I was never told why. I was never told what it would do for me any of that stuff.
Speaker 2:You were never told which degrees would.
Speaker 1:It was just a goal. Yeah, no, I was never told which degrees were going to actually help me in real life. Right, it was just a goal to achieve, for whatever reason. Again, I was given no reason, it was just something that was pounded into my head. You know, go to college, further your education.
Speaker 2:Well, let's see. Have you seen that commercial from I think it's Indeed and a woman sitting down talking to this guy? And she's talking about getting a job at the hotel and the guy's sitting there going oh, you just need a degree, any degree. Mine's in dance. Yeah, and she's like well, no, I went and studied and got certifications and stuff specifically to do this. Yeah, why I don't?
Speaker 1:I don't know but where I was going with that was. Squirrel, squirrel when I was going with that. Was that coming from a lower class?
Speaker 2:family.
Speaker 1:Right, my dad was a machinist, mom was a, an lpn nurse. You know, mama was like the bottom of the barrel and right as far as the nursing field went um, as you know, aside from cnas. But we struggled financially. We didn't have a lot, so it wasn't, it wasn't something to look down on, because I could see where these people were the backbone of society essentially, and there were a lot of intelligent people that daddy worked with, that mama worked with. We knew plumbers, we knew HVAC people, we knew, you know, we knew a bunch of people and I was never brought up to believe any other way, but I was never brought up to believe that we were not the scum of society either. It's just something that I developed on my own.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Right. So I don't get. I don't understand. I'm like you. I don't understand where this idea comes from that. Just because you have a degree, then therefore, you are up on a throne somewhere.
Speaker 2:Well again and I see this behavior more magnified for some reason in the pagan community as soon as someone starts a podcast, as soon as someone starts, writes a book and gets published or whatever, suddenly they're put up onto this freaking pedestal. All right, but we don't, we shouldn't be doing that no, we shouldn't. I learned a long time ago.
Speaker 1:You don't put people up on pedestals because they just have further to fall.
Speaker 2:Right. I mean, there are many books out there, there are many great authors. I'm not knocking the authors, I'm just saying, just because you wrote a book, and especially nowadays, because I can sit here, I could write a book and be published tomorrow. Yeah, all right, it's called self-publishing.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Anybody can do it, so where's the remarkable thing about it anymore?
Speaker 1:Well, I think the idea is, if you, if you, you know as far as that goes, if you can get a publishing company to work with you, then you've got the reputation of that publishing company behind you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I'll make more money publishing on my own instead of having to give the publishing company a cut of the money.
Speaker 1:Right, but you won't have the marketing Again, you won't have the reputation of the company.
Speaker 2:Maybe not, but I see more and more people doing that. I see our society moving more and more to a more decentralized type of lifestyle. Mm-hmm. All right To where you no longer have the big corporations of media and book companies and stuff like that. They're finally being so. You don't have those gatekeepers anymore.
Speaker 1:Well, I think it could happen, I really do.
Speaker 2:I mean, I see it happening now.
Speaker 1:I know, but it it's gonna be a slow process to get to the point where, no, we don't have the publishing companies anymore right or the, the big network tvs and the big movie production right, it's still gonna take a while for all that to go away, if it's gonna completely go away but how?
Speaker 2:now, now, now with all this, but seriously, with all these gatekeeping faction things falling apart, all right, because they can't keep you out anymore no they can't keep you off of youtube, they can't keep you out from publishing, but anymore. How should we, how do you think we should start seeing this now?
Speaker 2:well, should we start treating these industries like we treat all social media. What do you mean? Well, I'm sorry. When I go through social media I see a lot of stuff that I am interested in and a lot of stuff I'm not. I just skip over the stuff I'm not and keep on going.
Speaker 2:Well, I think that's kind of the way it's been anyway, and if I don't- agree with something, I just tell it okay, just don't show me anything from this channel anymore. I don't want anything else from this person and just keep on moving on with my life but I think it's been that way even when we had physical brick and mortar bookstores.
Speaker 1:There's still a few, but it's still the same thing If you go into a bookstore there's sections of books and you can choose to bypass any section.
Speaker 2:But my point is but to get your book in a bookstore you used to have to go through a publisher.
Speaker 1:True, yeah, All right there's my point.
Speaker 2:There's the gatekeeping. Because, again back when we were. That's the only way you could publish a book. Nowadays you don't have to. I mean people self-publish movies now. Self-publish music.
Speaker 1:Right, but with the social media the way it is now, I don't think there's any other way to treat it other than that way. You see something you like, you watch it, or you listen to it, or you know you purchase a subscription to it or whatever, and if you don't, you just keep going.
Speaker 2:You keep going.
Speaker 1:You downvote stuff you don't like, so you don't have to see it again.
Speaker 2:So why hasn't our community changed any based on this? Why in the world do we still? Why do I still see people going oh no, she's a publisher, or they're a publisher and Bob are you with me?
Speaker 1:That I don't know, because I mean now it's come down to, like you said, podcasts, you know, books, whatever.
Speaker 2:Blogs.
Speaker 1:It's so prevalent now, right, you know, and anybody can do it. Does that mean everybody's going to be a success? No, no, we're not even a success, but we just do this.
Speaker 2:We're not even a success in our own community. No, we just do this because we want to.
Speaker 1:But point is, with the way things are going now, anybody can do this Right. So I don't think there's any reason to view it other than this is an extension of communication, it's an extension of community.
Speaker 2:it should be bringing us closer together right, I mean because again more voices, more information right there, the better off. You never know where that next idea will come from.
Speaker 1:Exactly you know, and I think that's the way it should be treated. So, even if you are a published author or you know a successful podcaster or blogger or whatever it is, you do quote, unquote influencer right I don't think we should be treating anybody any differently. Well, say the one thing, then we would our next door neighbor.
Speaker 2:The one thing I was hoping, with the media, social, all of this kind of becoming what I say more decentralized was, is that the idol worship would start to go away. Are you? Because that's what part of this is. It's that whole Ooh star power, and everybody knows you. When are we going to stop doing that? Because I'm sorry, I don't see where that should be anywhere, part or close to our. I mean, don't get me wrong. I like Scott Cunningham and the whole nine yards.
Speaker 2:I will recommend his books the majority of the time they're a decent place to start in the whole nine yards in his books. The majority of the time they're a decent place to start in the whole nine yards. But I'm not sitting here hanging my shingle off of his writings.
Speaker 1:You with me, but yet I know people who do Well honestly, we need to get ourselves into a mindset that all of these people out here doing these things and putting their voices out there in whatever format, these people are no different than we are.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:They're no different. They might be making a little bit more money off of their stuff. They might not have to work a full-time job doing what they're doing, and that's fine and that's great Good for them, right, it's the entrepreneurship of America, right, right. But that does not mean that we, like we've been saying we shouldn't be putting them on a pedestal.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:We shouldn't be elevating them to a status they don't have.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I mean again. It's the same behavior like with doctors just because they tell you to do something does not necessarily mean you have to take their advice, right. So, and then?
Speaker 1:but I think it's gonna. It's just gonna take time to get ourselves into that mindset, just like with me it. You know it did take a long time for me to realize. Okay, a degree does not elevate your status in society whatsoever.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:At least for me, it didn't. I wasn't able to finish my degree. But the folks that I went to school with, they got their degrees. It didn't elevate them anymore.
Speaker 2:I don't think the degree I got, even though it's only an associate's degree, I don't think it did too much for me either, Except for sending me down paths I would have studied by myself but over a longer period of time, right?
Speaker 1:So I think it just comes down to we have to realize that does not elevate you in any way.
Speaker 2:Well, we have to realize going to school and intelligence have nothing to do with each other. No they don't. People learn stuff in places other than schools other than sitting down and just doing math problem after math problem. All right, there are a lot of people that learn stuff outside of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there are a lot of people that learn stuff outside of that. Yeah, I learned more outside of high school and college than I probably did in school.
Speaker 2:Well and this is going to be sad I learned more about my math classes while trying to do my work, where I actually had to use the math, versus me just trying to learn it in school.
Speaker 1:Right, that's kind of what I'm talking about. I mean, if you can apply whatever it is to your daily life, you're going to get more out of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean because it makes sense. This is what I'm using this for. This is why I have to get to know this instead of the whole, entire, you know, because what was that? I had to learn how to do the in math, how to calculate an arc. If you're going to throw something, I'm sitting back going, okay? What does that have to do with my degree, Right? Not a damn thing. Mm-mm.
Speaker 2:So I've still never understood that, Just like I've never understood schools going. But we're trying to make you more worldly by making you take classes you don't care about right well, I don't care about them to begin with. What makes you think I'm going to do them well?
Speaker 1:right. It's just like with a lot of your classes. You took to youtube and found instructional videos on shit and you got more out of that than you did out of the classroom well, yeah, because you could go back and re-watch it and you could find similar videos and I could pause it and think about it right and hear it again. Five more so I mean, do we, do we really need that anymore?
Speaker 2:do we? Do we even need school? I mean, I I've argued this I think college, outside of being for, except for engineers and specific things like lawyers or doctors and stuff like that, I don't see the use of them. No, I think, if we, I mean I understand how an x-ray tech needs to learn how to the human body, and all Right I think if we treated it more like a trade school yes, and just did specific trades.
Speaker 2:And you learned what you needed to do this specific job and then you moved on. People would. It would be cheaper, faster, easier and more people could do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it would be more efficient.
Speaker 2:Yeah, In and of itself. So I think that's about it. Quit worshipping people just because they wrote a freaking book or sung a song or do a broadcast Right.
Speaker 1:Now let's go get some coffee. God, let's go. Thanks for listening. Join us next week for another episode. Pagan Coffee Talk is brought to you by Life Temple and Seminary. Please visit us at lifetempelseminaryorg for more information, as well as links to our social media Facebook, discord, twitter, youtube and Reddit.
Speaker 4:We travel down this trodden path, the maze of stone and mire. Just hold my hand as we pass by a sea of blazing pyres. And so it is the end of our day, so walk with me till morning breaks. And so it is the end of our day. So walk with me till morning.
