MIDWESTERN MARX
  • Home
  • Online Articles
    • Articles >
      • All
      • News
      • Politics
      • Theory
      • Book Reviews
      • Chinese Philosophy Dialogues
    • American Socialism Travels
    • Youth League
  • Dr. Riggins' Book Series
    • Eurocommunism and the State
    • Debunking Russiagate
    • The Weather Makers
    • Essays on Bertrand Russell and Marxism
    • The Truth Behind Polls
    • Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century
    • Lenin's Materialism & Empirio-Criticism
    • Mao's Life
    • Lenin's State and Rev
    • Lenin's LWC Series
    • Anti-Dühring Series
  • Store
    • Books
    • Merchandise
  • YouTube
  • Journal of American Socialist Studies (JASS)
  • Contact
    • Article Submissions
    • The Marks of Capital
  • Online Library
  • Staff

1/7/2022

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

1 Comment

Read Now
 
Picture
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.”


Archives

January 2022
December 2021
November 2021
October 2021
September 2021
August 2021
July 2021
June 2021
May 2021
April 2021
March 2021
February 2021
January 2021
December 2020
November 2020
October 2020
September 2020
August 2020
July 2020

Share

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


Reply



Leave a Reply.

Details

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020

    Categories

    All
    Aesthetics
    Afghanistan
    Althusser
    American Civil War
    American Socialism
    American Socialism Travels
    Anti Imperialism
    Anti-Imperialism
    Art
    August Willich
    Berlin Wall
    Bolivia
    Book Review
    Brazil
    Capitalism
    Censorship
    Chile
    China
    Chinese Philosophy Dialogue
    Christianity
    CIA
    Class
    Climate Change
    COINTELPRO
    Communism
    Confucius
    Cuba
    Debunking Russiagate
    Democracy
    Democrats
    DPRK
    Eco Socialism
    Ecuador
    Egypt
    Elections
    Engels
    Eurocommunism
    Feminism
    Frederick Douglass
    Germany
    Ghandi
    Global Capitalism
    Gramsci
    History
    Hunger
    Immigration
    Imperialism
    Incarceration
    Interview
    Joe Biden
    Labor
    Labour
    Lenin
    Liberalism
    Lincoln
    Linke
    Literature
    Lula Da Silva
    Malcolm X
    Mao
    Marx
    Marxism
    May Day
    Media
    Medicare For All
    Mencius
    Militarism
    MKULTRA
    Mozi
    National Affairs
    Nelson Mandela
    Neoliberalism
    New Left
    News
    Nina Turner
    Novel
    Palestine
    Pandemic
    Paris Commune
    Pentagon
    Peru Libre
    Phillip-bonosky
    Philosophy
    Political-economy
    Politics
    Pol Pot
    Proletarian
    Putin
    Race
    Religion
    Russia
    Settlercolonialism
    Slavery
    Slavoj-zizek
    Social-democracy
    Socialism
    South-africa
    Soviet-union
    Summer-2020-protests
    Syria
    Theory
    The-weather-makers
    Trump
    Venezuela
    War-on-drugs
    Whatistobedone...now...likenow-now
    Wilfrid-sellers
    Worker-cooperatives
    Xunzi

All ORIGINAL Midwestern Marx content is under Creative Commons
(CC BY-ND 4.0) which means you can republish our work only if it is attributed properly (link the original publication to the republication) and not modified. 
Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • Online Articles
    • Articles >
      • All
      • News
      • Politics
      • Theory
      • Book Reviews
      • Chinese Philosophy Dialogues
    • American Socialism Travels
    • Youth League
  • Dr. Riggins' Book Series
    • Eurocommunism and the State
    • Debunking Russiagate
    • The Weather Makers
    • Essays on Bertrand Russell and Marxism
    • The Truth Behind Polls
    • Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century
    • Lenin's Materialism & Empirio-Criticism
    • Mao's Life
    • Lenin's State and Rev
    • Lenin's LWC Series
    • Anti-Dühring Series
  • Store
    • Books
    • Merchandise
  • YouTube
  • Journal of American Socialist Studies (JASS)
  • Contact
    • Article Submissions
    • The Marks of Capital
  • Online Library
  • Staff