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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 11, 2025

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The aryans from the steppe were not white

The Aryans from the Steppe were white and commonly descended from Corded Ware culture along with the majority of European cultures, including the Italo-Celtic, Germanic, and Balto-Slavic languages. The Aryans are genetically closest to modern-day Northern Europeans. It's a cope from Indian Nationalists that they were not white.

This is not to say the development of Hinduism was purely white or that Hinduism is a white religion, neither of which I believe. But the Aryans were white.

The central argument is that these people, upon falling out with their Abrahamic faith, look to the past and cannot deny the appeal of the most fleshed-out aryan faith.

They see a religion that ultimately precipitated the degeneration of the ruling caste and the dysgenic hellscape that followed. The caste system was implemented too late. There are important lessons there but there's certainly not a religion to follow. Although I also have criticisms of Christianity, and there's a lot Christians who IMO don't have a lot of credibility to be hostile towards Hinduism given what they themselves worship.

Greek/Roman paganism is a way better inspiration for those people than Hinduism.

Edit: To provide some more data on the first point...

David Reich described the Aryan invading population in 2019:

... the population that contributed genetic material to South Asia was (roughly) 60% Yamnaya [my note: European steppe ancestry], ~30% European farmer-like ancestry"

And the remaining 10% was of West Siberian Hunter-Gatherer origin, a population which is similar to Eastern European Hunter-Gatherers.

That ethnic composition is nearly identical to modern Northern Europeans (note "Earthly Neolitic" == European farmers).

In comparison, even among the Brahmin, >70% admixture from the Indus Valley and the indigenous Andamanese.

Obligatory /pol summary of the question.

There's a huge divide among "neo-pagans" between Greek/Roman interpretation and Norse paganism.

But the vast majority of the sources we have on Norse paganism are very late, post-Christian, and preserved (and thus filtered) through Christian sources. Take a figure like Odin who appears to be heavily influenced by Christianity - as is well known Odin was hung from a tree. Odin himself is a trickster, appears to be more of a (Christian-influenced) archetypical confabulation of Jupiter and Saturn. Norse paganism may have developed as a sort of temporary bridge between the two traditions.

In contrast, the proto-indo-european "Sky Father", Dyeus Phter, the seat of the gods, is very clearly transmitted in the Greek Zeûs Pater and Roman Jupiter. Of course Jupiter derives from the Proto-Indo-European compound Dyeus Phter- "sky-father" or "shining father". The lack of an unequivocal solar chieftain god in Norse paganism stands out here. There's also strong evidence for such tribal organization in Greek society.

My own curiosity in these questions pertains to the interactions between myth and genetic evolution. Hinduism would be an example par excellence for the extremely underappreciated interaction of the two, but it's not a good example of the preservation of proto-indo-european religion. I still think Greek/Roman paganism is the best we have on that front.

It's just begging the question though- according to ancient myth the colonizers who constructed the temples to Apollo at Delphi and Delos were the race of hyperboreans emerging from the northern-most land in existence. Of course Apollo himself represents a Northern European phenotype and physical ideal- Apollo was called "the most Greek" by the Greeks themselves. It points to a common ancestry with the warring tribes that did the same on the Italian peninsula- as foundational colonizers. An important element of those myths was to preserve lineage of the noble class, with the issue being much more pressing and therefore developing differently in modern-day India.

In contrast, the earliest archeological reference to Odin ever is the 5th century AD, centuries after the development of Christianity. But we know Tyr was worshiped for thousands of years before that before being eclipsed by Odin. The Edda was written in Medieval times, hundreds of years after Christianity. Norse Paganism is not a better representation of pre-Christian Germanic worship, given it was established after Christianity and was clearly influenced by Christianity. Greek/Roman paganism remains the supreme representation of pre-Christian, European worship.

The attempts at a preservation of a nobility were carried out here in a much stricter sense.

Right and that's my point. There's very clearly a modus operandi in what you could call "Aryanism." This is well embodied in Greek/Roman religion, I agree it is very influential in Hinduism, but Norse mythology is something clearly different.

Norse Paganism isn't that Christian though

But if you're trying to understand European, pre-Christian worship then I am very hesitant to look towards a religion in which the central figure was created after Christianity and very obviously influenced by Christianity. And the most important texts were written a thousand years after Christianity and preserved/transmitted (potentially even subversively editorialized) through Christian sources.