For those of you new to my blog you may not know this, but Dickens's A Christmas Carol is one of my favorite stories and has been very informative on my psyche. I know I haven't done much on it in the past few years. I have a feeling that there will be more this year.
But it just occurred to me that I now understand the conservative mind a little more. This whole "War on Christmas" thrust has been confusing to me. I mean, you could just chalk it up to the feelings of martyrdom envy, the perceived persecution of "christians" (which, in this case, has always translated as "conservative privilege"), and a need to feel that it's "us against those dirty liberals". However, I finally just got it.
See, if you promote free-market capitalism, the belief of being overtaxed, living in a welfare state, and promoting the concept that those people on the "have not" side of the equation should just go out and get a job already… well then, those are the people who are cheering Scrooge as he snuffs out Christmas Past with her cap. Don't believe me? Go and reread the Stave 1 in A Christmas Carol. Scrooge is a market capitalist, to the nth degree. When approached for charity, he complains about his high taxes supporting the welfare society and certainly that is enough for him. If those people who are in "want" don't like the Treadmill or the Work Houses, well then, they should die and decrease the surplus population.
So the "War on Christmas" (or, the War Against a Non-Existent Foe) is actually a preemptive strike to avoid that label of "Scrooge" being applied to them. See, "we's all about the Jebus and Christmas, so obviously we can't be Scrooge."
As the song goes, "but don't you believe it." Dickens wrote his little yarn because capitalism was driving Christmas into being just another work day.
"And yet," said Scrooge, "you don't think me ill-used, when I pay a day's wages for no work."If that's not a complaint about not letting capitalism run it's own course without interfering government and societal, long-haired hippy notions, I don't know what is.
The clerk observed that it was only once a year.
"A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every twenty-fifth of December!"
2 comments:
I think you hit the nail on the head, Steve.
And to make it worse, the Scrooges of this time are unable to put themselves in the place of those less fortunate. Just like in the original story, the current story is told from Scrooge's vantage point (taking money from "job creators" etc. etc.). It's all about Scrooge's power to make a choice to effect an outcome, and in the end, he controls how the story plays out.
No such luck for those of us poor people of the world. Until those with direct power make the choice to do something different, it's all just a far-off dream and it's the same old same old.
wv euchrove = a cell that has not only a nucleus, but also a membrane in the shape of GW's senior advisor
Yep. I guess we're all supposed to wait for our bosses to have their hearts grow three-sizes that day and send us the prize turkey.
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