Merry Materialism
The debate surrounding the commercialization of the Christmas holiday is a study in apparent contradictions. Since Christian scripture (and the Hebrew scripture piggybacked onto it in the Bible) espouses the value of a lifestyle that de-emphasizes the importance of material things, it's a little odd that in a country where many people who practice this scripture, there is a massive spike in consumer spending while people are preparing to celebrate its largest holiday. That there is a causal relationship here, I think few people would argue.
But, Christian scripture also says that all human beings are flawed. If you accept this stance, you'd expect there always to be an element of greed that will prevail in different segments of the population. Therefore, commercialization of anything should be expected as an emergent property of any system composed of many people.
This leads us to a more interesting train of thought: if commercialization can be seen as inevitable in these cases, then we should not judge the system because it has been commercialized, but judge it based on the merits of what it represents. In the case of Christmas, it helps to remember that people are usually not buying gifts for themselves. The baseline consumer spending level for spending on self is, presumably, represented in the lower levels of spending in the early months of the year. We see the spike only when we get to a holiday where we are encouraged to think of people other than ourselves.
Hypothetically, I have no problem with going to my neighbor, who produces coffee mugs, spending my money on one, and giving it to another friend of mine who needs a coffee mug. In its purest form, I don't see any part of this process where anyone loses. At scale, however, there are economic drawbacks that emerge. If Marx was right, then as the system grows, the man selling me the mug will eventually diverge from the man who is making the mug, and the seller will exploit the maker to profit from our transaction.
Perhaps it is a subtle variant of the Golden Rule that should guide us. For example, imagine that one day I decide for myself that there is no true comfort in any material things whatsoever. (For the record, I have not actually learned this lesson for myself yet.) The Golden Rule would lead me to stop giving material things to others as gifts, since I probably don't want to receive them from others myself. Even this fails the true Golden standard: we should do unto others as they wish to be done to. A better rephrasing might be: "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you if you were them."
In this case, it's not my place to insist that everyone else around me abandon material things. Even if I have abandoned non-essential luxury goods in my own life, I can still appreciate that many people around me will get joy from things that I give them as gifts. It stands to reason that some portion of consumer spending around the holidays is from people who give gifts to others, with consideration for the desires of the recipients, while having little or no desire to receive gifts themselves.
So, that Christmas has been commercialized is relatively clear. How it reflects on the character and ethics of the population of our country as a whole, however, is a much more difficult question to pinpoint.
But, Christian scripture also says that all human beings are flawed. If you accept this stance, you'd expect there always to be an element of greed that will prevail in different segments of the population. Therefore, commercialization of anything should be expected as an emergent property of any system composed of many people.
This leads us to a more interesting train of thought: if commercialization can be seen as inevitable in these cases, then we should not judge the system because it has been commercialized, but judge it based on the merits of what it represents. In the case of Christmas, it helps to remember that people are usually not buying gifts for themselves. The baseline consumer spending level for spending on self is, presumably, represented in the lower levels of spending in the early months of the year. We see the spike only when we get to a holiday where we are encouraged to think of people other than ourselves.
Hypothetically, I have no problem with going to my neighbor, who produces coffee mugs, spending my money on one, and giving it to another friend of mine who needs a coffee mug. In its purest form, I don't see any part of this process where anyone loses. At scale, however, there are economic drawbacks that emerge. If Marx was right, then as the system grows, the man selling me the mug will eventually diverge from the man who is making the mug, and the seller will exploit the maker to profit from our transaction.
Perhaps it is a subtle variant of the Golden Rule that should guide us. For example, imagine that one day I decide for myself that there is no true comfort in any material things whatsoever. (For the record, I have not actually learned this lesson for myself yet.) The Golden Rule would lead me to stop giving material things to others as gifts, since I probably don't want to receive them from others myself. Even this fails the true Golden standard: we should do unto others as they wish to be done to. A better rephrasing might be: "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you if you were them."
In this case, it's not my place to insist that everyone else around me abandon material things. Even if I have abandoned non-essential luxury goods in my own life, I can still appreciate that many people around me will get joy from things that I give them as gifts. It stands to reason that some portion of consumer spending around the holidays is from people who give gifts to others, with consideration for the desires of the recipients, while having little or no desire to receive gifts themselves.
So, that Christmas has been commercialized is relatively clear. How it reflects on the character and ethics of the population of our country as a whole, however, is a much more difficult question to pinpoint.