OK I guess that this is my final chance to write up what I really think about these extremely tedious "real pilgrim" pseudo-"debates". (though they did sort of make sense between the early 1990s and late 2000s)
First, a very large number of epithets exist that are attached to the common noun pilgrim :
Foot pilgrim, bike, horse, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, peregrino, peregrina, English, "Sarria", Francès, Português, Fátima, Santiago, Lourdes, Francigena, religious, secular, spiritual, young, old, American, Australian, poor, wealthy, and so on and so forth ad limina ...
Excellent epithets.
These epithets generally speaking have no other purpose than to provide some descriptive and qualitative information about certain groups of pilgrims and occasionally some individuals among them.
So that first, to suppose any "judgmentalism" in this is to at least some degree, simply bad grammar.
Just as people are neither "inferior" nor "superior" if their hair is black, red, auburn, blonde, brown, grey, white, or even some extraordinary platinum blonde, none of these epithets are intrinsically any sort of value judgments either.
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But then there are the epithets real, fake, true, false, which I think far too many people construe as being dichotomies, except that no dichotomy as such exists in them.
A "fake pilgrim" is NOT someone who fails to live up to some sort of impossible and ludicrous ideal ; it is a malicious individual posing as a "pilgrim" for some nefarious and anti-social purpose. Professional thieves and so on.
A "false pilgrim" is NOT a pilgrim who fails to be "perfect", whatever that means, but it refers to someone who simply is not a pilgrim by any definition, and yet is presenting himself as being one for some selfish but not necessarily anti-social purpose. There are very few of them nowadays, but the type is someone abusing the Camino infrastructures without actually doing any hiking at all, but instead travelling by car from A to B in order to enjoy the benefits without the effort, or any similar abuses. Basically : cheats seeking benefits from the Camino infrastructures provided for pilgrims.
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So then, what is a so-called "real pilgrim" ?
Spoiler alert, pretty much everyone in here who has walked any route of the Way of Saint James or any other significant Pilgrim Way.
It basically just means the difference between someone who is still working things out and someone who has accepted his pilgrimage and why and so on.
The only meaningful difference semantically between "pilgrim" and "real pilgrim" is that the "pilgrim" might potentially be in doubt and might potentially be still on the way, whereas the "real pilgrim" has somehow found what he was looking for, and is able to share it with others, and of course always and anyway just his or her own personal insights and perspectives, not some ludicrous and impossible fake "ideal".
The difference between these notions is simply a threshold of personal understanding -- and necessarily an individual and unique one, alien to judgment from others.
A "real pilgrim" is a pilgrim who has a personal understanding of his or her own pilgrimage that makes some sort of sense, personally, and can be provided in some way to others.
If you know why you are a pilgrim, then you are a real pilgrim.
But FAR more importantly :
A "real pilgrim" is just another pilgrim !!
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I think that the issue as far as these forums are concerned is that the pilgrim/real pilgrim distinction is pretty much meaningless within the specifics of this place, given that most of us talking in here are either novices seeking help and information or experienced pilgrims providing it.
There is therefore far less middle ground here than is typical on the Camino Ways themselves, so that many conversations that might be entirely appropriate on the Ways of Saint James have pretty much no place in here.
Beyond "meaningless" really -- it's basically useless.
Who cares ? Novices and other prospective pilgrims are not helped at all by this sort of anthropological hair-splittery.