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Well did we Standard readers? Show goodwill to all or at least to
some of our fellows during the Christmas and the New Year break and,
was it a good feeling? Was it good to give as well as to receive
– was it better to give or better to receive? Now that we are all
back nose to the grindstone, the conflict going on in our heads between
the drudgery of factory, the office or the shop, or wherever it is that
we find ourselves tied to again, and with the frolics of the holiday
extant in our memories. That song still in our heads which
occasionally finds its way to our lips, constantly interrupted and
usually ceased, by the numbing thoughts, the bland conversation and
presence of that cold relation between the product and its maker.
Just some of the elements of the workplace which seem to demand for
themselves all the space in our heads. We are quickly reminded
what a misery and a waste of our lives is this daily drudge.
‘Oh! I wish it could be Christmas everyday…’
Socialist readers say that the only aspects of any value worth
considering about this holiday break are that we proles get some time
off the drudgery of everyday work and get time with our families and
friends. Also, we can pig-out on all the good food, if we are so
inclined, enjoy the special TV programmes and have at least one chance
in the year to give some kindness, affection and love to our fellows
and hopefully, to receive like in return. Readers north of the
border enjoy a little extra indulge on Hogmanay. . .
Otherwise, that whole charade has very negative feelings for us.
All the money and debt required, the huckstering, the pretence, and the
religious connotation and, that feeling that all the kindness,
affection and love is primarily expressed in a material form – that
sort of love that I can only describe as counterfeit – material love
(gifts) to satisfy some fetish with the must-have commodity. We
know too that unless we give a gift, a card or a calendar to another we
are unlikely to receive like from them in return – a sort of coercive
love.
Our children are deceived and urged to request gifts from a fictional
figure called all the way up from the 4th century Bishop of Mrya
re-branded by Coca Cola and renamed Santa Claus and, unless they behave
themselves, he will not deliver – more coercion.
Finally, the ideology or culture demands of us that we all undertake
the same ritual every year. Go out and spend as much money as
we’ve got and more that we haven’t got, on gifts, cards and calendars
as well as buy the same fattening foodstuff, stuffing the turkeys with
sausage and the capitalists with profit. And on Hogmanay we are
to praise the last year as well as the New Year as though they were
something special. Perhaps last year was, if we’ve survived.
Unless we follow this line we will not enjoy ourselves and we might be
seen as outcasts or spoilsports. In no time at all it seems we are back
again in the world we know (but don’t love) where other rituals
dominate the scene and here its not “goodwill and love” we hear, but,
“go on, stick one on him and then wrestle him to the ground”.
At this time of the year are these feelings of goodwill – kindness,
affection and love between fellows – , an ideological or cultural thing
or are they symptomatic of deep longing for another world where humans
could be free to behave with kindness, affection and love as a matter
of course all the year round? We are also to wish each other well for
the coming New Year, and hope our luck will bring us a better life
despite the cruel truth that our material conditions are likely to
remain the same. In the cold miserable light of a capitalist day,
nothing much has changed by the notching up of another year since the
supposed birth of the fantasy Jesus Christ. Sure, one or two of
us might in a New Year win the lottery – and then we can begin to live
a little easier, if you can square you conscience with a world of haves
and have-nots.
In socialist society, not only will we have free access to the products
and services of human production and to life itself, too we’ll get free
access to all the human support, kindness, affection and love from all
our fellows all year round, instead of for just a mean two weeks.
In free society this behaviour will become the norm in our human
world. Why would you want to pay, when you can have free
access? In addition, we will be free of the drudgery and
stressful life that is our everyday experience now, that which we are
glad to see the back of for a skimpy two weeks of partying at the end
of the year.
WILLIAM DUNN |
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