It's during Christmas that political correctness becomes almost comical in its attempt to avoid offending someone. Certain things, like the Christmas Parade being referred to as the Holiday Parade, are relatively minor. In fact, the word “holiday” is a contraction of “holy day,” so those who use “Happy Holidays” as a secular alternative to “Merry Christmas” may want to consider that there's nothing secular about the term.
Santa Claus and a creche with the baby Jesus still adorn the Falmouth Village Green. However, at the other end of Falmouth's commercial center, the Teaticket Village Green sports red, white and blue lights as a secular celebration of the holidays – an oxymoron if there ever was one.
And how can we forget that the day after Thanksgiving (a.k.a. “Black Friday”) is when most retailers are finally making money? After 11 months of sales, their year hinges upon how much people buy during December.
Why December? Christmas.
Depending upon whom you ask, the tradition of giving gifts either started with the three kings who gave gold, frankincense and myrrh to the baby Jesus, or with Saint Nicholas, the third century bishop who secretly gave gifts to the poor. Either way, there's a religious significance to this practice which keeps many a retailer in business.
Some try to treat Christmas as a secular holiday by focusing on Santa Claus, the modern icon of gift giving. However, Santa Claus is based on Saint Nicholas, and the word “Christmas” is itself a contraction of “Christ's mass.” Even the apparently secular “Xmas” is has its roots in the Greek letter Chi – the first letter of the word “Christ” when written in Greek – which resembles our own letter “X.”
No matter how you look at it, we cannot avoid the roots of Christmas: a religious celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ.
The idea that wishing someone a “Merry Christmas” is offensive is perhaps the most irritating aspect of all. How is wishing someone well on a holy day offensive? Would “Bah! Humbug!” be less offensive? I doubt it.
Frankly, I'd be offended if people refrained from wishing me well on their holiday (Christmas or otherwise) for fear of offending me. Indeed, if people took offense to me wishing them well on my holiday, I'd be offended by their indignation. So, a Merry Christmas to you, Falmouth, and a Happy New Year!
No offense intended.
(This post also appeared as a guest commentary in the Thursday, December 20, 2007 edition of the Falmouth Bulletin.)
3 comments:
"Feeling offended" has become an art form and has it's roots in discrimination statutes that give politically established victimization roles to classes rather than individuals. Belonging to the class is enough to create the aura of victimization/discrimination/offended.
DCH
Your perspective reminds me of the class action suit. In theory it sounds good, but I've received information telling me that I was party (one of the victims of something or another) to such suits several times and I've had no idea! Was I really victimized, or did some lawyer just want to line their pockets?
Class action lawsuits are substantially different in that they are difficult to prove under civil law standards.
Discrimination statutes are usually enforced by administrative law standards and seldom rise to the level of civil law challenges with the attendant rights to depositions.
Fire, police departments and the military have chosen to buckle and have altered physical standards of the qualification process because of presumption of discrimination rather than the reality of women not being able to pass the stringent physical requirements.
Political correctness at the expense of public safety and/or military standards.
DCH
Post a Comment