Advent 2014

[Farm Boy]

Fiction? No, I don't recall that at all. I do remember that the mechanics of the reality shifted in a way I hadn't expected. It became a lot more meaningful at a time I was more capable of understanding why.

 

[Borachio]

I see. So you believe there's a man comes on a sleigh through the sky to each and every house in the entire world, climbs down the chimney and leaves presents for all good children.

And you've managed to morph this into some kind of reality? Nice one.

 

[Farm Boy]

Those might, just might, be the mechanics whose reality shifted.

Also realizing that the mechanics are fundamentally unfair because people are in charge of making them fair was quite a realization.

 

[Borachio]

I'm trying hard to understand what you mean, but I'm really not succeeding.

 

[Farm Boy]

There's a form of magic there, like there is good in this world. Eventually though you need to realize that you're going to have to make it rather than have it made for you. And it's not going to be fair unless you decide it needs to be.

 

[Borachio]

Mebbe.

But you said:

the mechanics are fundamentally unfair because people are in charge of making them fair

And there's something solidly nonsensical about that, to my way of thinking.

 

[Farm Boy]

I don't see the discord. Rich Timmy is going to get the XBox instead of Bobby even if he's a jerk and a bully. That doesn't mean Poor Bobby can't be fair anyways, or that he's isn't called to be fair in a world which is not.

 

[warpus]

I'm glad I don't have kids, I don't really know what I would do in terms of telling them these white lies about imaginary superhero type characters and so on. On one hand I would want "kids to be kids", but on the other hand, I would want my kids to be ahead of everyone else in terms of understanding the world around them. It's just too much effort to even think about, so I'll pass on the whole having a child thing for now.

 

[onejayhawk]

The Anglo-American figure isn't even really pretending to be Christian. The Dutch Sinterklaas, at least, is dressed in a bishop's robes and mitre, so the trappings of Christianity are built into the tradition, the Anglo-American Father Christmas is just some old guy in a fur coat, not even a hint of Christian piety about him. Tone down the cloak and poke an eye out, you're looking at Odin.

That would be the commercialization often lamented.

It is not to say that Santa Claus has no hint of Christian piety. To the contrary. He is selfless, generous and loving. He embodies Christian piety.

J

 

[Farm Boy]

I'm glad I don't have kids, I don't really know what I would do in terms of telling them these white lies about imaginary superhero type characters and so on. On one hand I would want "kids to be kids", but on the other hand, I would want my kids to be ahead of everyone else in terms of understanding the world around them. It's just too much effort to even think about, so I'll pass on the whole having a child thing for now.

Sometimes letting kids be kids does put them ahead of everyone else in terms of understanding the world around them. World's not just facts and figures. He wants to put a bucket on his head and run around in a circle making whooshing sounds, I'm going to tell him he's being a fantastic superhero. Then again, that's at 2 and probably at 3. He might have to provide more substance to that dance to get praise at 12.

 

[Traitorfish]

And is there not a lesson in this for the inevitable morphing of the reality of Santa Claus with age? Perhaps one people tend to miss?

You're probably right, yeah. I guess it links back to the point you made about young children working on more-or-less independent moral logics, and traditions like Santa Claus are a way of training them to adhere to the outward forms of adult moral logics, with the presumably hope that they become gradually internalised. There's probably relationship between children learning to put themselves outside of themselves enough to realise that the whole mythology is a bit tenuous, and developing the ability to think altruistically, rather than in the sort of extended self-interest you described.

What's interesting, to me, is the contrast between the reciprocal virtue of the Santa-tradition and the spontaneous, inner-driven virtue we tend to present as the ideal in Western culture. It's not just that the former is a shallow version of the latter, but that they really do presume different sorts of obligations, different sorts of relationships between people. I wonder if it says something about the moral logics that adults actually work with on a day-to-day basis, as opposed to those they elevate if called to reflect upon it?

 

[bhsup]

Do you both think maybe you are possibly -way- overthinking Santa Claus?

 

[Farm Boy]

Do you both think maybe you are possibly -way- overthinking Santa Claus?

Not really. It's a fascinating topic. When a lot of people act in a way it tends to say at least something about them.

But yea TF, I think you're right. I think most of the lesson probably lies in the areas where there is friction between the nitty gritty of human interaction and in the ideals of the season. Friction that isn't really going to go away at any point in life. How to make the ideal of the season work when it's going to have to exist in this world and enacted by denizens of the here and now.

I've always figured that's one of the reasons the ideal is framed as "God's love." It's not the love of men. It's supposed to be given without fail and without expectation of reciprocity. The closer you get to it yourself the more you realize that if you do indeed develop aspects of God-like love you need to toss it into the world and understand that the world isn't going to stop you from getting cancer, or run over by a truck, or raped in an alley just because you're a good person.

 

[warpus]

Sometimes letting kids be kids does put them ahead of everyone else in terms of understanding the world around them. World's not just facts and figures. He wants to put a bucket on his head and run around in a circle making whooshing sounds, I'm going to tell him he's being a fantastic superhero. Then again, that's at 2 and probably at 3. He might have to provide more substance to that dance to get praise at 12.

That sort of "letting kids be kids" is fine, but I have a lot of examples of me growing up, thinking certain things, and.. they weren't true. The truth was kept from me.

It still annoys me, I had to figure out a bunch of stuff on my own. My parents' job was supposed to figure it all out while they were growing up and save me the time and effort. But noooooooo..

 

[Borachio]

I don't mind the truth being kept from me so much. It's when I found out I'd been deliberately misled for no good reason I was rather miffed. Well, mystified as to why, more than anything. My parents were like gods to me. I had fully expected to believe everything they told me.

I think there's a big difference between letting a kid get on with its fantasies about being batman or whatever, and telling it that Santa is responsible for a stocking full of tat and satsumas that appears at the bottom of bed on Christmas morning.

 

[warpus]

I'm not even really complaining about Santa specifically here.

I think a lot of parents just teach their kids things about life that .. they wish were true about life. As opposed to how things actually are. So that their kids can grow up in a bit more idealistic world than actually exists, or for whatever reason. So then kids take decades unlearning all that bs and figuring out the world for what it really is.

Lying to a 2 year old about Santa is probably fine in my eyes. They're too young to understand.. I guess. But that's how it starts. It's the first lie of many. I really am not sure how i would handle any of it, if I had kids. Maybe the bare facts are not passed on to offspring for a reason *shrug*.

 

[Borachio]

I can understand telling "lies" to kids if they're some kind of gross simplification of the truth, but the Santa myth seems to be lying just for the sake it. To me.

Why not just not tell them anything and let presents magically appear, if that's your bag, and let them figure it out themselves? Why feed them something which they'll have to conclude is an outright lie?

It makes very little sense to me. Is it designed to let me know that the people I trust* most in the entire world are really liars? Doesn't seem a particularly benign way of doing so.

*Not that I didn't trust everyone in the entire world at that time, though. I did.