The War on Christmas seems to be more of a low-intensity conflict this year than an outright conflagration, as in Holiday Seasons past. Perhaps that's because it's hard to keep a hate on for something so stupid year in, year out.
Or perhaps not. Either way, one clear effect of the War on Christmas nonsense was and is to further aggravate the already overblown sense of victimization, isolation, and indeed entitlement on the part of those who are interpellated and hence flattered by Bill O'Reilly-standard propaganda.
And that's depressing, because that's kind of made Christmas suck, a bit. I'm not particularly sentimental by nature but I do have something of a soft spot for the Christmasy peace on earth, good will towards men stuff: we need more of that in this nation. But the War on Christmas baloney points in the other direction. Let us not feel charitable: let us feel aggrieved!
I thought of this the other day when I passed the little marquee sign for the Baptist church at the bottom of our hill. Here's what it read:
"Christmas" is not "the 'C' word," and never has been. (The "C-word" of course is "cunt.") But pretending that "Christmas" IS a swear word reinforces and indeed helps to invent a particular kind of social identity for a particular group, a group united around an array of shared grievances that are not less deeply felt merely because they're largely imaginary or even preposterous.
Fox News and Greater Wingnuttia decided they wanted to politicize -- and consequently take ownership of -- Christmas. And that has quite literally made my neighborhood a little less neighborly.
Bah humbug hehindeed.