Am vrut să scriu ceva despre consumerismul care deturnează Crăciunul, despre abundenţa ambalată în neliniște, despre cum ajungem să stăm mai mult la mall decât pe-acasă zilele astea.
Documentându-mă pentru articol, am fost curios să văd ce părere avea C.S. Lewis despre Crăciun, şi când am terminat de citit mi-am dat seama că orice aş fi scris ar fi fost în plus. Dacă vă simţiţi un pic copleşiţi de toate lucrurile care “trebuie” făcute în perioada asta, luaţi-vă un răgaz şi ascultaţi/citiţi scurtul eseu al lui Lewis.
Three things go by the name of Christmas. One is a religious festival. This is important and obligatory for Christians; but as it can be of no interest to anyone else, I shall naturally say no more about it here. The second (it has complex historical connections with the first, but we needn’t go into them) is a popular holiday, an occasion for merry-making and hospitality. If it were my business too have a ‘view’ on this, I should say that I much approve of merry-making. But what I approve of much more is everybody minding his own business. I see no reason why I should volunteer views as to how other people should spend their own money in their own leisure among their own friends. It is highly probable that they want my advice on such matters as little as I want theirs. But the third thing called Christmas is unfortunately everyone’s business.
I mean of course the commercial racket. The interchange of presents was a very small ingredient in the older English festivity. Mr. Pickwick took a cod with him to Dingley Dell; the reformed Scrooge ordered a turkey for his clerk; lovers sent love gifts; toys and fruit were given to children. But the idea that not only all friends but even all acquaintances should give one another presents, or at least send one another cards, is quite modern and has been forced upon us by the shopkeepers. Neither of these circumstances is in itself a reason for condemning it. I condemn it on the following grounds.
1. It gives on the whole much more pain than pleasure. You have only to stay over Christmas with a family who seriously try to ‘keep’ it (in its third, or commercial, aspect) in order to see that the thing is a nightmare. Long before December 25th everyone is worn out — physically worn out by weeks of daily struggle in overcrowded shops, mentally worn out by the effort to remember all the right recipients and to think out suitable gifts for them. They are in no trim for merry-making; much less (if they should want to) to take part in a religious act. They look far more as if there had been a long illness in the house.
2. Most of it is involuntary. The modern rule is that anyone can force you to give him a present by sending you a quite unprovoked present of his own. It is almost a blackmail. Who has not heard the wail of despair, and indeed of resentment, when, at the last moment, just as everyone hoped that the nuisance was over for one more year, the unwanted gift from Mrs. Busy (whom we hardly remember) flops unwelcomed through the letter-box, and back to the dreadful shops one of us has to go?
3. Things are given as presents which no mortal every bought for himself — gaudy and useless gadgets, ‘novelties’ because no one was ever fool enough to make their like before. Have we really no better use for materials and for human skill and time than to spend them on all this rubbish?
4. The nuisance. for after all, during the racket we still have all our ordinary and necessary shopping to do, and the racket trebles the labour of it.
We are told that the whole dreary business must go on because it is good for trade. It is in fact merely one annual symptom of that lunatic condition of our country, and indeed of the world, in which everyone lives by persuading everyone else to buy things. I don’t know the way out. But can it really be my duty to buy and receive masses of junk every winter just to help the shopkeepers? If the worst comes to the worst I’d sooner give them money for nothing and write if off as a charity. For nothing? Why, better for nothing than for a nuisance.
C. S. Lewis, What Christmas means to me… din cartea God in the dock – Essays on theology and ethics.
Sursa foto: Paul Stevenson
“For nothing? Why, better for nothing than for a nuisance.”
Nu sunt de acord cu punctele 2 si 3.Pentru mine Craciunul ramane ceva deosebit,e cam singura perioada a anului cand imi pot intalni toata familia.
spot on! in capitalism Craciunul nu inseamna absolut nimic dpdv spiritual, e de-a dreptul deprimant sa vezi cum se calca toti in picioare sa cumpere la “reducerile” de Craciun (care nu prea sunt reduceri, au doar un semn mare cu -80% pe el:)) .. totul s-a denaturat, anormalul a ajuns normal, minciuna – adevar, grotescul – frumos si lumea – imbecila.. but hey – nu avem nevoie sa gandim, we have entertainment!
Pai Lewis nu critica felul in care oamenii isi petrec timpul, chiar spune ca e de acord cu partea de merry-making and hospitality, mai degraba cum isi cheltuie banii de Craciun.
Vezi agendele, calendarele pixurile si cosurile care se plimba zilele astea de la o firma la alta mai mult de nevoie, decat de voie.
Nu stiu daca capitalismu-i de vina, si chiar daca alergatura dupa cadouri nu exista, n-am auzit prea multi oameni care sa regrete Craciunurile comuniste.
Adevarul, frumosul, spiritualul sunt lucruri pe care le gasesti daca stii unde sa le cauti. Oameni buni, carti bune, muzica buna nu abunda dar nici nu-s pe cale de disparitie. Cam cum a fost dintotdeauna banuiesc.
Dar avem tendinta asta sa credem ca… dupa noi potopul. Vorbeam recent cu un taximetrist care ii compatimea pe copiii de acum care cresc cu Playstation-uri si ma gandeam ca la fel o fi fost si el compatimit de bunicii lui.
1. O fi, dar isteria asta achizitiva numai abundenta o genereaza. Capitalismul vine la pachet cu alte ispite decit colectivismul pauperizant.
2. Oameni si carti bune da, dar muzica (larg numita “populara”) n-a fost niciodata mai abysmally shallow ca azi.
3.Daca taximetristul se gindea la faptul ca Playstationul este preferat de copiii de azi miscarii in aer liber (si asa cred ca era), argumentul lui este valabil in orice epoca. Astazi, aparitia virtualului arunca in aer orice posibila comparatie intre epoci, virste, generatii (discutia e infinita). Nu ne putem legana consolator in argumentul “parintii/bunicii niciodata nu si-au inteles copiiii/nepotii, asa a fost si cu 1/2/10 generatii in urma”. N-a fost. Iar consensul nostru de azi cu privire la starea de lucruri nu demonstreaza decit ca eventual, ne inselam in masa, nu ca am avea “dreptate” si ca istoria isi consuma cursul normal de la o generatie la alta. As spune doar ca dilutia a tot ce-i calitate continua de la o generatie la alta. Vorba lui Dr. House, lucrurile doar se schimba, nu inseamna ca sunt mai bune.