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by Mak Faene Just go shopping if you don't want some guy you don't even know raining on your white Christmas. Just go now and don't bother reading any further. Ignorance is bliss, and hey, you get rewarded for it with gifts on December 25th so what better reason? It's bad enough that Western culture is in such a state of denial that it allows television to be considered a basic living essential, or that nuclear power is believed to be a "clean" energy source or that there's any faith that the judicial system works - but to believe that Christmas is about anything but mass consumerism... C'mon. There's denial and then there's outright stupidity. Good will towards man? Joy to the world? Or how about that dated classic; that Christmas actually has anything to do with Jesus Christ? These are excuses contrived by enterprise in order to sell unwanted merchandise to a population that finds its foundations in the consumption of novelty items and eccentric excess. Being that acting like a decent human being all year long is so unimaginable for most we take solace in Christmas day to be kind and loving as though it somehow absolves us of being assholes the rest of the time. Christmas is like one day of confession for the fair-weather religious. And where is the Christianity in Christmas? Had there ever been any in the first place? The root of the word seems to indicate that there was: Christ's Mass - but what does that mean anyway? According to the Christian Bible, their god told Christians to remember Christ in his death but never does it indicate that there should be a celebration of his birth. So why did this holiday come about? Let's face it - you certainly don't have to be a practicing Christian to celebrate Christmas. Most people are not. As the poet Irving Layton put it "Xians" are the people who celebrate not Christmas, but "Xmas". Such are the people who only act vaguely as Christians should act on that one day of the year. Since Christmas obviously never was about Christianity our common replacing of this Christ character's name with the letter "X" comes as no great surprise. It becomes a far easier ginger bread cookie to swallow once the religious undertones are removed. The holiday slips further into the clutches of enterprise and of mass consumerism. If you want some ridiculous name for it, call it what it really is people: "Consume-mass". We are a society of uneducated, unthinking, consumers. This is bad enough and needs enough attention to remedy as it is. Could we at least face what we are and put an end to this denial? Admission is the first step towards rectifying the situation. This Xmas lets think long and hard about what we're celebrating and who is profiting from this Comsume-mass season. Then let's think about it some more on the 26th and the 27th and so on. Come the time for resolutions on the 1st of January - let's resolve to think about it some more and make some important changes in the way we live. This denial, this pride in materialism and consumption of finite resources will spell the end, if not for us - for our children. That doesn't sound like something to celebrate to me. |
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