Re: Ch. 14 -Does Santa Claus Undermine Critical Thinking?
Posted: Tue Dec 28, 2010 3:47 pm
I used to have misgivings about teaching the Santa myth. I'd read them "The Night Before Christmas" and tell them to leave a plate of cookies for Santa (and a carrot for Rudolphe). But as they got older, I kind of laid off the story and let them figure it out for themselves.johnson1010 wrote:
I had the chance to witness a santa snow-job over christmas. a girl recieved a big doll house that had been previously owned. it had a fanciful sticker on the inside that they tried to remove, but couldn't and just slapped it back into place. she could tell the sticker was not meant to be there, and had to have come from somebody. They told her it was from an elf.
"Why would he put a sticker on it, then peel it half way off?" was her question.
Instead of encourageing this sprout of intellectual integrity and critical thinking, they white washed her with assurances that that is just the kind of thing that santa's elves would do.
The girl you're talking about probably knows on some level that Santa isn't real. But yeah, if the parents value rational thinking, they should use this as an opportunity to teach critical thinking skills. "What do you think?" is always a good answer to a child's questions.
That was a new low for America when, after the 9/11 terror attacks, Bush told Americans to go shopping. The rich invest in stocks and real estate and the rest of us keep the economy humming along.Interbane wrote:I'm more and more surprised at how effective small interests are in controlling the zeitgeist. I don't think you're being too cynical. Each citizen is just a sheep with money, which they MUST spend to keep the economy going. Since when is spending a virtue? How does our position on spending weigh in to morality? Is it immoral to refrain from spending, as the rich people do, and instead amass wealth?Personally, I find pre-Christian paganism, which emphasizes communion with nature, to be much more meaningful and sustainable. Santa Claus with his sackful of toys has almost become an obscenity. Or am I being too cynical?