Every year, as Christmas comes around, I start to wonder why we lie to our children with the Santa myth. What do we gain by perpetuating this story? Is it just a disciplinary tool, a crutch for parents who want to convince their children to be good on penalty of not receiving any toys? If so, that is another demonstration that most people don't live their lives as if they believe in God. If people honestly thought hell was a possibility, wouldn't they live strictly moral lives, as per the bible's morality?
If the metaphysical layout posited by Christianity was true, the Santa meme should be unnecessary. And yet the latter meme survives. It's fascinating that something that so closely mirrors the widespread conception of a personal god also survives in our meme pool. What about the Santa meme makes it fit?
Does it really enhance the experience of credulous youngsters? I don't remember exactly how old I was when my mom dropped the S bomb on me, but it was definitely before my fourth Christmas. But it definitely didn't ruin the holiday for me. I loved Christmas as much as the next kid for at least another decade. Most people seem to associate belief in Santa with the 'magic' of the holiday. Perhaps they perpetuate the Santa story because of that perception.
An important partner to the 'Santa exists' meme is the 'don't ruin the secret' meme. Maybe the second meme is the one I should be asking about. When I was a kid, I didn't tell all the other kids that the whole Santa thing was a lie. Most people carry the Santa meme without believing its truth value is positive, but almost everyone who knows of it but doesn't believe in it still thinks anyone who does believe it should be protected from the truth. This is what Dan Dennett refers to as 'the spell' in the title of his book Breaking the Spell. Our society, en masse, acquiesces to pretend that a big guy in a red suit comes down everybody's chimney on Christmas Eve and leaves them presents. It's embarrassing, really. Supposedly reputable news organizations all talk about Santa like he's real.
They have to. They'd lose all their advertisers and be inundated with hate mail if they broke the spell. It's happened before. And the same thing happens when someone points out that religious stories are not real. Believers get all offended when you compare their beliefs to the Santa meme, but that's primarily because the comparison is so apt. People who believe Jesus rose from the dead, walked on water, and rode dinosaurs take umbrage at the notion that their religion is akin to believing that Santa flies around the world in one night on a sleigh.
We all learn to respect the delusions of children with respect to Santa Claus, and we all learn to respect other people's delusions about Jesus. It's the same protective spell in both instances. I don't really know where it comes from, but I suspect it applied to Jesus long before Santa came on to the scene.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Why I Hate the Baby Jesus, pt. 3
Some jerkoff stole the Baby Jesus from a Nativity display on Independence Mall. No, I didn't do it.
I argue that the real problem in this situation is that the Nativity scene is on public property at all. But if someone nicked JC from the display as a protest, I don't see what they think they're going to achieve. Insofar as there is an atheist "cause," that cause isn't being advanced by vandalizing other people's religious pageants.
Atheists, of course, aren't a group in the vein of the Ancient Order of Hibernians of the Knights of Columbus, the two organizations behind the creche display. There is a secular movement which opposes this kind of tableau, and their effort to end the practice is the closest thing to a unified atheist cause. That cause is not served by publicly disprespecting sacred religious imagery, no matter how gag-inducing a blond-haired, blue-eyed Baby Jesus is to any intelligent person. That only encourages Catholics and other Christians rally around their curiously Aryan-looking Savior. If we believe in the First Amendment, we have to give these people the respect they deserve.
That respect consists of allowing them to observe their holidays unmolested on private property. This Christ heist makes the issue seem personal, which can only turn public opinion against the small, secular minority. We look petty. We look mean. We don't look like a mature and rational group of people with the Constitution on our side.
All of that having been said, there is precisely zero evidence that this vandalism was perpetrated by an angry atheist. It might have been an enraged Protestant evangelical on some kind of anti-Catholic jag. It could have been a Jew, angry about being libeled for all those centuries. It might have been a Republican- they wander the streets at night looking for mischief, you know. It could have been a junkie looking for something to sell to support his drug habit. Hell, maybe it was a stoner who thought it would be awesome to have an Aryan Jesus in his room. We have no way of knowing.
None of those is particularly likely, but how many atheists are there, really? If we were the majority, things would already be set up our way, wouldn't they?
I argue that the real problem in this situation is that the Nativity scene is on public property at all. But if someone nicked JC from the display as a protest, I don't see what they think they're going to achieve. Insofar as there is an atheist "cause," that cause isn't being advanced by vandalizing other people's religious pageants.
Atheists, of course, aren't a group in the vein of the Ancient Order of Hibernians of the Knights of Columbus, the two organizations behind the creche display. There is a secular movement which opposes this kind of tableau, and their effort to end the practice is the closest thing to a unified atheist cause. That cause is not served by publicly disprespecting sacred religious imagery, no matter how gag-inducing a blond-haired, blue-eyed Baby Jesus is to any intelligent person. That only encourages Catholics and other Christians rally around their curiously Aryan-looking Savior. If we believe in the First Amendment, we have to give these people the respect they deserve.
That respect consists of allowing them to observe their holidays unmolested on private property. This Christ heist makes the issue seem personal, which can only turn public opinion against the small, secular minority. We look petty. We look mean. We don't look like a mature and rational group of people with the Constitution on our side.
All of that having been said, there is precisely zero evidence that this vandalism was perpetrated by an angry atheist. It might have been an enraged Protestant evangelical on some kind of anti-Catholic jag. It could have been a Jew, angry about being libeled for all those centuries. It might have been a Republican- they wander the streets at night looking for mischief, you know. It could have been a junkie looking for something to sell to support his drug habit. Hell, maybe it was a stoner who thought it would be awesome to have an Aryan Jesus in his room. We have no way of knowing.
None of those is particularly likely, but how many atheists are there, really? If we were the majority, things would already be set up our way, wouldn't they?
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Here Comes Rock Bottom
When the Federal Reserve Bank's board of governors meets starting tomorrow, they will discuss what to do to stanch America's months-long financial hemorrhage. Since the federal funds rate, their primary policy tool, is sitting at one percent, come the end of next month they may need to find another way to try to ease credit. Analysts are predicting a half-point drop when this week's meeting ends Tuesday. That would put us within an lolcat's length of the Zero Lower Bound, which is what economists call the minimum possible nominal interest rate.
There's nothing the Fed could do to set nominal interest rates below zero. Once they've set the rate that low, we're in what's called a liquidity trap and need to find some other way to stimulate the economy. The Fed's other two policy tools are the discount rate and the required reserve rate. The former is the rate at which banks borrow money from the Fed, usually kept somewhat higher than the Fed funds rate to encourage banks to borrow from each other before coming to the Fed. The discount rate is at 1.25 percent right now, which doesn't leave a prodigious amount of room for easing.
The required reserve ratio is the fraction of a bank's deposits which must remain in its vaults rather than being lent out. When a bank has financial obligations to meet, it draws from its reserves until they drop to the required minimum level and then borrows from other banks or the Fed. The lower the reserve requirement, the less money in vaults and the more circulating in the economy. Since all of these policies rely on banks to increase lending and thereby boost investment and consumer spending, I have to be skeptical of what monetary policy is going to achieve. U.S. banks have already been handed the better part of $700 billion, to little or no benefit.
I have a feeling that what Fed chief Ben Bernanke is going to end up doing is going to Capitol Hill and calling for a fiscal stimulus. In 2004, Bernanke published the definitive paper on the liquidity trap in Japan in the 1990s (it's an enlightening read, I can assure you). He and his colleagues concluded that the Bank of Japan was not vigorous enough in its attempts to overcome Japan's slumping economy, so that after a number of years, BOJ's policy options had been exhausted but the recession had not ended. The Fed has shown unprecedented aggression in combating the current recession, but conditions will likely continue to worsen even with nominal interest rates at zero.
Paul Krugman and Robert Reich have both been calling for a major stimulus package in the form of spending on infrastructure and aid to state and local governments. Krugman in particular has declared that "prudence is folly," that is, caution will only mean a deeper and longer recession. This is a good opportunity to do a long list of things we have been neglecting and will probably reduce future deficits. Really, what have we got to lose at this point?
There's nothing the Fed could do to set nominal interest rates below zero. Once they've set the rate that low, we're in what's called a liquidity trap and need to find some other way to stimulate the economy. The Fed's other two policy tools are the discount rate and the required reserve rate. The former is the rate at which banks borrow money from the Fed, usually kept somewhat higher than the Fed funds rate to encourage banks to borrow from each other before coming to the Fed. The discount rate is at 1.25 percent right now, which doesn't leave a prodigious amount of room for easing.
The required reserve ratio is the fraction of a bank's deposits which must remain in its vaults rather than being lent out. When a bank has financial obligations to meet, it draws from its reserves until they drop to the required minimum level and then borrows from other banks or the Fed. The lower the reserve requirement, the less money in vaults and the more circulating in the economy. Since all of these policies rely on banks to increase lending and thereby boost investment and consumer spending, I have to be skeptical of what monetary policy is going to achieve. U.S. banks have already been handed the better part of $700 billion, to little or no benefit.
I have a feeling that what Fed chief Ben Bernanke is going to end up doing is going to Capitol Hill and calling for a fiscal stimulus. In 2004, Bernanke published the definitive paper on the liquidity trap in Japan in the 1990s (it's an enlightening read, I can assure you). He and his colleagues concluded that the Bank of Japan was not vigorous enough in its attempts to overcome Japan's slumping economy, so that after a number of years, BOJ's policy options had been exhausted but the recession had not ended. The Fed has shown unprecedented aggression in combating the current recession, but conditions will likely continue to worsen even with nominal interest rates at zero.
Paul Krugman and Robert Reich have both been calling for a major stimulus package in the form of spending on infrastructure and aid to state and local governments. Krugman in particular has declared that "prudence is folly," that is, caution will only mean a deeper and longer recession. This is a good opportunity to do a long list of things we have been neglecting and will probably reduce future deficits. Really, what have we got to lose at this point?
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Why I Hate the Baby Jesus, pt. 2
Eager not to disappoint, the Christian right has graced us with more cries of discrimination against the majority. Michael Reagan (son of Saint Ronnie) published an article on Friday whining about how the Evil Atheist Conspiracy is intimidating the poor, sad Christians out of their sacred birthday celebration.
Christians, 90% of the country in his reckoning, are being strangled by a wicked minority of bigots and haters. How dare businesses refuse to pay obeisance to our beliefs, he fumes. We're the majority! Our freedom of speech is being trampled!
I'm baffled to think of where Reagan learned what freedom of speech is. It has nothing to do with what others tell you. It has nothing to do with courtesy, and it doesn't entail a right not to be offended. The notion that businesses owe Christians a mention of their holiday is warped. If you're a cashier at a retail store, your responsibility is to ring up the goods customers bring you. They decide what they want to buy, you take their payment and give them a receipt. "Merry Christmas" doesn't show up in there. No "Hare Krishna," no "Assalam Alaikum," no "May the Force be With You." It has nothing to do with the transaction. Again, I'm astounded at how weak and defensive these people are in their faith. They need constant validation otherwise they think there's some kind of conspiracy against them.
Reagan concludes by calling for Christians to do some intimidation of their own, as if the concept was alien to them. The Religious Right has done nothing but intimidate people for the last 40 years. These people are bullies, and like all bullies they are whiny and pitifully insecure. Is that what Christmas is about? Intimidation? Is that what Jesus would do?
Christians, 90% of the country in his reckoning, are being strangled by a wicked minority of bigots and haters. How dare businesses refuse to pay obeisance to our beliefs, he fumes. We're the majority! Our freedom of speech is being trampled!
I'm baffled to think of where Reagan learned what freedom of speech is. It has nothing to do with what others tell you. It has nothing to do with courtesy, and it doesn't entail a right not to be offended. The notion that businesses owe Christians a mention of their holiday is warped. If you're a cashier at a retail store, your responsibility is to ring up the goods customers bring you. They decide what they want to buy, you take their payment and give them a receipt. "Merry Christmas" doesn't show up in there. No "Hare Krishna," no "Assalam Alaikum," no "May the Force be With You." It has nothing to do with the transaction. Again, I'm astounded at how weak and defensive these people are in their faith. They need constant validation otherwise they think there's some kind of conspiracy against them.
Reagan concludes by calling for Christians to do some intimidation of their own, as if the concept was alien to them. The Religious Right has done nothing but intimidate people for the last 40 years. These people are bullies, and like all bullies they are whiny and pitifully insecure. Is that what Christmas is about? Intimidation? Is that what Jesus would do?
Monday, December 8, 2008
Why I Hate the Baby Jesus, pt. 1
It's that time again, folks. The calendar has rolled its way past Thanksgiving, that quintessentially American holiday, with the heaviest driving day of the year, a day of compulsory gluttony, and a rabid festival of consumerism coming one after the another, and on toward the happiest season of all: the War on Christmas.
There's a lot to be learned from how we as a country handle Thanksgiving, but for my money the supposed secularist effort to banish the Baby Jesus and the Christian reaction to same constitute the most insipid display in the tawdry pageant that is American public life. In recent years secularists have mounted efforts to remove references to God and other religious symbols from government property, and religious conservatives have reacted with cries of discrimination. The secularist argument is that setting up nativity scenes outside town halls, displaying the Ten Commandments in courthouses, and printing "In God We Trust" on our money all constitute endorsement of the Christian religion by the government in violation of the First Amendment. Conservatives assert that there is a strong tradition of public endorsement of religion in this country and that barring such displays violates their right to free speech.
That argument is incoherent. How does a lack of state endorsement impinge on a private citizen's freedom of belief? Does their brand of Christianity depend on affirmation from the state? Where is that in the bible? These folks can set up their creches on private property, no questions asked.
If these folks need Uncle Sam's stamp of approval on their beliefs, theirs is a very weak faith indeed. In part the First Amendment is intended to prevent churches from becoming dependent on the state. City hall doesn't force these people to wave the flag in their church or say the national anthem. They can't even force people to do those things in public, at least not since 1943. That's what it's all about: the state doesn't meddle with your beliefs, and it doesn't use its resources to promote your beliefs over anybody else's.
I have no problem with Christians doing their Christmas thing in their churches or their homes. More power to them. I don't even have a problem with public space being rented or otherwise reserved for Christmas-related functions. As long as any other group has the same opportunity to use the space for their purposes, public places are fair game. But we have to draw the line at the government itself setting up Christian imagery and overseeing specifically religious observances. That's just not what the government does.
There's a lot to be learned from how we as a country handle Thanksgiving, but for my money the supposed secularist effort to banish the Baby Jesus and the Christian reaction to same constitute the most insipid display in the tawdry pageant that is American public life. In recent years secularists have mounted efforts to remove references to God and other religious symbols from government property, and religious conservatives have reacted with cries of discrimination. The secularist argument is that setting up nativity scenes outside town halls, displaying the Ten Commandments in courthouses, and printing "In God We Trust" on our money all constitute endorsement of the Christian religion by the government in violation of the First Amendment. Conservatives assert that there is a strong tradition of public endorsement of religion in this country and that barring such displays violates their right to free speech.
That argument is incoherent. How does a lack of state endorsement impinge on a private citizen's freedom of belief? Does their brand of Christianity depend on affirmation from the state? Where is that in the bible? These folks can set up their creches on private property, no questions asked.
If these folks need Uncle Sam's stamp of approval on their beliefs, theirs is a very weak faith indeed. In part the First Amendment is intended to prevent churches from becoming dependent on the state. City hall doesn't force these people to wave the flag in their church or say the national anthem. They can't even force people to do those things in public, at least not since 1943. That's what it's all about: the state doesn't meddle with your beliefs, and it doesn't use its resources to promote your beliefs over anybody else's.
I have no problem with Christians doing their Christmas thing in their churches or their homes. More power to them. I don't even have a problem with public space being rented or otherwise reserved for Christmas-related functions. As long as any other group has the same opportunity to use the space for their purposes, public places are fair game. But we have to draw the line at the government itself setting up Christian imagery and overseeing specifically religious observances. That's just not what the government does.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Semester's Over (If You Want It)
Since the semester is over, I'm going to have a bunch of time on my hands. So I'm going to start blogging again. Hooray.
Yesterday I borrowed Paul Krugman's latest book, The Conscience of a Liberal, from the library. I anticipate that the book is going to be pretty similar to Supercapitalism by Robert Reich. The thesis is that America's postwar consensus on political and economic issues was what made the last century the American Century and that the radical right must be stopped from dismantling the social safety net of the New Deal.
The book's title is a reference to Barry Goldwater's 1960 The Conscience of a Conservative, which galvanized movement conservatism in the United States. Krugman is taking aim primarily at that movement, so he wants his book to serve as a foil to Goldwater's.
Krugman spends the first two chapters laying out parallels between the last 40 years and the Gilded Age, which is by no means a novel comparison. I think it holds up well, though. Krugman points out that the groups that would later become FDR's New Deal coalition were divided along racial and geographical lines during the Gilded Age, and that conservatives are working to do the same thing today. Conscience was published before Sarah Palin came onto the scene and started throwing around the "real America" meme, but she was far from the first to latch onto that wedge rhetoric. It's been a favorite right-wing trope for years.
The author is a stalwart Keynesian, and he has recently been arguing that the government's response to the current economic slump should be an aggressive fiscal stimulus. I anticipate that the book will have lots of nice things about Roosevelt and the New Deal. Since I'm a huge nerd, I hope it gets pretty wonkish. Check back here for my take on the rest of the book.
Yesterday I borrowed Paul Krugman's latest book, The Conscience of a Liberal, from the library. I anticipate that the book is going to be pretty similar to Supercapitalism by Robert Reich. The thesis is that America's postwar consensus on political and economic issues was what made the last century the American Century and that the radical right must be stopped from dismantling the social safety net of the New Deal.
The book's title is a reference to Barry Goldwater's 1960 The Conscience of a Conservative, which galvanized movement conservatism in the United States. Krugman is taking aim primarily at that movement, so he wants his book to serve as a foil to Goldwater's.
Krugman spends the first two chapters laying out parallels between the last 40 years and the Gilded Age, which is by no means a novel comparison. I think it holds up well, though. Krugman points out that the groups that would later become FDR's New Deal coalition were divided along racial and geographical lines during the Gilded Age, and that conservatives are working to do the same thing today. Conscience was published before Sarah Palin came onto the scene and started throwing around the "real America" meme, but she was far from the first to latch onto that wedge rhetoric. It's been a favorite right-wing trope for years.
The author is a stalwart Keynesian, and he has recently been arguing that the government's response to the current economic slump should be an aggressive fiscal stimulus. I anticipate that the book will have lots of nice things about Roosevelt and the New Deal. Since I'm a huge nerd, I hope it gets pretty wonkish. Check back here for my take on the rest of the book.
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