Another year has rolled around and the capitalist system is still in alliance with greater humanity for another holiday season. Christmas is the perfect opportunity for society to entrench capitalistic desire into the citizenry. Kids think for months on what they are going to include on their christmas lists. They realize that they must earn their present (by being nice not naughty) and they begin to attach values to all of their fall/winter actions. Should i pull susy's hair if i know it will cost me an Ipod Chrome and instead i will only get a 4 gigabyte nano? is the joy i recieve from pulling susy's hair greater than the joy i will recieve from the upgrade to an ipod chrome? If i can settle for the 4 gigabyte nano i will certainly be willing to pull susy's hair.
Kids are taught from a young age that capitalistic desires are more important than "naughty" desires. The kid suppresses his naughty desires for the reward of capitalistic possessions. eventually, all evil desires of the human being are replaced by capitalistic desires. It is interesting that capitalism at xmas suppresses the naughty desires and not the good desires. have we not just proven that capitalstic desire is evil because it replaces the naughty desires instead of the nice desires?
Not only does xmas allow kids to place a material goods based value on all actions (ie. act nice and get an ipod chrome), but it allows them to envision a better life for themselves that is actually fictitious. Kids write their xmas lists, dreaming of the future and how different their life will be with their christmas presents. Life will be fulffilling and happy once i get batman the dark night on blu ray for xmas. unfortunately, the capitalistic desire can never be completely fullfilled. We approach the fulfillment of our capitalistic desire on christmas eve (thats when our fulffillment reaches its pinnacle because we still have not recieved the present and we are envisioning our soon-to-be enhanced lives). However, christmas morning proves very anti-climatic. we get the present, and we pretend to be surprised when we open the present,but as soon as we open the box we realize that this new material good has not completely fulfilled our desire like we initially thought it would. we are happy that we got the gift and gracious to the person that bought us our present. But our capitalistic desire is not fulffiled, we still desire more (we still desire the ideal present that will be completely fulfilling). The best proof of this is how our capitalistic desire does not end on chritmas. In fact, we are so starved to fulfill the desire even more that we go shopping on boxing day as well. why on earth does the most spending all year occur on the day after chistmas? shouldn't xmas have been fulfilling enough to avoid extreme capitalistic desire the very next day? The truth is, we are so depressed about not being able to fulfill our capitalistic desire, that we spend even more the next day. Like the alchoholic who realizes that his drinking is a problem, but instead of facing his problem he attempts to drink away all of his grievances. boxing day spending is the worst type of spending of all, because it occurs in the wake of our own emptiness.
the ideal present would be a present that is so fulfilling that it ends capitalistic desire to purchase more presents. a present so good that it stops us envisioning a better future with new gifts for a while. But, the ideal present is just like santa clause... it doesn't exist. We can never achieve compete fulfillment.
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With regard to the last part about the ultimate presetn not existing I think the ultimate present is a gift in disguise.. the ultimate present is something akin to a perception of true revolution or economic collapse and depression.. sure at first and for some time , we would be depressed and we would struggle to adapt to a system that didn't fulfill our every need and more. But, slowly our expectations would sink lower and lower to the point that even the simplest gift would be of great value to us and we would truly be satisfied with the people around us and the simple give they had given, something that would give lasting joy and value, instead of depending on an ipod chrome to make us happy for a few days. But Revolution would have to happen first so that our expectation could be lowered so that our value system would change and we would appreciate things differently.
Christmas is such a stupid holiday. First, its christian, boo religion. Second, those who are not of a faction belonging to Jesus have adopted the holiday as their own to have some time off from their duty as a capitalist slave, and why not. However, the irony is overwhelming in the second case, as Marc has pointed out, for the most part, they have indebted themselves into the capitalist system just in time for the New Year. Yay meaningless jobs that will have no effect on humanity whatsoever. Both are great schemes that have most likely been integrated into society by the secret societies trying to entangle us with distractions to keep us from thinking for ourselves and potentially creating any real change via the Hegelian dialectic: thesis+anti-thesis=synthesis. I for one did not buy into Christmas this year, again, and didn't buy one gift, or boxing day item *mostly cuz I am a poor person* or sing one terrible christmas song. To be honest, I hate Christmas. I here and now make it official that I will never celebrate Christmas ever again. I think I will make a new celebration, every day should be, but one that is personal and one that I share with only my friends and loved ones that doesnt have anything to do with end of quarter sales and Christ.
I bought one book for a friend. The Book was by Karl Polanyi and it's called The Great Transformation.. Two UVIC courses are reviewing this book in the coming semester.. this book is a timely work indeed..
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