holidayss

Ahoy- I've been writing a lot lately, but not neccesarily for this blog. Here's a post I wrote a few days ago

I’ve noticed a negative reaction to the Thanksgiving holiday from several of my friends in activist-y circles, regarding it as merely a celebration of an imperial past, dressed up in plastic turkey. I think its important to consider the substance of what people are doing with their time and why during the holiday. The most important feature of the ideological meaning of holidays is a division between the normal and the celebratory. Taking time off (from what?) acknowledges a difference between the good and the necessary. Holidays work as an opportunity as much as command, the chance to embrace non-work. In many ways, the time-crunch blackmail of capitalism necessitates holidays, but it also shapes what we do on days off from working. The individually driven culture of capitalism and accumulation acts as its own stress, and the fallback onto established and strong (socially sanctioned) social networks. Symbols create community – the use of the established terms for holidays – Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc. – use these tools as pragmatic means for creating connection moreso than as deeper political statements. Popular culture supports this idea – the most pathetic, heart wrenching moments in dramatic movies about Christmas in particular, are those where people spend holidays alone. Scrooge is the quintessential holiday villain, someone who takes time alone, who doesn’t celebrate the connections he has with people around him. The public and private enter each other at holidays, where people embrace their private space as a counterweight to their public face. The significance of any given holiday, attached to a date, concerns the need to control the means by which people create holidays. Imagine if we could celebrate any number of holidays, which we created in our own minds. The use of an authoritative historical narrative connected to a day in particular limits the number and character of holidays, which otherwise could exist at any point and time.

Duncan