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The unbearable kitschness of Christmas

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THE CATHOLIC LEAGUE of America was up in arms in 2002 about an exhibition in Napa, California, which included the “caganer”, a traditional Catalan figurine who is placed squatting in the corner of the Christmas crib, trousers around his ankles.

Perhaps predictably, the Catholic League was offended by the presence of a defecating peasant in the holy stable. What it didn’t appreciate, however, is that the Christmas story is supposed to be offensive, and that the caganer is a reminder of the theological revolution that scandalized sophisticated opinion of the first few centuries of the Christian era: that God became human, that the sacred was no longer to be protected from the profane.

In his great masterpiece, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Czech novelist Milan Kundera develops an innovative moral vocabulary around the notion of kitsch. Kitsch, he argues, isn’t primarily about bad taste or the vulgarities of popular devotional images: kitsch is “the absolute denial of shit”. Kitsch is that vision of the world in which nothing unwholesome or indecent is allowed to come into view. It’s the aesthetics of wanting to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony. Kitsch excludes shit in order to paint a picture of perfection, a world of purity and moral decency.

THE PROBLEM WITH KITSCH is not readily apparent because (by definition) the treatment of what is considered unwholesome takes place off stage. Think of those Nazi propaganda films of beautiful, healthy children skiing down the Bavarian Alps. Nothing wrong with that, is there? Of course there is. For this is a world that has been purified, where everything nasty or troubling has been eliminated. The logical conclusion of kitsch, argues Kundera, is the ghetto and the concentration camp – the means by which totalitarian regimes dispose of their shit, variously construed.

Opening the infamous exhibition of degenerate art in the summer of 1937, Hitler gave notice that “from now on in we will wage a war of purification against the last elements of putrefaction in our culture”. Kitsch turns out to be motivation to cleanse the world of pollution. It is the aesthetics of ethnic cleansing.

Kundera himself thinks theology to be the ultimate source of kitsch. He recounts how as a child an aimless thought experiment led him from God having a mouth to God having intestines – the implications of which struck the young Kundera as sacrilegious. This instant and visceral reaction against the association of the divine with the messiness of the human helps us appreciate something of the hostility of many early thinkers to the idea of the incarnation. God and the messiness of the world must be kept at the maximum possible distance. But what then of God become human? What of the word become flesh?

Even many who felt the attraction of the Christian story believed this was going too far. Convoluted ways were sought to mitigate the offence. Christ was not really human or Christ was not really divine. Others created a firewall between the sacred and the profane within the person of Jesus himself. For the second century Gnostic, Valentinius, Jesus “ate and drank but did not defecate”.

The Jesus of Valentinius is thus the kitsch Jesus. And it’s this same kitsch Jesus of sentimental benevolence that features in countless Christmas cards and community carol services. The baby in the manger now presides over a celebration of feel-good bonhomie that makes the true meaning of Christmas almost impossible to articulate. Boozed-up partygoers and proud grandparents demand the unreality of “O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie”. Elsewhere Kundera writes of kitsch as “the need to gaze into the mirror and be moved to tears of gratification at one’s own reflection”. And it’s this gratifying reflection that many want to see when they gaze into the Christmas crib. Christmas has become unbearably self-satisfied.

THE CAGANER IS A REMINDER of another Jesus and another story. From the perspective of official Christian doctrine, the story of Christmas is a full-scale attack upon the notion of kitsch. Valentinius’s theology is declared heretical precisely because it denies the full reality of the incarnation. For Valentinius, Jesus only seemed human. “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see”, as the equally heretical carol puts it. Orthodoxy turns out to be vastly more radical, not because it provides a way of squaring the circle of a God-man, but because it refuses to separate the divine from material reality. God is born in a stable. The divine is re-imagined, not as existing in some pristine isolation, but among the shittiness of the world.

The temptation to disassociate the divine from material reality marks the beginnings of kitsch. For, once unhitched from the divine, the complexity of the world can be too easily by-passed and ignored. The orthodox formulation of the incarnation allows no way of avoiding politics, food, sex or money. Nor, as the Christian story of God goes on to make horribly clear, does it offer a way of avoiding suffering and death.

The problem isn’t that Christmas has become too materialistic – but rather that it isn’t materialistic enough. Kitsch Christmas is another way of uncoupling the divine from the material, thus spiritualizing God into incapacity. I am not being a killjoy attacking the kitsch version of Christmas. Three years ago, my wife gave birth to a baby boy. The labour ward was no place to be coy about the human body and all its functions. The talcum-powdered unreality of kitsch childbirth cannot compare with the exhaustion, pain and joy of the real thing.

But perhaps the most important corruption of Christmas kitsch is how it shapes our understanding of peace. This is the season where the word “peace” is ubiquitous. Written out in fancy calligraphy everywhere, “peace and good will to all” is the subscript of the season. It’s the peace of the sleeping child, peace as in “peace and quiet”, peace as a certain sort of mood. But this is not what they need in Bethlehem today. They need peace as in people not killing each other.

This sort of peace requires a stubborn engagement with the brute facts of oppression and violence – which is the very reality that the kitsch peace of Christmas wants to take us on holiday away from. How ironic: we don’t want the shittiness of the world pushed at us during this season of peace. This, then, is the debilitating consequence of kitsch. Kitsch peace is the unspoken desire that war takes place out of sight and mind – it’s the absolute denial of shit. Political leaders who are preparing for yet more fighting will be happy to oblige. Christmas has become a cultural danger to us all, not just a danger to orthodox Christianity.

Rev. Dr Giles Fraser is the vicar of Putney and lecturer in philosophy at Wadham College, Oxford. This article was first published on Ship of Fools in 2002.

Hmmm

I think I should be DEPRESSED

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I was at a MCC Supportive Care workshop where the keynote speaker was Dr. Strauss. I was looking forward to the day and was feeling upbeat. Dr. Strauss was quite interesting to listen to until he spoke about recovery vis-à-vis depression. He noted that depression could be treated quite successfully and cited some statistics about the low reoccurrence of subsequent episodes of depression. Oh, oh, this did not seem to fit my pattern – what was wrong with me??? Then he said that that was for those who had early diagnosis and treatment, but in cases where the depression was suffered for a longer time reoccurring episodes increased in likelihood and frequency. Whew, that explains and fits my experience, ahhh.

Wait a minute!!! Me = close to three decades of depression et al. Little extrapolation and AAAARIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!! Whiiiiiiiiiimmmmmmper.
Ohhh noooooo. I should be so depressed. Siggghhhh.

??? Why am I chuckling at these thoughts and not hopping onto that little gerbil wheel in my mind? Because I have much better mental habits, I pay attention these days to my inner dialogue and feelings, it does offer insight into what is and likely will be my experiences as I continue in recovery and there is nothing I can do about it. Which explains why the al-anon topic this evening was acceptance.

There is recovery. For some of us it is just a longer, more problematical and more convoluted journey. The real point is that screening and early detection are important in making recovery a more straightforward proposition. If you or someone you care for shows signs of needing help, find out and start to get on with living well. The real lose here is not that the passage of time has made recovery a more “interesting” journey, but that I have missed an extra decade or two of joy, passion, intimacy and laughter.

Hmmm

Musings on reaping limitless cosmic Wealth

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Sunday I was feeling somewhat melancholy having missed the Lost Checkered Sox performance Friday night. As a practitioner of good mental hygiene I realized a change of outlook was needed. So I decided to take advantage of the crisp, sunny fall day to sit in the sun contemplating and cogitating upon lost checkered socks and what their relationship to the Great washing machine mystery.

I speak of course of the apparent appetite of washing machines for devouring the odd sock. We all know that the idea of washing machines eating socks is ridiculous. Which leaves us to address what exactly is the fate of a missing sock and where do they go?

It occurred that what is required is a government grant of $250,000 to enable the conducting of a study of this great conundrum. This level of grant would permit the rental of a suitable space; supply all the cutting edge electronic tools to properly record the experimental results, a transport vehicle and a new heavy duty washer/dryer set. While considering the design parameters for the envisioned experiments it became obvious that the testing regimen required amendment to include the possibility that we are not dealing with a Great Washing Machine Mystery but rather a Great Dryer Mystery.

Thus it was quickly apparent that an additional Phase II $250,000 grant would be required to expand the study to include the washing machine vs. dryer hypothesis. In contemplating this increased funding stream it was recognized the opportunity was present to achieve both faster results and to serve a public need. Since the Phase I portion of the grant provides funding for the equipment to ensure the proper recording of the experiments, all of the second portion would be available to leverage the experiments to achieve a multiplier effect.

This Phase II grant would finance the salary for a research assistant, the procurement of a bank of heavy duty washer/dryers and a suitably accessible location. Opening the doors to those in poverty, the working poor and the homeless would ensure the randomness of wash loads while supplying the large number of wash loads called for in order to accelerate the experiment.
Given the demonstrated randomness of the sock relocation, the randomness of the loads, the large number of loads (reflective of the large need for access to laundry facilities in these poor/homeless populations) and with the detailed recording of the make up of each experimental load this approach holds the promise of greatly accelerating the process of determining the mass/mass distribution that triggers the effect. Once the general trigger parameters of the effect are determined it will be possible to focus experimentation on gaining a detailed understanding of the mass/distribution relationship to gain the ability to trigger the effect when desired.

Having sought theoretical inspiration through logical thought and analysis as well as the technique of seeking oneness with the Universe utilizing meditation on what is the true cause of sock relocation I have arrived at the only conclusion that explains the observed phenomena. I freely admit that at first I was incredulous at the conclusion the facts led to. However, as the wise know, when all other possibilities are eliminated what remains is the answer, no matter how fantastic or outrageous an answer it may appear to be.

Since a properly impressive name must await a deep understanding of the phenomena, it will be at this beginning stage of the experimental investigation referred to as washing machine dimension effect. I acknowledge that at this time it could very well be it is in fact the dryer dimension effect. However, until proof one way or the other is uncovered, Washing Machine Dimensional (w.m.d.) will be used to refer to the Effect.

The word dimension is used since it is clear that the repetitive mechanical workings of a washing machine (or dryer) when loaded with the correct mass/mass distribution of a load of laundry that includes at least one pair of socks causes an opening through another dimension to form. Evidence demonstrates that the inter-dimensional portal is a short lived and small phenomenon as only one sock is transported. Obviously this phenomenon functions in a manner similar to its larger and more spectacular cousin – the wormhole. I postulate that the opening of an “entrance portal” in one washing machine triggers the opening of an “exit portal” in another ‘in use’ distant washing machine. This conclusion is supported by and helps to explain the wide spread belief that washing machines (or dryers) are devouring socks. At the entrance machine the missing sock is noted while at the exit machine the presence of the transported sock leads to the erroneous conclusion that a sock is missing. Thus it is that at each occurrence of the Effect twice the actual number of disappeared socks are noted – explaining why the belief in machines devouring socks is so widely and firmly spread throughout the globe.

Advances in GPS technology will permit the quick pin-pointing of the exit portal location, permitting a timely arrival so that the make up of the destination load, the mass/mass distribution that supported the conditions that resulted in the formation of the exit portal. Thus Phase III, encompassing the need for transcontinental, perhaps intercontinental will necessitate a Phase III budget of $2,500,000. It is envisioned that the major focus of Phase III is to obtain an understanding of the rules/mechanism involved in the triggering/formation of entrance/exit portals.

Phase IV will take the understanding of the Effect obtained in Phase III in order to ascertain how to enter wmd space (the washing machine dimension), manoeuvre within wmd space and exit wmd space at a point in our space-time continuum of our choosing. The funding required for the micro portion of the research of this transportation method will be $25,000,000. Once the ability to enter, manoeuvre and exit wmd space using robotic micro probes is found to be feasible/within reach it is anticipated that the next Phase will begin to gear up before the final completion of Phase IV.

Phase V having a projected budget of $250,000,000 for the initial stage of this Phase which involves sizing up the probes from the micro to the macro level to permit the entrance, travel and exit of wmd space by transports capable of carrying human travellers/explorers. The second stage of this phase, requiring an investment of $2,500,000,000, is to engineer, design, build and test a ship in order to demonstrate the technologies suitability to space travel, exploration and resource exploitation.

Phase VI is to build a ship to explore the Terran solar system, planetary bodies and to inventory the system resources available for the establishment of off planet mining, manufacturing, engineering and “space dock” ship building facilities. It is anticipated that the technology involved will permit the ship to be built within the $25,000,000,000 budgeted for this phase.

With a budget $250,000,000,000 the vision for Phase VII is the deployment of the ship and other developed transportation/engineering/research & development resources to establish off planet resources. We know that the solar system abounds with mineral and energy resources easily accessible to those with efficient space transport. It is anticipated that it will be necessary to establish and staff space-based habitats to achieve the goals for this phase of creating mining, refining, manufacturing, engineering and building facilities.

Phase VIII with its budget of $250,000,000,000 is to use the developed off-earth resources and building capabilities in the continuing design, build and launch of interstellar exploration craft. It should be noted that the spin-off socially responsible actions of Phase II will be continued throughout the later Phases of the Project. It is anticipated that the empathy developed in making socially responsible choices and behaviour part of the modus operandi of the Project will permit the establishment of trade and co-operation with other space travelling life-forms. At this point it is to be expected that the Project will be sell financing from inter-species trade, processing of space borne resources and spin-offs of scientific resources.

The future is nova brilliant. The key to this abundance and to our space-faring/exploring future is leadership and the willingness to make the modest investment in the Project.

Caveat emptor, Consider

Refreshing Media change.

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You keep going like this… and you are going to not only live up to your stated aspirations, maybe even exceeding them, but you are going to have a very interesting, must read publication. That is how I had planed to end the last sentence in my prior letter, but then the best laid plans of mice and men. Or perhaps it was just fate this week’s edition contains an excellent start covering an important issue even though it is not “nice” and entails a certain amount of controversy.

Perspective – Whoa! An informative piece hinting at the temptations that a drug can have, the seductive promises that the drug and its effects can make: euphoria, endless energy, decreased appetite (easy weight loss), alertness. For the education of the public who tend to only see the end product of drugs – the addict – Ms Daniel paints a picture of the ordinary people that it lures into using with its siren song. The housewife, mother, sons and daughters, outstanding school athletes and scholars, fathers, business people – these are the real people that lie buried within the addicts that end up on our streets. Hopefully articles such as this can help people to see that the “addicts” are people, people suffering from listening to the seductive promises of a “mother’s little helper”. Then perhaps we can cease judging and concentrate on healing.

The promise of the Post that this is only the first of a series on this issue holds forth the promise of bringing knowledge and understanding to allow Post readers to begin to comprehend the nature of the insanity that is drug addiction. Dare I hope for a perspective that examines what effect legality (nicotine, cigarettes) vs. illegality (crystal meth) can have on addiction, the addict, “functional users” and on crime.

The issue also contained Kevin Gilles’s article on the growing and increasingly visible challenge presented by homelessness. The first thought I want to share is that it is a rather damning comment on our society that the Salvation Army and other organizations that help those in distress need a PR hack … ahem, let’s make that a PR person as, in spite of her unfortunately required occupation, Deb is a nice person – whom I know as a caring individual. How can we have any expectation of achieving progress on a multifaceted series of interrelated acutely complex and muddled people problems, when on even the simple aspects of this gargantuan chaotic mess we have to apply spin in presenting even the most elementary and simple pieces of the issues to the public. Given that the only route I see holding promise to help the homeless regain their souls and their lives lies thru community involvement, how do we eradicate the need for PR, educate and involve the community?

Perhaps the need for PR and what it says about our society should have been second on my list. First definitely has to be having a local newspaper that is part of and engaged with their communities, providing the needed forum for an examination of the reality of ours streets and an exchange of ideas – opening the gateway to addressing these pressing issues. We have to get past what people believe and most especially what they want to believe (because of their own personal world view) is the situation; to open their eyes and gain an awareness and a degree of understanding for the nitty-gritty, often dirty facts that underlie homelessness and its street kin – mental illness, drugs etc. We need an informed public on this matter so we do not need to spin what IS. To permit trying new ideas as well as adapting and using methods that have generated positive results elsewhere in the efforts to tackle these dilemmas. Adopting Edison’s attitude that he had not failed a thousand times in trying to invent the light bulb but had merely carried out the necessary thousand experiments, is crucial to making any true progress in addressing these problems. If we cannot honestly discuss: this worked, that did not work, this result wasn’t what we expected – why?, Say… how about trying this?, this kind of worked, and so on; we are going to find ourselves trapped in the quagmire that results from all the churning of the ground we are trying to work on by all the spin that these types of discussions would generate.

Wondering about the why behind the headline “Homeless numbers rise despite abundance of jobs”? Here is a sample or two of the actual reality behind that Why? to think about. What happens to all those functioning users in Ms Daniel’s Perspective as they become less and less functional, starting the fall from home, employment and social network to the harsh loneliness of the streets. Rising job numbers do nothing for them as a job is not the type help and support they need to begin to slowly and painfully turn their lives around. Consider the worker for whom losing their job was an economic disaster that left them having nothing and on the street or the recovering addict whom, in the throes of their addiction, burned all their bridges behind them and now has nothing, no one and are on the streets. Without a phone, an address, a way to be contacted, a way to keep clean and presentable, to have time and energy to look for work after taking care of the necessities of food, water and sleep, without transportation other than by foot, with basically nothing – just how are you to find work? Yes I am aware of Social Assistance. Are you aware of its inadequacies, how far short it falls of providing the basics needed to enable a person to conduct a successful job search? It is just as inadequate, perhaps more maddeningly so, in providing support to help those who find work in meeting their basic needs in a way that does not interfere with keeping their jobs and getting back onto their economic and social feet. Ponder the obstacles that being homeless puts up if you should find work, little things such as adequate sleep, personal hygiene and appearance, food to keep you alive, getting to work. Actually there are separate articles that could be written just on these barriers. To keep this letter from becoming a novel I will leave the reader with a final point to consider. Due to whatever circumstances you find yourself with nothing, absolutely nothing and without family or friends to help. Damage deposit; first months rent; the most basic of furniture, pots and pans, dishes; a phone; old debts; bad credit. Yes, we all at one point started out, but if we are honest we have to acknowledge just how much support we received from family and friends and how important, how necessary that help and support was in getting onto our feet and taking our first steps into our new lives.

I hope that this quick and rather superficial look at just some of the points that flow from considering the implications and issues raised by reading Kevin Gillies’s article serves to let the reader begin to see just how complex the labyrinth of issues and needs connected to homelessness is. You want neat, simple, easy, quick answers? They don’t exist. You want a perfect solution? You are living in a very altered state of reality. We are dealing with people here. It will be messy; mistakes will occur; it will take patience to allow for adequate time frames; it will take and try the patience of the saints in dealing with some of those in need of help; there will be some who cannot or will not be helped. There are many other disagreeable aspects we would rather not have to deal with or face, that must be dealt with or faced in order to bring positive change to these serious issues.

To have success we need the involvement, support and commitment of our entire communities. We need to achieve a public understanding of the underlying realities of the situation through education, insight, perspective and commentary. We need to put aside partisanship, politics and self delusion while dealing with the entrenched vested interests. We cannot be afraid of controversial issues, of facing and dealing with the facts – the un-spun, bare facts. We need to accomplish change, or suffer the insanity of continuing to repeat that which has not only failed to work, but has allowed things to worsen. We need a forum for public discussion, generation of ideas, a steadfastness of purpose and a commitment to action.

Wisdom or lessons can come from strange places. So, let us take to heart the words of Yoda: ”Try not. Do or Do Not. There is no try.” We need to stop hiding behind “trying” and choose. Do Not and accept the costs and consequences. Do and begin reclaiming lost or shattered lives. Do or Do Not. Choose what kind of society you want to live in. DO.

Consider, Municipal

Can you imagine Abbotsford as a Vibrant community?

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I recently found myself at a rather interesting point on the space-time continuum where a most interesting (and important) conversation, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say a series of conversations, was taking place. Once time has allowed me to think about and digest what was expressed, I plan to share some of the conversation, some of the questions posed and what answers/thoughts were called into my mind. Because the point of this conversation was to begin the process of engaging the entire community in this conversation.

It seems that some of our fellow citizens, when looking around at the state of affairs found themselves (quite understandably) less than pleased with the state of poverty, and all its trappings, in the city of Abbotsford. At the beginning of this past June at the Ramada Plaza the Frazer Valley Community Conference 2006 was held on the topic: “Creating Community Movements for Change”. The speaker was Mr. Paul Born of Tamarack: An Institute for Community Engagement who was not only an inspiring speaker, but had the advantage of having what he was saying make sense. That what we have been doing has not been working, has in fact allowed things to get worse. That if we want to address issues of local concern such as poverty, we have to do it as fully engaged communities since that is the way to act effectively. That achieving a purpose requires using purposefulness to power and motivate change, creating movements for change. www.tamarackcommunity.ca/index.php

Our displeased fellow citizens, seeking to effect positive changes in our community, have sought out the expertise and experience that Tamarack has built and continues building with communities across Canada. As part of pursing this working relationship with Tamarack, and through them with other Canadian cities seeking to make positive changes, Vibrant Abbotsford was born. At the time I attended the conversation being written about, this newborn was less than a week old and taking his/her first steps out and about our community, seeking to engage us all in creating change in our community.

So why am I writing this? I look around our community and see poverty and its attributes such as homelessness, hungry children, the desperate need for the local food bank, mental illness and addiction, families with young children eating at the Salvation Army, human life reduced to the cheapest commodity on the planet, pain and hopelessness – to name but a few. I see how badly Abbotsford needs to come together as a community to create the change needed and seek to knock over that first domino. To start the chain reaction of falling dominos that, gathering speed and inertia, will help power Vibrant Abbotsford’s spread through the community, engaging the community in creating not only the movement for change but CHANGE itself.

I also want to answer the last question posed to us during that conversation – do I want to, am I willing to give of myself, in order to bring positive change to my community, to work at turning our community into Vibrant Abbotsford. The answer is YES; I will stand up and be counted. So it is that I pass the question along – Look around. What do you see? What do you want to see, what matters to you? Will you be part of Vibrant Abbotsford?