Sunday, December 23, 2018

HappyMerry ChristmasHolidays

Ah, Christmas. Here at the Slog, that means it's time for my trademark Jewy/conciliatory perspective on the holiday. I've been running the same editorial for several years (my popular "Guide To Holiday Greetings For Christians"), but this time I'll share a Facebook conversation instead. It's a bit raw and sharp-edged, but that makes it fitting for 2018:

It's an American holiday as well as a religious one. Unfortunately, people on both sides of the cultural divide are unable to digest that degree of complexity. Something being two things is way more nuance than anyone can handle.

Being no more staunchly Jewish than, say, Irving Berlin, I happily wish a Merry Christmas to one and all.


I invite you to read/reread what I consider the prototypical Slog posting, describing the most foundational insight of my life which happened while I laid on a couch watching a movie one Christmas Eve: "The Deeper Implications of Holiday Blues". I've been writing a lot lately about perceptual framing (see all such postings here - I'd suggest reading from the bottom up - and you can see a definition here), and it all flows from this. In fact, pretty much this entire Slog flows from that one epiphany (here's a rough map of how it's unfolded).

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4 comments:

  1. Display NameDecember 24, 2018 at 1:12 AM

    Merry Christmas Jim! Opening your slog to discover a new post makes me feel like a kid on Christmas morning.

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  2. DaveDecember 24, 2018 at 11:27 AM

    Merry Christmas, Jim. I have never heard the phrase "holiday tree" before.

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  3. Jim LeffDecember 24, 2018 at 12:46 PM

    My New Year’s resolution is to modify my favorite exclamation to “Holiday Christ!”

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  4. Anonymous cowardDecember 24, 2018 at 7:11 PM

    I was reading about the origins of political correctness. If I remember correctly from the Gender Knot book by Allan Johnson that political correctness originated from one group of liberals avoiding accidentally offending another. For example, you wouldn't want a feminist calling a group of liberal black activists n****s nor would you want the black activist to call the feminists feminazis.

    A lack of care would cause the two groups to fight against each other instead of focusing on their common goal. Therefore, happy holidays Jim and enjoy your holiday tree. By the way God probably does not exist and even if God did exists you wouldn't want to meet any of the Abrahamic religions version of God. See Richard Dawkins book the God Delusion.

    " “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

    ― Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion     "

    https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/23651-the-god-of-the-old-testament-is-arguably-the-most

    ReplyDelete