MORPHEAL'S SOCIAL COMMENTARY - 241208 (Santa Claus, Her Majesty and Lump of Coal for George Bush))
Morpheal
We live in a time when there is an increasing need to reaffirm the
value of the individual, and we can do that most readily at Christmas
by giving unique, personalized, gifts. While special foods and drinks
have a significant role in that affirmation of value, something of
what we give should be of lasting cultural worth. The work of artists,
artisans, craftspersons, and items of lasting quality, and excellence
in design, are particularly well suited to a Renaissance of valued
individuality.
That revitalization of a positive materialism need not be excessively
lavish, or costly, and can be accessible to all. Reaffirmation of the
individual, by means of things of lasting worth, is also a
reaffirmation of care for society, the world around us, and the
environment. Without that value those things too become as devalued as
we have seen in recent decades. A society of discarding people,
things, culture, and environment, largely on the basis of pure
utility, as to what use something is in the immediate, without long
term considerations for other values, needs to become a society of
valuing individuality, uniqueness, and potential.
I do not think that it really matters which cultural reason someone
affirms as to the giving of gifts and celebrating with others. Whether
it is Solstice, Yule, Christmas, Calendar Year End, or any number of
other festive occasions that chance at the same time, the whole world
can join in. Whether the individual celebrant celebrates the birthday
of a culture hero, a theologically valued event, or a purely secular
holiday does not need to be a source of controversy and conflict.
Individuals have different reasons, and celebrate different ideas at
the same time as they happen to celebrate one another’s individuality
and their social connections as individuals with one another in a
society. That society is increasingly the world community and not
simply our neighborhood, home town, state, or nation. We can put aside
religious, ideological differences, and affirm other, human,
universalized values of importance to all, while allowing beliefs
their place in one another’s lives. The two reasons for celebration,
and for the practices of celebration, do not need to be sources of
dispute. There is common ground, that all can stand upon, in peace and
affirmation, even if beliefs otherwise differ.
Poor Santa Claus, Saint Nicolas, Old Nik, Pere de Noel, among many
other names in many languages, might have a larger load and a bigger
task, but there is no need to make a villain of the jolly old gent,
who himself has no desire to take sides in religious and cultural
disputes. He would deliver the gift to anyone, anywhere, in any part
of the world, to affirm the worth of the person, as individual. He is
not himself prejudiced. He could come to pagan, Hindu, Christian,
Buddhist, Jew, Muslim, atheist, capitalist, communist, and bring them
each something. The myth of the old gent making his lists of who has
been naughty or nice, has a place in it for every person, regardless
of faith, creed, ethnicity, ideological bent, having done something
worthwhile, something good, something of value, as an individual
living in the world community of humanity as a whole. In that sense he
is the affirmation of good in humanity and community, beyond the
divisiveness, conflicts, battles, and disputes, that tend to occur. He
is about the efforts to resolve, mediate, and alleviate those
tensions, and he is about affirmation of human individuality within
the context of all of humanity as having something in common with one
another, and not simply divided into conflicted, potentially warring,
factions. He is about peace.
When we give a gift, during the festive season, regardless of what
belief system someone chances to belong to, that gift is the
affirmation of the desire and hope for peace.
HER MAJESTY’S SPEECH (UK AND COMMONWEALTH):
BBC Reports: “Buckingham Palace has issued advanced excerpts of the
Queen's Speech. What do you want to hear in the annual Christmas
message? The Queen's Christmas Day speech will voice her concern over
the economic downturn and the turmoil it may bring. A month after the
attacks in Mumbai and with British troops engaged overseas, the speech
will also lament "violence in distant lands". She will say: "Christmas
is a time for celebration but this year it is a more sombre occasion
for many. “
Inspirations for some further thoughts on those subjects. Not
unrelated to what has already been said:
We might hope that leaders will be reminded of their special
responsibilities as to genuine care for those subject to them, and
further reaffirm worth of the individual person, furthering talents
and accomplishments. In a world where more and more is taken for
granted, and unique and individual contributions tend to be
increasingly ignored, disregarded, even attacked for their difference,
the only remedy that can be achieved is from renewed leadership by
those who have special privilege to lead.
That remedy in a world where that very fact has been so eroded and
under siege in recent decades. In many regards the structure and
function of a society needs to provide for that recognition, and now
more than ever we need that antithesis to mass culture, and its
throwaway mentality which is tending to throw away people as readily
as it has learned to throw away things. People discarded as readily as
the previous season’s fashion trends in whatever mass made goods
chance to be most promoted, is becoming a larger and larger problem.
Leadership has typically encouraged rather than opposed that trend to
an ever increasing mass ignorance.
We see that same trend evidenced in the failure of world leadership in
the current economic crisis. Perhaps we also see the same failure in
media reporting of that leadership. Not one world leader is noted as
adequately and effectively warning of the economic disaster that has
already affected so very many lives and that has now overturned much
of the existing faith in existing economic practices and systems. The
failure to warn and prepare the people, has brought about a very
increased crisis of faith. Trust and faith in leadership has been
greatly reduced. That in itself is some of the negative fallout of the
current crisis. Only effective care for those living under that
leadership, will restore any amount of faith in leadership. That is a
very serious political issue, and failure to restore that faith
adequately will undermine the very foundations of societies, and
nations, world wide. The damage could become completely irreparable.
The world has suffered, not simply a crisis in economics, challenging
economic theory and practice, and demanding a more scientific,
regulated, and thorough approach to the subject, but it has suffered a
near to total crisis in leadership. Leadership has failed. It has
failed to discern. It has failed to warn. It has failed to prepare
those beneath it, and having to endure it. Leadership has lost
respect.
We see the same trend in terms of a growing tendency to what are truly
purely emotional outbursts of destructive violence, arising in parts
of the world, and threatening to intrude into lives far distant from
the epicenters where those shock waves originate.
No one is left wholly unscathed by that trend to violence which
violates the most fundamental principles of basic human worth: the
worth of a human life, of human lives, as such. Those lives
increasingly randomly attacked, damaged and destroyed. That most
fundamental value, and basis of all else of value in the world, has
become increasingly challenged and disregarded. The most fundamental
value of humanity is being irrationally and unreasoningly attacked.
Violent acts bringing deaths, injuries and destruction, are only one
expression of the increasing violence within our societies, our
cultures, our nations and their community with each other. The way
that the economic disaster has unfolded and revealed itself is another
form of violence that shows similar blatant disregard for value and
worth. We see similar trends in the disparaging and demeaning of
individual talents, efforts, and worth, in most other areas of
society. We are in a crisis that is centered around that one most
fundamental problem. It threatens not only the quality and potential
accomplishments of individuals, but also the well being and lives of
people, and it threatens the world with increased potential for
increase of such evils as fascism and various forms of extremism and
totalitarianism. Those latter very much in reaction to exactly what is
increasingly wrong with society, economic practices, and most
fundamentally with negative changes in the most fundamental values,
under an increasingly failing and failed leadership..
LUMP OF COAL FOR GEORGE W. BUSH:
If one man deserved something for Christmas, for his unique leadership
and exemplary role in the current economic disaster, for his
foresight, his care for all those who followed his lead, and for the
people he has direct and indirect responsibility for, as leader of
what was the world’s economic leading nation. For how well he too care
of everyone, in terms of warning them of difficulties, preparing them
for what was to come, and putting them in a somewhat better situation
to weather through the economic crisis as it impacts their lives.....
well..... there is not one person in the world who would be wrong in
sending Mr. George W. Bush a little lump of coal, for his Christmas. A
traditional symbol for such a traditional man, and well earned. Way to
go George. You win something that you really deserve.
Robert Morpheal
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