How Santa Claus is the saint of commodity fetishism! By: Charles Brown

1/7/2022

How Santa Claus is the saint of commodity fetishism! By: Charles Brown

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In an economic culture where buying mania must be instilled in people from the time they are small children, Santa is the perfect mind molester.

The shopping ritual begins (in the U.S.) officially the day after Thanksgiving. This give-your-money-away festival is monthlong. "Shop until you drop as in a religious fervor" is a possible motto for it.

Yet, Christmas is certainly a season of great joy as well, real fun and happiness; there's no denying that. People really do get happy with family and friends in feasts, escaping alienation, loneliness and drudgery.

It's a holiday! A fundamental unity of opposites in the structure of our spiritual life: materialistic addiction and the birth of love in merriment, plus renewal of life with the new year, all in one cyclical celebration, the Sunday of the Year. For this civilization there is something profound about Christmas.

We are a market, not a stone age economy of gift exchange. Token Gift exchange is used to promote commodity exchange really, but from the standpoint of celebration and ceremony, commodity exchange is promoted spiritually. Buying is a high, a good and virtuous high. Christmas cheer comes once a year.

Through buying madness, things control us and we don't control things. We become objects and things become subjects, with wills and powers as if alive.

The mystery around Santa Claus helps to promote this mystical reversal of the real relations between people and the commodities they make and buy. Our greatest addiction problem is not "drugs", but our addiction to commodities, our commodity fetishism, our buying madness, seeking to fulfill ourselves through things not people. People made the things, not elves.

Let me say it nicer. Celebration is vital. Christmas comes but once a year, and to me it means good cheer, and to everyone who likes wine and beer. Happy New Year is after that. Happy we'll be, and that's a fact.

Author

Charles Brown is a political activist in Detroit, Michigan. He has degrees in anthropology and is a member of the bar. He teaches anthropology at Community College. His favorite slogan is "What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”

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1 Comment

Charles Brown

1/7/2022 02:25:44 pm

Answer to As the main effect of Father Christmas is the commodification of human relations to reproduce relationships of labour, who should abolish him: secularists, communists, atheists, irreligionists, humanists or all five?

by Charles Tanico Brown

Merry X-mas and Xppropriate the Xppropriators and Powersthatbe Today: A Critique of X-mas for our Party

by Tanico X

How Santa Claus is the saint of commodity fetishism

or buying madness ! In an economic culture where buying mania must be

instilled in people from the time they are small children, Santa is the

perfect mind molestor , and his holiday the biggest on the calendar. The

shopping ritual begins (in the U.S.) officially the day after Thanksgiving.

This give-your-money-away festival is monthlong. "Shop until you drop as in

a religious fervor" is a possible motto for it.

Yet, Christmas is certainly a season of great joy as well, real fun

and happiness; there's no denying that. People really do get happy with

family and friends in feasts, escaping alienation, lonliness and drudgery.

It's a holiday !

A fundamental unity of opposites in the structure of our spiritual

life: materialistic addiction and the birth of love in merriment, plus

renewal of life with the new year, all in one cyclical celebration, the

Sunday of the Year. For this civilization there is something profound about

Christmas, X -mas.

Profound but not mysterious. It is a yearly, regular, routine

profundity. Years creeping by at a 'petty pace, year after year until the

last syllable of recorded time.' Perhaps mysterious in its myth of a virgin

birth, virgin because white culture conceives of sex as dirty, sinning,

soiled, a vice, so God is born without biological sex.

The great mystery or trick is not conception without biology and orgasm, but

that just as much exchange of commodities and money as exchange of gifts

goes on. We are a market, not a stone age economy of gift exchange. See

the commodity exchange chains growing. M=C=M1=C1=M2... Token Gift exchange

is used to promote commodity exchange really, but from the standpoint of

celebration and ceremony, commodity exchange is promoted spiritually. Buying

is a high, a good and virtuous high. Christmas cheer comes but once a year.

Well, if you do buy madly, buy in Detroit, yet think critically how

through buying madness things control us and we don't control things. We

become objects and things become subjects, with wills and powers as if

alive. The mystery around Santa Claus helps to promote this mystical

reversal of the real relations between people and the commodities they make

and buy. Our greatest addiction problem is not "drugs", but our addictiion

to commodities, our commodity fetishism, our buying madness, seeking to

fulfill ourselves through things not people. People made the things, not

elves.

Let me say it nicer. Celebration is vital. Merry, Happy to y'all.

Christmas comes but once a year, and to me it means good cheer, and to

everyone who likes wine and beer. Happy New Year is after that. Happy we'll

be, and that's a fact. Hey, Bessie, Christmas Cheer !

The taboos on the Secrets of Joy prevent this highest happy season in

Europe/America from fulfillment. There is a mystery worth reading through,

a riddle that will free the Sphinx in you. How do we really make Christmas

better or is it perfect already ?

Criticism of religion is the premise of all criticism, so let us

begin crticism of ceremony, festival, long, long cabaret by asking some

questions about Christmas, our highest of holidays, holy of holy rituals.

Who was Jesus Christ ? Was he the Son of God ? Does he live still now 2005

years or so since his birth ? If the answer to either of the second two

questions is "no" , are we overdoing this holiday a bit ?

What is the Santa Claus myth ? What is the relation of Santa Claus to

Jesus Christ ? Is the Patriarchal Great White Father of European

civilization a net giver or taker, Provider or Xploiting Xppropriator ?

Do you dare to eat a peach ?

Tragedy is less than comedy, grandeloquent logic is inferior to comedic

logic, rather than a folly of despair, let us make a folly as you like it.

Lets have fun, fun , fun. Swirling bodies to sweet, sweet voices, decked in

Black and joys. I don't only want to pursue happiness, I desire to have it

and keep it. Tell the truth, don't you ? It's what our Blues are about.

How Now, our Party of a New Type ? Send a call across the airways,

radioman. Seek a wonderous song and wise. Tell us true Black Athenas,

Kemetians in disguise, Sisters with voices.

quote:

* REJOICE AND REJOIN OUR SECRETS OF JOY * :

F U N X

https://marxism.quora.com/As-the-main-effect-of-Father-Christmas-is-the-commodification-of-human-relations-to-reproduce-relationships-of-labour-w-1?ch=17&oid=327303558&share=e756de10&srid=6MG9J&target_type=answer