Capitalism,
with all its evil and all its ills, has had one definitely positive
affect on American society: to rid our pagan holidays of religious
contamination. Neither morality nor meaning matter in the eyes of
capitalism – the only thing that matters is making more money. For
example: capitalism has freed the ancient holiday of goddess Eostre
from the clutches
of biblical oppression. As a holiday that once celebrated that
goddess who makes women fertile (and the land grow green again), the
festival we now know as Easter was high-jacked
by religious forces and
co-opted for their own narrow uses. In the last half century,
however, the ever-grasping paws of capitalistic greed have freed
Easter from the Shackles of Scripture, so that we once again
celebrate lustful procreation (symbolized by the rabbit) and the
return of the teeming things (symbolized by daffodils and other such
flowers).
Similarly,
the holiday of the winter solstice, an occasion that has been marked
throughout the centuries with lights mounted on pine trees.
This holiday was taken hostage by the forces of Christianity, forces
that bastardized the logical marking of the passage of time and tied
it to the fictitious birth of a fictitious god in a land far removed
in time and space. The passing of the winter solstice was only
recently liberated by the uncaring hand of capitalism – an emphasis
on Santa Claus and the profuse giving of gifts has replaced,
thankfully, the (biblically) unspecified day upon which a young lady
gave birth, in a (biblically) unspecified structure, in an
(biblically) unspecified place, to a male child. (The story of Jesus
is a precise retelling of the story of Horus,
an Egyptian god born of a virgin who died only to arise from death after
three days.) Now, instead of worshiping some stagnant and foreign
godhead, during the darkest days of winter we celebrate the
coming-together of loved-ones, and shower them with presents as a
sign of our affection. Gone are the days of the churchly mandate –
capitalism has finally, and for good, removed Christ from Christmas.
And,
most importantly (to me, at least), the uncaring and voracious greed
of capitalism has removed any shred of religiosity from the
delightfully pagan holiday of Halloween. What started as a heathen
ritual to mark the beginning of winter
was commandeered by Christian forces, who turned it into All Saint's
Day, on which day only the dead of that religion were praised (in
effigy). After centuries of suffering under the cruel, stifling
blanket of this biblical slavery, Halloween has been dragged from its
prison by the ever-hungry maw of monster-capitalism. Gone are the
days when Americans celebrated the Christian dead – arrived are the
days when we Americans celebrate inventiveness and the ability to
take a good scaring, when we shower upon the children of the land
many sweet gifts, when we might, for one short night, become someone
other than our boring normal selves. (The proliferation
of Halloween as a national holiday
was made possible by profit-hungry corporations that recognized in it
a way to sell cheap, Chinese-made costumes.)
While
I generally abhor capitalism for its tendency to make only a small
portion of the American people rich, I celebrate it now for freeing
our shared and common history from the clutches of religious
oppression. We can ill afford to live according to the rules of a
lost tribe of desert people, so it is fitting that the forces of our
chosen economic model are wiping our history clean of religious
contamination.
The
next time you are carving up a lamb on Easter, remember horny old
Eostre, and give your spouse a long, lingering kiss. When you find
yourself stringing lights on a tree, remember to go outside and enjoy
the longest night of the year. As you are putting the finishing
touches on an elaborate and dazzling costume, remember that its job
is to scare away the sickness-bringing forces of the impending long
cold darkness. Thanks to the religious impartiality of our
capitalistic system, you can enjoy these events without being forced
to fear the wrath of some jealous, vengeful godhead.
America
is not a Christian nation, nor was it in any way founded upon the Christian faith. Neither easter nor the winter
solstice were originally Christian holidays – these pagan rituals
were commandeered in order to facilitate the spread of one set of
religious teachings. Just how non-Christian is America? We honor the
Roman god Saturn on Saturday. On Wednesday, we remember the Norse god
Wotan, and on Thursday, his son-brother Thor. In the harbor of New
York there stands a large statue of the Roman goddess Libertas (whom
we call Lady Liberty), a goddess who holds in one hand the Torch of
Progress, in the other a representation of our most treasured of
documents, the Declaration of Independence.
Everywhere
in this great land we witness the chaotic jumble of different faiths
and systems of belief, all tumbling together and jostling to retain
the slightest shred of relevancy. May the uncaring grasp of our
institutionalized greed continue to keep American society free of
religious one-mindedness! Thank you, lustful and rapacious
Capitalism, you old sport, for doing you part to keep America
jumbled, confused, and oppression-free.
Spes Mea In Ratio Est - 場黑麥
John
Paul Roggenkamp
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