MayerBlog: The Web Log of
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Happy Holidays! (Reprise)
Part II
Christmas: It’s Not Just for Christians It’s December – a season filled with holidays – and again time for some holiday traditions. As I noted in last year’s “Happy Holidays!” essay (Dec. 4, 2006), among the traditions that have become established in recent years, unfortunately, has been the tradition of some Christians, with obvious chips on their shoulders, complaining about the way others celebrate the holiday season. I wrote: “Two complaints in particular have been voiced with increased shrillness in recent years. The first bemoans what some perceive as the increased `commercialization’ of Christmas; this is a complaint that goes back several years, at least as far as the original broadcast of the classic `Peanuts’ Christmas special on TV. The second complaint is based on the notion that `politically-correct secularists’ are waging a sort of `war on Christmas’ itself, by intentionally downplaying the Christmas holiday (particularly its religious significance to Christians) and instead emphasizing a generic, or multicultural, `holiday’ season.” As I concluded in my previous essay, “Neither of these criticisms has any real merit. Rather, both are just a load of `bah, humbug’ – in other words, bullshit. Both the so-called `commercialization’ of Christmas and the effort to make the holiday season more inclusive are social phenomena that, rather than being criticized, ought to be praised and celebrated.” Why should commercialization be praised? Simply put, it’s because commerce is a good thing: it’s commerce that provides order in a good, civilized society – a society of free individuals who respect each other’s rights, treating each other as individuals, trading with one another for their mutual advantage. That’s the kind of society that people who deplore commerce and “commercialization” are, in effect, criticizing – which raises the question, What alternative kind of society would they prefer? One in which the equal rights and freedoms of individuals are not respected? One in which society itself – the collective mass of persons who constitute society – is superior to each of its members? A society like czarist Russia or the Soviet Union, or communist China (or Cuba or Venezuela), perhaps? Commerce and commercialization have long been a part of the Christmas holiday celebrations in the United States – and thankfully so. Philosopher/novelist Ayn Rand observed that it is the very aspect of Christmas that so many people today lament – its so-called “commercialization” – that makes it most worthy of celebration: “The best aspect of Christmas is the aspect usually decried by the mystics: the fact that Christmas has become commercialized. The gift-buying . . . stimulates an enormous outpouring of ingenuity in the creation of products devoted to a single purpose: to give men pleasure. And the street decorations put up by department stores and other institutions – the Christmas trees, the winking lights, the glittering colors – provide the city with a spectacular display, which only `commercial greed’ could afford to give us. One would have to be terribly depressed to resist the wonderful gaiety of that spectacle.”
Ayn Rand also nicely summed up the secular meaning of Christmas: “The charming aspect of Christmas is the fact that it expresses good will in a cheerful, happy, benevolent, non-sacrificial way. One says: `Merry Christmas’ – not `Weep and Repent.’ And the good will is expressed in a material, earthly form – by giving presents to one’s friends, or by sending them cards in token of remembrance.
“The secular meaning of the Christmas holiday is wider than the tenets of any particular religion; it is good will toward men – a frame of mind which is not the exclusive property (though it is supposed to be part, but is a largely unobserved part) of the Christian religion.”
(Ayn Rand, in The Objectivist Calendar, December 1976) This secular meaning of Christmas has a longer, better-established history in Western (or at least in Anglo-American) culture than does the religious celebration. Those who allege that the “true meaning” of Christmas is “Christ” – in other words, Christians’ celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ – ignore a number of key historical facts. The “Yuletide” observance has its roots in pagan Germanic, and pre-Christian, Britain; like similar observances in other pagan societies (such as the Saturnalia celebration in ancient Rome), it coincided with the Winter Solstice – the shortest day of the year, celebrated because its passing represents the beginning of the lengthening of daylight hours and the eventual coming of spring – and many of the holiday-season traditions (including the exchanging of gifts, the “Yule log,” kissing underneath mistletoe, etc.) also have their origin in these pagan observances. There is no historical evidence for Jesus’ birth in December – indeed, the historical evidence suggests that he was born in springtime, not in winter – and early Christians simply expropriated the existing Winter Solstice celebrations for their mythical observation of Jesus’ birthday. (Indeed, recognizing the pagan origins of Christmas celebrations, English Puritans discouraged observation of the holiday, viewing it as a form of heresy.) Other aspects of what many people see as “traditional” Christmas celebrations had their origins in secular culture: for example, Queen Victoria’s consort, Prince Albert, brought the German custom of decorating a Christmas tree (which in turn was based on ancient, pre-Christian Germanic customs) to England, from where it spread to the United States, in the mid-19th-century, about the time that the custom of exchanging Christmas cards also originated. As for the complaint – mostly voiced by conservative demagogues and blow-hards like Bill O’Reilly – that there’s a “war on Christmas” being waged by “politically-correct secularists,” I’ll simply say that in light of the historical context discussed above, it’s the secularists who have truth on their side. Notwithstanding the arguments of would-be theocrats who maintain that America is a “Christian nation,” the better view – the one sustained both by the history of our nation’s founding as well as its fundamental founding principles articulated by men such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison – is that the United States of America is, rather, a nation founded on the recognition of each individual’s freedom of conscience. It is recognition of that noble principle that lies at the heart of the idea of constitutionally separating “church” and “state” – that is, keeping government out of religion and religion out of government. Efforts to maintain that principle by stressing the inclusiveness of the December “holiday season,” rather than the exclusiveness of Christmas as a religious holiday, ought to be praised, not criticized. Christmas isn’t just a holiday for true believers in Christian theology; its secular celebration is just as valid, just as important, as Christians’ observance of it as a religious holiday. Similarly, the December holiday season has other holiday celebrations of equal merit to non-Christians: for example, Jews who celebrate Hanukkah, Muslims who celebrate Ramadan, atheists or “secularists” of various stripes (including neo-pagans) who celebrate the Winter Solstice, college football fans who celebrate the bowl-game season, and virtually everyone who celebrates the New Year on January 1st. As I concluded my previous essay “Three Cheers for Commercialization!” (Dec. 19, 2005): “Christians may `own,’ as their special religious holiday, Christmas as a celebration of the myth of Jesus’ birth. But they don’t own other celebrations of the Yule holiday – especially in the United States, a nation founded on the principle of an individual’s freedom of conscience. Let us all celebrate the `holiday’ season in our own way – and let’s allow our wonderful, free-market capitalist system give us as much “commercialism” (and all the resulting freedom of choices) as possible!”
Ebenezer Scrooge: A Good Man As I also noted in last year’s “Happy Holidays!” essay, it was largely due to the influence of 19th-century English novelist Charles Dickens that Christmas, both in England and America, became popularly associated with Christianity – and not only with a religious significance (the myth of Jesus Christ’s birth) but also with the Christian morality of altruism. (By altruism, I mean the moral code that preaches that it’s morally wrong for people to be “selfish” and that instead they should be “selfless,” that is, they have a moral duty to sacrifice their self-interest to the interests of others.) Dickens’ novella A Christmas Carol helped establish the new Christian paradigm for the celebration of the December 25 holiday. As I observed in my entry of December 27, 2004, "In Defense of Ebenezer Scrooge," “What is often overlooked about Dickens’ story – often because the popular film or stage adaptations soften its hard edges – is that it is propaganda for a social philosophy, one that is essentially anti-capitalist and anti-individualist. Dickens shared with many of the literary men of his time a trait common among so-called intellectuals today: a disdain for business and for the virtues on which capitalism rests. The `moral’ of Dickens’ story is that it is `evil’ for humans to be productive and motivated by their self-interest. Rather than urging individuals to be responsible for themselves and to deal with others as equals, trading value for value for their mutual interests, Dickens exhorts individuals to act as their `brothers’ keepers,’ to sacrifice their own interests to those of the `needy,’ to put others’ interests (or desires) above their own.” I added, “Dickens preaches his altruistic morality through the story of Scrooge’s personal redemption,” and then I showed how that code of morality, as told through Dickens’ story, really is perverse. I confess that I like the “old sinner” in the first part of the story – the unredeemed Scrooge – whom I see as the most real character in the story, the one character in the book who acts responsibly and who treats his fellow-men justly. (He's certainly more moral than his gold-digging nephew, Fred, or those irresponsible breeders, the Cratchits.) “After his transformation – that is, after he becomes a “born-again” believer in Dickens’ altruistic morality – he loses his humanity and becomes just another boring character in just another boring Dickens book. (Indeed, as Douglas Kern puts it in his hilarious take on the book on the Tech Central Station website – “A TCS Christmas Carol” – Dickens’ story can be aptly described as a “melancholy tale of a productive businessman who gets worked over by three meddling supernatural social workers one Christmas Eve, transforming him into a simpering socialist.”)
| Link to this Entry | Posted Saturday, December 1, 2007 | Copyright © David N. Mayer |
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