Santa's Importance to Critical Thinking

I have had a debate before about the cruelty of the Santa myth. My position was: why tell a child a lie when the truth can be just as wonderful. People give gifts because it makes everyone feel better, both giver and receiver. That's about as optimistic a thought on human nature as any I've ever heard, and makes a good moral that could stand to be reinforced once a year. The inclusion of an improbably generous elf just junks it up. Even as an avatar of human kindness, he just competes with your religious icon of choice. The only use he serves is as an implacable judge of Good vs Bad. One who is unassailable by whining and begging, but whose eyes are everywhere. Apparently God needs a heavy, and Papa Noel is it (Santa is the carrot to Satan's stick). But I've had to rethink my prior position. I think Saint Nick does serve a purpose, and an important developmental one at that.

After careful thought, I realized that Father Christmas is not about generosity, and certainly not about Christian faith, but he is definitely the incarnation of Judgement. And not just the good and bad list thing either. He is an important milestone in a child's life, an early lesson in critical thinking. Because at some point, all children learn that he's not real, and suddenly they are forced to acknowledge a painful truth: their parents have been lying to them. Not only that, but everyone else in the world has been lying to them. That forces them to think, what else are they lying about? Is there an Easter Bunny? Am I adopted? Where will it all end? Suddenly, the child is no longer a passive recipient of knowledge but a thinking being, evaluating data based on self-created criteria. Babbo Natale is all about doubt, and the deconstruction of authority. They are becoming the evaluators of good and bad. They have eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and are turning into Santa themselves.

Sure, it's a painful lesson. But so is finding out that hot things burn. You hope children find out with bath water instead of a house fire, so you let them play with the taps. You don't let them play with matches. The same goes with Mr. Kringle. Even after the initial let down, you're still left with a popular holiday, and that pleasant thought on humanity. So there is the attention focusing pain to drive the lesson home, but not too much. Not enough to threaten a normal child's psyche.

Plus it gives them a small ego boost of being 'in the club' with the other grownups who are in on the secret, a glimpse into the higher mysteries of the complicated world of grownups, who apparently lie to each other all the time, constantly. It sets them on the path of figuring out when someone is telling them the truth or not, and whether it matters, of evaluating truth in a social context. Lying is fine, even necessary, in so many situations, and the jolly old elf is the key. It's all very modern day Joseph Campbell: a myth that serves the growth of the individual in society.

So my advice is this: Don't leave Santa out of Christmas! Sure, he's a modern commercially inspired symbol subverting a religious event, but he has his place. Sing his praises, and throw in the flying reindeer. Stuff the gullible with tall tales till they eventually puke, it'll be good for them.

IMHO

What is it with the overuse of the expression IMO or IMHO? I understand what it stands for, but why use it? It's like an excuse to say something truly terrible, and then draw back a little bit with a polite euphemism. For all intents and purposes it says, "If you react badly to this I will mock you as overly-sensitive." It's like the Southern expression: Bless his/her little heart. You know if a Southerner 'blesses your little heart' they hate your guts, because it always follows some insulting observation. Example: "He's dumb as a bag of hammers, bless his little heart." It is a cowardly evasion.

Personally I find it contemptible. If you are delivering criticism, you can either aim to hurt (in which case you are usually merely trying to look clever to your peers), or aim to improve something, in which case it should be constructive, not destructive. Using an 'escape phrase' to try to shuck the emotional baggage of making someone feel bad is just lame. Either make them feel bad because you hate them, and own up to your pettiness, or offer something constructive. It takes someone of true and rare wit to deliver witty and sarcastic comments without merely looking like an immature tool. If you have the intelligence to make a worthy observation, you should also have the smarts to deliver it in a way that might actually affect the change you want, instead of alienating everyone involved. There are damn few Oscar Wildes and Mark Twains in the world, and odds are you are not one of them.

And lastly, just about anything that comes out of my cake-hole is either a fact/fiction or an opinion, and it's usually easy to tell which is which. If I say, "I can't afford that Ferrari", that's pretty much a fact, with just a smattering of opinion (because I could sell my house and buy it, but that's just stupid). If I say, "I hate Ferraris," it's either fact or a fiction (because it's obviously sour grapes), but it is definitely a statement of my opinion. If I say "Ferraris are great cars," that is again my opinion. Is anyone really confused by this? Do I really need to label these things with an IMO?

About the only time it has any use is when you are differentiating between statements of someone else's opinion and your own: "Everyone thinks Ferraris are high maintenance status symbol cars, but they're really an excellent tribute to a long standing racing tradition." Now either God's own truth is spilling out of my mouth, or it's my opinion there at the end. You decide.

It irks me when I see it used constantly on forum debates, because 9 times out of 10 it's a pointless add on. It doesn't increase the value of the message, or refine the meaning. And usually, it's just a way to insult someone and try to be polite about it. At some point, the rules of etiquette have to catch up with the digital age, and I for one am hoping we ditch this cowardly abbreviation. 

Expletives and taboos

There is a show called Inside the Actor's Studio where the host asks, among other things, the same ten questions to each guest. One of them is "What is your favorite curse word?"

Mine is f**k. It's short, attention getting, and best of all, onomatopoeic: it sounds just like what it means. Picture this scenario. You get up in the middle of the night to pee, you're walking across the hall and stub your toe on some piece of furniture that shouldn't be there. What sound would be more appropriate or descriptive? You were doing fffffine, ffffeeling good, everything is ffffabulous, when it all comes to a sudden stop: **k! See? It means exactly what it sounds like.

You could argue that the real definition of that word has nothing do with any of that and you'd be right. But we're not talking about real words, we're talking about curse words. An expletive is an ancient psuedo-verbal vocalization of distress, not real speech. It's halfway between a grunt and true communication. "Meaning" is irrelevant. No one is thinking about intercourse when they just stubbed their toe. They just want to invoke a taboo, which is why curse words have to be impolite. And most importantly, cursing needs to be reflexive, requiring no thought whatsoever. Speech requires thought, which might take too long.

Here's another scenario: In prehistoric times, a group of hunters spread out to flush some game from some tall grass, shouting and beating the grass with their hands. One of them comes across a tiger. Now, time is of the essence, so saying something like "TIGER!", would be optimal, but something like "Hey guys, its one of those things with the claws, what was that name again..." would mean getting eaten. A wordless cry might work, but everyone is yelling, so the message might get lost. A random word might draw attention, but it would confuse everyone for a potentially fatal second or so. But a taboo, something forbidden, shouted out brazenly, would draw attention. It would focus thought on the fact that something bad just happened, and need to be reacted to. Most likely by running away, but that's another matter.

Another proof that cursing is handled differently in the brain from speech is provided by sufferer's of Tourette Syndrome, specifically those with coprolalia (which means almost literally "potty mouth"). For those too lazy to look at the links, it's a disorder that, among other things, causes sufferers to curse uncontrollably, often in very inappropriate settings. The point here is that they don't shout random words, they shout curse words. They invoke taboos. These words must be stored in a different way in the brain. They have no meaning, just a purpose. A genetically encoded need to focus attention on a pressing and immanent problem. The exact taboo and the words are determined culturally, but the internal mechanism is universal.

And therefore, the need to suppress extraneous cursing is also universal. A taboo that is acceptable to the general ear is useless. It has to shock, or it subverts the survival mechanism it sprang from. So, for the good of society, I'll try to limit my f-bombs to actual emergencies, like when I'm driving in heavy traffic or playing video games.