Remonstrans
Making Christmas History
11/21/08
Making Christmas History
Here's something you may (or may not) want to know about.
I report; you decide.
I would have mentioned this closer to Christmastime, but I didn't want to soil and spoil your December.
Some of you may remember Jamie Arpin-Ricci. He's that most dedicated religious fellow who ties knots in strings as a spiritual discipline. He's also purchasing a baby. And if you go to his blog, you'll find a link through which you can give him money; I hope lots and lots of people give him lots and lots of money so he can buy a large baby, or maybe a small baby and a nice stroller.
Anyway, Jamie is concerned about the meaning of Christmas. As opposed to acquiring babies, he's concerned that Christmas is too commercialized. He poses some trenchant questions here which you might choose to mull over.
Again, that's entirely up to you.
But he also links to some YouTube propaganda. Some crazy bat is offering us a cartoon version of the global economy which contains much that is false and humorous, and some that is false and dangerous. She believes "It's the government's job to watch out for us; to take care of us. That's their [sic] job."
This is perhaps something you can read about in the Federalist Papers.
But that part is not the Christmassy bit. The Christmassy bit has to do with the "Golden Arrow of Consumption". And this is bad.
Most especially at Christmas.
One of Jamie's commenters pointed out that the facts being offered were not what a good man would consider plausible let alone accurate, and this is what Jamie said:
As for the video, of course the stats are exaggerated, but I wouldn't necessarily call it dishonesty. Stats, like theology, are very subjective in respect to interpretation. Everyone comes with a bias, but most often they are convinced it is the truth. So dishonesty might be too strong a claim here.
Perhaps I am just too post-modern, but I listen to ALL stats and ideas with inherent skepticism (as do most emerging generations). Therefore, the exaggerations are not misleading, as we already expect them to be there. I hope you will watch the whole video.
"Stats, like theology, are very subjective in respect to interpretation...exaggerations are not misleading, as we already expect them to be there."
All this makes one nostalgic for the time Christmas was about Scrooge, Rudolph and the Mouse King, does it not?
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Comments, Trackbacks, Pingbacks:
1 Comment from: de profundis [Visitor] 
"...emerging generations."
Oh no! You mean there are more than one of them?
I think my weekend just got ruined.
Oh no! You mean there are more than one of them?
I think my weekend just got ruined.
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11/21/08 @ 05:47 2 Comment from: dissidens [Member]
Calm your troubled heart, my good man.
These emerging generations are like stats and theology: very subjective and susceptible to interpretation.
Permalink
11/21/08 @ 05:58 3 Comment from: Semi [Visitor]
Somewhere, someone has died from a serious spoon injury. And it is Jamie's kind of logic that gets spoons labelled as dangerous weapons and taken out of elementary schools.
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12/01/08 @ 10:48 4 Comment from: dissidens [Member]
: )
“Jamie’s kind of logic” could well produce a myriad of absurdities, each more amusing than the last.
This is just one of the sad things about contemporary Christianity.
“Jamie’s kind of logic” could well produce a myriad of absurdities, each more amusing than the last.
This is just one of the sad things about contemporary Christianity.
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12/01/08 @ 19:08 5 Comment from: x [Visitor]
I notice you choose not to actually link to Jamie's site. Any reason?
Having the comment you pulled, I think you are missing his slight tongue in cheek answer.
Having the comment you pulled, I think you are missing his slight tongue in cheek answer.
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12/04/08 @ 22:33 6 Comment from: Jamie Arpin-Ricci [Visitor] · http://www.missional.blog.com
· http://www.missional.blog.com
I am not purchasing a baby. That is offensive and unkind of your to joke about. I fail to see the relevance of our adoption plans to this post. Criticize my writing all you want, but I ask that you not make a mockery out of our only hope to have a family.
Jamie
Jamie
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12/04/08 @ 22:45 7 Comment from: dissidens [Member]
Dear X:
I’m not entirely certain by what standards I am obligated to link to Jamie’s site in the first instance. Are these regulations posted somewhere on the Internet?
As to this particular post, I think you may find that I did link: fifth paragraph, third sentence, sixth word.
Click on it.
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12/05/08 @ 05:36 8 Comment from: dissidens [Member]
Jamie Arpin-Ricci:
Well now, here is a curious thing. People have been exchanging gifts for thousands of years as a sign of affection and goodwill. This was true before Christmas was celebrated and in places where Christ was not even known. Yet you impute a villainous connection. You characterized others’ celebration as “self-serving spiral of the culture”.
When I make a similar assumption about how you propose to become a father, you squeal. You equate gift-giving with a spiral of self-service; when I make a similar connection, you find it offensive.
Where, exactly, do you get off, Jamie? How come bone-headed moralizing is ok for you but objectionable when I try my hand at it? If commercialism is such a great wickedness, why isn’t asking people to assist you in your acquisitions also scandalous?
Is compromise a compromise, Jamie?
I think you owe me an explanation as to why you think you are better than me, or why your moralizings are better than mine.
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12/05/08 @ 06:19 9 Comment from: x [Visitor]
You are equating a generalized critique of consumerism (not gift-giving) with your taunting mockery of one families struggle to start a family. Jaime never once rejected gift giving, only the kind of consumerism that would see people trample others underfoot literally to save a few bucks on a DVD player.
Have you ever admitted you are wrong?
Have you ever admitted you are wrong?
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12/05/08 @ 06:47 10 Comment from: Jamie Arpin-Ricci [Visitor] · http://www.missional.blog.com
· http://www.missional.blog.com
Thank you for the clarification. You will note that I actually affirmed reasonable gift giving as a good thing, only cautioning not to let it spiral out of control. However, you've made your point.
Jamie
Jamie
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12/05/08 @ 06:58 11 Comment from: dissidens [Member]
X:
Strictly speaking, I am equating nothing; I am merely applying Jamie’s own equation. He wants to chide others about how they choose to celebrate Christmas and to cast aspersions on their piety. This has become a ubiquitous and tiresome pose amongst religious folk—and one reason they’ve lost credibility. I merely applied Jamie’s jitney moralizing to Jamie’s own life and judgments.
If I want to buy a yacht for a friend at Christmas, I do not need the mickey-mouse homilies of Jamie.
I can to a very small degree sympathize with your pain. Once again hypocrisy is exposed. Jamie (or someone else at missional.blog.com) posted this in his sidebar:
I wonder if Jamie has yet deduced that his contempt for his critics will also find a home among those he judges.
Strictly speaking, I am equating nothing; I am merely applying Jamie’s own equation. He wants to chide others about how they choose to celebrate Christmas and to cast aspersions on their piety. This has become a ubiquitous and tiresome pose amongst religious folk—and one reason they’ve lost credibility. I merely applied Jamie’s jitney moralizing to Jamie’s own life and judgments.
If I want to buy a yacht for a friend at Christmas, I do not need the mickey-mouse homilies of Jamie.
I can to a very small degree sympathize with your pain. Once again hypocrisy is exposed. Jamie (or someone else at missional.blog.com) posted this in his sidebar:
“Thanks all for your encouragement and kind words. We are choosing to ignore this persons [sic] harsh attack. Thanks again!”“Choosing to ignore.”
I wonder if Jamie has yet deduced that his contempt for his critics will also find a home among those he judges.
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12/05/08 @ 07:36 12 Comment from: x [Visitor]
What is the difference between Jaimes caution and your own constant attack on others convictions and choices? How is it any different? Oh right, because when it is you writing, you are obviously right.
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12/05/08 @ 07:49 13 Comment from: Jamie Arpin-Ricci [Visitor] · http://www.missional.blog.com
X, I appreciate your support, but if you are arguing on my behalf, please don't. I feel enough has been said. I will take dissidens criticism and consider it.
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12/05/08 @ 07:54 14 Comment from: dissidens [Member]
X:
Think about it for a little longer.
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12/05/08 @ 08:10 15 Comment from: Troy [Visitor] · http://www.troyricci.com
· http://www.troyricci.com
Dissidens,
Ok, so I may be a bit bias, as Jamie happens to be my brother, but I find your attack in regards to their impending adoption rather disheartening. I have read through some of your 'blog', and although I respect your opinions (as does my brother), it saddens me the way you unlovingly attack anything you disagree with (or perhaps you just don't understand).
My wife and I are recently expecting our first child, and it was a long and very expensive road for us, full of many doctor appointments, procedures and years of heartache. By God's grace we have been blessed with a healthy pregnancy!
For you to flippantly attack someone, anyone in the same situation is clearly wrong. I find it interesting that you choose not to reveal your name or any personal info. It's easy to be self-righteous behind that wall of anonymity.
I understand you were trying to make an argument, or perhaps a point, but I believe you miss the point altogether.
It's about love.
For what it's worth
Troy Ricci
Ok, so I may be a bit bias, as Jamie happens to be my brother, but I find your attack in regards to their impending adoption rather disheartening. I have read through some of your 'blog', and although I respect your opinions (as does my brother), it saddens me the way you unlovingly attack anything you disagree with (or perhaps you just don't understand).
My wife and I are recently expecting our first child, and it was a long and very expensive road for us, full of many doctor appointments, procedures and years of heartache. By God's grace we have been blessed with a healthy pregnancy!
For you to flippantly attack someone, anyone in the same situation is clearly wrong. I find it interesting that you choose not to reveal your name or any personal info. It's easy to be self-righteous behind that wall of anonymity.
I understand you were trying to make an argument, or perhaps a point, but I believe you miss the point altogether.
It's about love.
For what it's worth
Troy Ricci
Permalink
12/05/08 @ 09:54 16 Comment from: dissidens [Member]
I appreciate your attempt at clarification, Troy. I might be slightly more appreciative if you’d given this some extended thought.
Now let me attempt to clarify. Clearly you and your wife anticipate expenses in connection with having children. Now let us suppose I look at these expenditures and your desire for children as nothing more than a sad attempt at economic “exploitation” and an opportunity “to fuel the machine of commerce”—to use Jamie’s words.
“A sacred season on the Christian calender [sic] has been exploited to fuel the machine of commerce.”
I can assure you that when I buy everyone in my family a Rolex watch for Christmas, it will not be out of a desire to exploit a holiday or fuel the machine of commerce. It will not be to deplete the ozone layer or burn up fossil fuels or exploit the earth’s natural resources or blow up mountains or enslave the workforce of the third world, or any other daft thing Jamie imagines it to be. It will be because I think they want a Rolex, and a Rolex will make them happy.
As Freud reminded us, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. And sometimes a Christmas present is just a token of affection.
So when Jamie—or you—mischaracterize my intentions and redefine generosity as exploitation, think about what hostile interpretations I might place on your desire for a family.
Now I use Jamie as an example because just about anybody can come up with daffy explanations of how the economy works, like in that YouTube Propaganda he posted. But you will suspect down in your heart that you are innocent, that you really do just want a baby. And it will occur to you that what Jamie is doing is merely redefining Christmas as greed and nothing more than greed.
This is a nasty business, and I think its nastiness should be exposed.
But the thing that really gets me is that the person who so easily twists the significance of an economic component in Christmas can be so oblivious to the significance of an economic component in his means of starting a family.
It’s ironic.
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12/05/08 @ 12:51 17 Comment from: x [Visitor]
Jaime doesn't reject the economic component of Christmas- in fact, he endorses it. Surely you don't deny that there are people who seek to use the good aspect of gift giving, encourage excess, etc. for their own good? Jaime just cautions not to let that be the central aspect of our Christmas celebration. In fact, the main point of his post was to defend gift giving and the intentions thereof. You have missed the point, not him. You have wrongly assessed his intention, not the other way around.
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12/05/08 @ 13:19 18 Comment from: dissidens [Member]
Yah, I'm sure that's it.
Permalink
12/05/08 @ 15:48 19 Comment from: x [Visitor]
You're a piece of work. Proven wrong and you resort to petty come backs. Jaimes right. Why even bother?
Permalink
12/05/08 @ 16:42 20 Comment from: dissidens [Member]
A. I don’t know who Jaime is.
B. The first statement you made here about my not linking to his blog was wrong.
C. Your second effort was to ask why I taunted “a families [sic] struggle to start a family”, which I never did. What I showed was that he condemned the commercial component of Christmas without confronting his own commercial interests. He of all people should see there is no equivalence here. It's a sermon without a text.
“A sacred season on the Christian calender [sic] has been exploited to fuel the machine of commerce.”
Oh, really?
D. What you latter day apostates are doing is nothing more than ham-handed redefinition. Then when the orthodox refuse to be defined according to your bargain-basement weltanschauung, you accuse us of not wanting to engage your goofiness.
So you tell me, how long are we supposed to indulge these junior-church Savonarolas? Until you stumble across a valid argument?
B. The first statement you made here about my not linking to his blog was wrong.
C. Your second effort was to ask why I taunted “a families [sic] struggle to start a family”, which I never did. What I showed was that he condemned the commercial component of Christmas without confronting his own commercial interests. He of all people should see there is no equivalence here. It's a sermon without a text.
“A sacred season on the Christian calender [sic] has been exploited to fuel the machine of commerce.”
Oh, really?
D. What you latter day apostates are doing is nothing more than ham-handed redefinition. Then when the orthodox refuse to be defined according to your bargain-basement weltanschauung, you accuse us of not wanting to engage your goofiness.
So you tell me, how long are we supposed to indulge these junior-church Savonarolas? Until you stumble across a valid argument?
Permalink
12/05/08 @ 17:04 21 Comment from: Lenard aka x [Visitor]
Just because you say something is so, doesn't make it so. Your did make a cruel joke out of his adoption to make your point. Humor was clearly in your intent. Own up to it.
For you to deny that there are unhealthy aspects of commercialism surrounding Christmas is laughable. You deny them completely? Even those who endorse them at least acknowledge them.
Your "point" about Jamie's "commercial interests" is nonsensical. There is nothing "commercial" about it, where as our culture has deeply commercialized Christmas. You have no valid point. You are caught in your mistake and refuse to acknowledge it. Frankly you are misrepresenting his post blatantly and intentionally.
As for being a latter day apostate, now you are just being silly. You don't know enough about me to make such a claim, nor do you point out anything I have asked to you redefine.
As a previous commenter mentioned, it is far too easy for you to write this kind of hateful nonsense behind the mask of anonymity. Have the guts to put a name and some context to your words. But, you won't, because deep down you are a coward who hides behind shallow cleverness and skin deep self-righteousness.
For you to deny that there are unhealthy aspects of commercialism surrounding Christmas is laughable. You deny them completely? Even those who endorse them at least acknowledge them.
Your "point" about Jamie's "commercial interests" is nonsensical. There is nothing "commercial" about it, where as our culture has deeply commercialized Christmas. You have no valid point. You are caught in your mistake and refuse to acknowledge it. Frankly you are misrepresenting his post blatantly and intentionally.
As for being a latter day apostate, now you are just being silly. You don't know enough about me to make such a claim, nor do you point out anything I have asked to you redefine.
As a previous commenter mentioned, it is far too easy for you to write this kind of hateful nonsense behind the mask of anonymity. Have the guts to put a name and some context to your words. But, you won't, because deep down you are a coward who hides behind shallow cleverness and skin deep self-righteousness.
Permalink
12/05/08 @ 17:31 22 Comment from: dissidens [Member]
Lenard aka x:
Wow, that accusation really cuts deep, especially coming from a Lenard who has been an x up till now.
I don't know how we can even continue this conversation now that an x has become a Lenard!
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12/05/08 @ 18:01 23 Comment from: x [Visitor]
Typical. Evasion. Fear.
Permalink
12/05/08 @ 18:38 24 Comment from: dissidens [Member]
Significant. Confrontation. Irony.
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12/05/08 @ 19:08 25 Comment from: x [Visitor]
Oh, wow, that did it. I am now convinced! I have seen the light!
It's ok to admit that you just aren't honest enough to actually address the questions or genuinely consider others perspectives.
It's ok to admit that you just aren't honest enough to actually address the questions or genuinely consider others perspectives.
Permalink
12/05/08 @ 19:46 26 Comment from: dissidens [Member]
You're not convinced and you see no light.
Permalink
12/05/08 @ 20:02 27 Comment from: x [Visitor]
Uh, no. I am not convinced and have not seen the light. That was sarcasm. Thought you'd be familiar with it.
But look at it this way. It provided you with yet another means to evade the issue.
But look at it this way. It provided you with yet another means to evade the issue.
Permalink
12/05/08 @ 20:24 28 Comment from: dissidens [Member]
Well, obviously I did pick up on it.
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12/06/08 @ 07:24 29 Comment from: x [Visitor]
And obviously you do avoid the real issues... again.
Permalink
12/06/08 @ 09:52 30 Comment from: dissidens [Member]
Say, if you run across someone who knows a “real issue” when he sees one, send him over: we can test your theory.
Permalink
12/06/08 @ 10:04 31 Comment from: x [Visitor]
Do you believe there has been any unhealthy commercialization of the Christmas season?
Permalink
12/06/08 @ 11:21 32 Comment from: dissidens [Member]
What a perfectly silly question. Sounds like something Charles Dickens would concern himself with or a bugaboo of some religious scold.
No, this is the sort of simplistic, black-and-white judgmentalism we in the 21st Century have outgrown. We all have our own traditions, perceptions and value sets; who is to say someone else has a too-commercialized Christmas or an insufficiently-commercialized Christmas?
You should stop laying guilt-trips on other people. It’s not healthy.
Stop bringing people down!
Fa la la la lah.
Permalink
12/06/08 @ 13:35 33 Comment from: x [Visitor]
Thank you! Finally you answer a question. Ridiculous, meaningless answer, but an answer nonetheless.
Permalink
12/06/08 @ 14:01 34 Comment from: dissidens [Member]
You're quite welcome.
Permalink
12/06/08 @ 14:24 Leave a comment:
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