Ch. 14 -Does Santa Claus Undermine Critical Thinking?

[Robert Tulip]

If I can chip in about Santa Claus (sorry I'm not reading the Riniolo book), the ritual is part of the enchantment of Christmas, the sense that Christmas points to a big recurrent symbolic myth bringing the year to a close and starting the new year. Deflating the enchantment is an important part of the myth, validating scientific empirical attitudes. My concern with the Santa Claus myth arises from how it was established in the current costume by Coca-Cola, and is inextricably linked to American capitalism as a validation of the consumer society, blessing the buying and selling and giving and receiving of gifts. Santa is to some extent displacing Jesus as the reason for the season - although of course Jesus displaced Mithra and the Saturnalia millennia ago when Christianity occupied December 25, the day the light starts getting longer, a point in the year that is celebrated in many cultures.

[DWill]

Santa is to some extent displacing Jesus as the reason for the season - although of course Jesus displaced Mithra and the Saturnalia millennia ago when Christianity occupied December 25, the day the light starts getting longer, a point in the year that is celebrated in many cultures.

Displacing to some extent? That's putting it mildly. But I don't know how much sense it makes for a non-Christian like me to complain about the commercialization of Christmas. And hasn't Christmas itself pretty much been linked to consumerism from early on? Christmas has assumed a huge role today in our economy, with many retail businesses making profits during the season that let them stay open the rest of the year. Socially, with the fracturing of families and the isolation caused by use of private media, Christmas has become a time to experience family and community.

I just replied to Interbane on the topic of memes, and it occurs to me that Santa Claus could be analyzed as a meme. I would be interested in doing this mainly to see whether there is an advantage to using the idea of memes, compared with the tools that we already have to talk about culture. Could considering Santa as a meme be even a step backward, in the sense that it produces less richness of content? Or might memes be just superfluous? Well, you can see where I'm coming from on the issue.

[geo]

Santa is to some extent displacing Jesus as the reason for the season - although of course Jesus displaced Mithra and the Saturnalia millennia ago when Christianity occupied December 25, the day the light starts getting longer, a point in the year that is celebrated in many cultures.

Displacing to some extent? That's putting it mildly. But I don't know how much sense it makes for a non-Christian like me to complain about the commercialization of Christmas. And hasn't Christmas itself pretty much been linked to consumerism from early on? Christmas has assumed a huge role today in our economy, with many retail businesses making profits during the season that let them stay open the rest of the year. Socially, with the fracturing of families and the isolation caused by use of private media, Christmas has become a time to experience family and community.

I just replied to Interbane on the topic of memes, and it occurs to me that Santa Claus could be analyzed as a meme. I would be interested in doing this mainly to see whether there is an advantage to using the idea of memes, compared with the tools that we already have to talk about culture. Could considering Santa as a meme be even a step backward, in the sense that it produces less richness of content? Or might memes be just superfluous? Well, you can see where I'm coming from on the issue.

How interesting to read this post after reading Wright's TEoG. Maybe DWill had already read the book when he posted this. Clearly we have seen in our lifetimes a rather dramatic shift in the tone and message of Christmas. It's an evolution that is happening right under our noses if we simply open our eyes to it.

Though I like that we are moving away from the irrational elements of religion, the new religion of consumerism is hardly better. 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?

[Interbane]

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?

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?

[johnson1010]

we will tell our kids about santa, just like we will tell them a bunch of other legends and stories, but we would never lead them into thinking that they should treat that story with anymore credence than Jack Frost or Jesus Christ.

i can appreciate the notion of having to suspend disbelief until a better understanding of the real scenario can be grasped, but there is no scenatio which santa is needed to explain. Gifts come from those who took th time and effort to get them for you. You should appreciate them for their thoughtfulness, not some crazy magical elf in a FTL snow sled.

Your child's early life is dedicated to understanding and interacting with natural systems. You only send your kid down a blind alley by encouraging santa-thoughts, and make them waste valuable energy chasing rediculous nonsense that really only seems to serve the purpose of adult superiority.

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.

wasted opportunity. all so that the adults in the room could swell up like toads and wink at eachother across the room." Can you believe she really believes this crap?! KIDS ARE FUNNY!"

You are putting speed bumps in your child's path. Santa will just serve as an excellent example of group think where a WELL KNOWN fairy tale is perpetuated to new generations as fact for no good reason at all. Look at your neightbors, little guy. See how they swallow that line about santa? What else do you think might not be totally on the up and up?

[geo]

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.

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.

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.

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?

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?

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.

[Robert Tulip]

Analysing Santa as a myth helps critical thinking. We have grown used to the myth-fact distinction, but in the case of Santa, the myth is so pervasive at Christmas that you have to ask what emotional buttons it pushes that makes it so popular. Part of modern mythology is the paradox that we do not believe in myths. This is true at a rational level, but not at the emotional level. All sorts of myths about cultural and political identity have widespread emotional hold. To understand a mythic meme such as Santa, we have to understand the interests and the psychology that are at play.

Foremost, Santa gives a divine blessing to capitalist consumption as the highest good. This is a form of what theologians call idolatry, the worship of false gods. If the highest value of the society is material acquisition, that owning things make us happy, we naturally gravitate to worship of a God who blesses our values.

In order to be acceptable as a modern idol, Santa deploys his key weapon – irony. Part of the arsenal of belief in Santa is the knowledge that he is not real, that by pretending we offer an ironic wink in the direction of the supernatural, while holding it at bay as a pure product of the imagination.

The wink towards a magical vision is a key part of how Christmas allows the intrusion of supernatural beliefs into a naturalistic culture. Naturalism, presented as materialist science, claims in its unguarded moments that we already understand everything we need to know about the universe. The sense of divine mystery is regarded as obsolete in modern life. However, doubt about this modern arrogance is accepted at Christmas through the magical story of Santa.

Since Christ has been rejected as messiah, mainly because of his unwelcome comments about sharing wealth, Santa has become the selfish saviour. The trouble is that worship of false Gods always comes to grief in the end.