On the Other Hand

[arisbe]

"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."

Comments

[jewelweed.livejournal.com]

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.

Just a tad!

[arisbe.livejournal.com]

I sure hope there are no ancient Babylonians reading this.

Re: Just a tad!

[caitlin2.livejournal.com]

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.

Re: Just a tad!

[arisbe.livejournal.com]

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.