Christmas Day
It is now 12:30 am on Christmas day 2006.
This post by Phil about the impact of Calvinism on American values
and this one by Chuck about the origins of Santa Claus have set me wondering:
What has caused the slow transmutation that is evident between these two histories? What is it that has gradually changed American values from the Puritan obsession with work, vocation and hard earned practical uprightness to the Romanesque aimlessness of self-indulgence, constant getting and the right to convenience?
In my mind, Santa is almost the opposite of what Calvin represented. He lifts from our shoulders the responsibility of giving to one another - especially the poor - at Christmas and symbolizes, before his time so to speak, the American love affair with right-to-your-doorstep service, the demand for immediacy and insistence upon product that is perfectly catered to individual desire. Even the naughty or nice part of the modern Santa legend has become something of a joke in recent times - everyone knows that Santa wouldn't dream of being so discriminating. He represents the social yearning for complete moral ambiguity. Santa (unlike St. Nicholas as Chuck points out) puts the focus squarely where it ought to be in contemporary America: on getting what you want.
How has our self-made religious and social pragmatism morphed into this flabby, decadent milieu? And how can we move away from both - quickly?
posted by Lian at 6:31 pm
8 Comments:
wow, powerful link between the two conversations!
"[santa represents] the American love affair with right-to-your-doorstep service, the demand for immediacy and insistence upon product that is perfectly catered to individual desire"... well put.
i hope this conversation can make us dream about what christmas could be, and not become the over-analyzing grinch i sometimes feel like durring this season.
8:54 am
Isn't the God of American Puritanism like a much less lax Santa to begin with? i.e., work hard, follow the rules and you will receive all the outer trappings of success. Isn't the voice of puritanism much like the voices of Job's friends? i.e., falsely pious, arrogant, dogmatic, etc.
Obviously there is a lot that goes on in the holiday season that is symptomatic of a crass consumer culture. But I wonder how healthy it is to aspire to that old Puritan Christianity.
3:13 pm
Sorry to break it to you but, santa doesn't really exist.
Calvinist were around in Jesus day though. The parable of the talents, it's the calvinist that buries the money in the ground because he knows that the master can do with it what ever he wills with it.
Talk about no responsability.
11:34 pm
Yeah, I certainly don't want to be seen as promoting the Calvinist/puritan lifestyle here. I think the way my thoughts tend is that the puritan way of thinking about life, paradoxically, inevitably leads to the self-reliant, self-indulgent America we have today.
A quote from my cousin-in-law who hails from Brazil:
"I don't understand Americans at all. Everyone is working so hard to be alone."
4:15 am
great quote- there is nothing like the perspective of the "other" to bring a truthful self-awareness. and, i'd agree with your assessment of puritan thought- so fascinating to trace social phenomena back.
4:46 pm
i find it odd, that these conversations and discussions continue to address the "how to fix it" mindset. you live in the post-decent world. and you are swimming upstream. we cant move away from any of it. what we can do is be light and salt to those dying around us. encourage the brothers who swim with us,be wise to this world and fools for the master. allow yourself to be poured out as a drink offering to the people who need you and your resources. my thoughts and mindset do not resonate with anyone around me. but i continue to show them love and in all situations react counter to the culture, always looking for ways to tell them i am different by virtue of a bloody disfigured man on a cross and his daddy that let him climb up there.
7:22 am
Anonymous, I think what you have to say is interesting, but I wish that you would sign your name. Without a name you are not a "me" or an "I" but simply a figureless body...what I mean to say is that your words are meaningless without a name.
8:55 am
its a safe place from which to speak for i have been told- blogs are no place for one so old.
younger voices must prevail.
no place for the grey-heads tale.
but oncst in a while i love to say whats in my heart on a quiet day.
anonymous is sometimes how i feel.
i didnt feel it any big deal.
so throw some milk chunks on my head, moms are people too....smiles to you erk
11:58 am
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