Holiday spirit
Thanks for nothing
假日精神無從感激
NO HOLIDAY is safe from the scolds. Independence Day? A celebration of the American exceptionalism behind our bogus claims to legitimacy as a "benevolent" neo-imperialist global hegemony. Christmas? A sickening display of consumerism run amok and a case study in Christian mythology crowding out pagan good cheer. (Take your pick.) Memorial Day? An exercise in the elevation of those who kill and die for the state without asking too many questions about it. Veterans Day? Ditto. Labor Day is all right, I guess, if you're red. Columbus Day? Ask a Seminole. Now here we are on the cusp of Thanksgiving. Other than lamenting the white man's plundering, murdering, colonizing ways (ask an Iroquois) what else is there to say to take the fun out of the national day of gluttony here in the home of the bravely obese? Plenty!
Before you stuff yourself to the gills with the flesh of innocent birds fattened in disgustingly inhumane conditions, please read this discourse on "Thanksgiving as 'System Justification'", by Jon Hanson, the Alfred Smart Professor of Law at Harvard. In a nutshell, "system justification" is the socio-psychological process by which turkeys come to welcome their impending slaughter. Every society is rife with injustice. System justification is how we convince ourselves it's all for the best.
"Manifestations of the system-justification motive pervade many of our cognitions, ideologies, and institutions", Mr. Hanson says. For example, Harvard University might be said to make extremely privileged people comfortable in their mostly unearned wealth and prestige by helping them develop a super-classy shared vocabulary for expressing their mildly guilty feelings about it. Mr Hanson, demonstrating how this is done, worries that Thanksgiving, as Americans celebrate it, is but one more prop shoring up the corrupt current dispensation.
No doubt, expressing gratitude is generally a healthy and appropriate practice. Indeed, my sense is that Americans too rarely acknowledge the debt they owe to other people and other influences. There ought to be more thanks giving.
Nonetheless, the norm of Thanksgiving seems to be to encourage a particular kind of gratitude — a generic thankfulness for the status quo. Indeed, when one looks at what many describe as the true meaning of the holiday, the message is generally one of announcing that current arrangements — good and bad — are precisely as they should be.
Mr. Hanson goes on to detect in Thanksgiving speeches from George Washington to George W. Bush the message that America's prosperity is a manifestation of divine providence, evidence that God reserves a special place in His infinite heart for us Americans. "From such a perspective", Mr. Hanson observes, "giving thanks begins to look like a means of assuring ourselves that our current situation was ordained by some higher, legitimating force. To doubt the legitimacy of existing arrangements is to be ungrateful."
In response to a blog post suggesting that true spirit of Thanksgiving means we should be "thankful no matter what our situation in life", Mr. Hanson asks "should we also be thankful for unfairness or injustice? And if we are to be grateful for our sorrows, should we then be indifferent toward their earthly causes?" I should say not. We must never allow ourselves to lapse into indifference toward politicians. Not to say that one must be deranged by constant outrage over the world's injustices and their causes. Just don't breathe too easy. Don't relax too much. If you think it's only healthy to set aside politics now and then and bask wholeheartedly in the warm love of family, you're probably part of the problem.
Mr. Hanson concludes:
If your inclination on Thanksgiving is to give thanks, I do not mean to discourage you. My only suggestion is that you give thanks, not for the status quo, but for all of the ways in which your (our) own advantages and privileges are the consequence of situation, and not simply your individual (our national) disposition. Further, I’d encourage you to give thanks to all those who have gone before you who have doubted the status quo and who have identified injustice and impatiently fought against it.
Happy Thanksgiving!
But not too happy. Have a totally thrilling Buy Nothing Day, though! And may your occupation of Christmas be bright.
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