arisbe | On the Other Hand

On the Other Hand

"Many Americans make Thanksgiving into a religious festival. They agree with Lincoln, who, upon declaring Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863, said that "we have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven." They ascribe our material abundance to God's efforts, not man's.
" That view is a slap in the face of any person who has worked an honest day in his life."

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Thanksgiving is a uniquely American holiday, because this country was the first to create and to value material abundance.

I think the author is just a tad off in that sentence.

I sure hope there are no ancient Babylonians reading this.

By saying America was the first to value material abundance, I think they are meaning what Catholics refer to as Economism, what some would call Nihilism. They are still wrong. The American attitude to wealth comes from England, and to England it came from Holland.

Well in any case it sounds pejorative. But when the hard-working farmer pauses to enjoy the harvest he has coaxed from the stony ground, he is taking proper satisfaction. When the Objectivists, Nathaniel Branden in particular, talk about self esteem, this is what they mean, and it is not at all the same as vulgar materialism. We save that for Christmas.

Consider the source. Rationalism's biggest wet blankets, the Objectivists - of course they will deny anything to do with a deity - it's a central tenet to their belief. I didn't even notice the header til I was done reading.
Giving thanks to a creator if one believes in Him/Her/It/Whatever isn't denying the work that happensby human hands, but is acknowledgement in the belief that everything, including those very hands, were created in a way that could produce these things. One who denies a creator outright necessarily doesn't think this is so. That's their right, and fine, but it really looks like going out of one's way to find something to whine about. One of my favorite personal sayings: "You don't have to be religious to be a fundamentalist."

I turn to the Objectivists for a bracing corrective to my -- our -- habitual ways of thinking.

Their fundamentalism bothers me less than the Christian kind because it is not such a personal embarassment.

Sorry to be blunt, but I think this is just utter twaddle. It doesn't increase my respect for "Objectivists" one iota.

If the only one(s) to whom we can "give thanks" on "Thanksgiving" are our own iron-willed, free-marketed, steel-producing selves, then why even call it that? Why not call it "Capitalism Day" or something?...and then why take the day off work?

The author was just as blunt, and I chose his bluntest sentence to tease you to click.

As someone else pointed out, Capitalism Day is still called Christmas. Personally it pleases me to put off the major religious celebration until Theophany a week later.

As a (sort of) Catholic, I resonate to the Pope's call to be co-creators, and at least the Objectivists have a sense of the enormous dignity of human thought and effort, the fruits of which this holiday celebrates.

Ooo, you touched a hot button. I myself could stand to make the whole of my Christmas celebration with Midnight Mass and the feast days that follow. The commercial aspect does not interest me at all. I am particularly irritated with the American convention of insisting on having parties right smack in the middle of Advent. One day, when I'm bolder, I'll refuse to attend them all.

Your thoughts are so wonderful to read. The article was a bit of hooey, but I understand it's motives and it is certainly prompted some good responses.

arisbe wrote: "As someone else pointed out, Capitalism Day is still called Christmas. Personally it pleases me to put off the major religious celebration until Theophany a week later."
That's pretty cool. Coming from a multi-religion family (Mormon, Roman Cath., Byz. Cath.) Christmas takes on a sort of generic-ness that I find at times upsetting. I like to exchange a gift on the feast of St. Nicholas.

prestor_scott wrote: "The commercial aspect does not interest me at all."
Nor I. It is, however, a custom of my family to return hospitality with hospitality and be gracious in kind. So, if I know someone will be giving me a gift, I will reciprocate in kind.

I would like different traditions in the family I will help guide. However, it will be a challenge to live in this culture but not be of it.

at least the Objectivists have a sense of the enormous dignity of human thought and effort

Well, yeah, but only in the sense that someone with toothache has a sense of the enormous dignity and importance of dentistry.

dont feel it as a slap...
perhaps because I never worked an
honest day in my life?
a lot of nonsense is written perhaps by
people who like in the Rilke quote, which
can be all of us some ways, are on the
edges of life not having accepted its
dreadfulness or majesty, also about
colonialism in new world etc from another
point of view.
I am thinking it is the one, and this perhaps
justifies bringing back that half remmebered
quote, who has accepted the world who is
able to know Thanksgiving and, if he will of
course, Eucharist...
Could that acceptance be called "objectivism"?
or the term is patented I guess.
+Seraphim.

But I'm a bit of a slacker myself!

Well, I have given two points of view, a Calvinist, and -- a materialist, I almost said, but that is inaccurate. Both are well expressed, and each has a part of the truth.

more to the point I wish you and
your family a wonderful day!
+S.

Many, many thanks!

By the way, I think the Randians have a point, that it is a very good thing to celebrate our own creativity and productivity and what they have created and produced. If they can't see that as a gift of God, even as a participation in the divine action, maybe we believers have given them an all too poor conception of God.

I started reading that, not paying any attention to what page was hosting it, got about halfway through the first aparagraph, and was like "Did a Randroid write this?" and sure enough.

Those guys live in a weird little world. I mean, consider this line:

If only that were to happen—we would have an Atlantis.

I think Gary there has forgotten what happened to Atlantis.

I fall into the camp that our harvest is the product of human efforts...and non-human forces. However it comes into being, I am grateful. And I wish you a very happy Thanksgiving. I hope you are enjoying good health.

I all I had to give thanks to was myself, then I wouldn't, because, obviously, I haven't done a good enough job!

To take satisfaction in the fruits of our labor is to give implicit thanks to the power that gives strength to our arms, though we might be grossly ignorant of the wider implications.

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On the Other Hand

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Just a tad!

Re: Just a tad!

Re: Just a tad!

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Amen

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Don't be sorry

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dont feel it

I don't either

more to the point

Re: more to the point

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Bounteous Harvest

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