For many years, children have sung the twisted holiday carol “Jingle bells, Santa smells, Robin laid an egg...” Kind of irreverent, a little twisted, but not all that far from the classic Spike Jones take on the holiday. “All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth” and “I’m getting nothin’ for Christmas” have a kind of innocence, even if they don’t exactly toe the standard reverent Christmas carol line.
But somehow it feels like a line has been crossed as I heard some children singing “Deck the halls with poison ivy...” That was the beginning; in later lines the song descended into celebrations of decorations causing even more pain and suffering.
Every generation has its own versions of sophomoric comedy. Every society has jesters dancing out on the margins, deflating the solemn traditions of the elders. In previous generations, those impulses have been harmless comic release valves because there was a strong affirmation of the traditions that give shape and form to the culture. And the jesters had the positive value of helping our society avoid the pride that comes from taking itself too seriously.
But what becomes of a generation raised on the sophomoric deflation of the traditions? What if defending the tradition becomes the marginal activity, and deflating it becomes the main thing? Reverence and respect go together. A culture with a strong sense of reverence is a culture that can cultivate a strong sense of mutual respect.
Many people find the Three Stooges funny because they’re so off the wall and unusual. Imagine, though, a world where Curly, Larry, and Moe set the standards for how people should treat one another. Suddenly they’re not so funny. If irreverence displaces reverence, and everything is something of a joke played out for our entertainment, why should any of us take any respectful notice of anyone else?
And I suppose that’s why I find it so troubling to hear kids singing about decking the halls with poison ivy. A little irreverence is harmless. Things begin to fall apart when that cynical impulse begins to displace the traditional ennobling aspirations of the holiday.
Was it Chris Johnson (at the excellent blog Midwest Conservative Journal) who wrote about how nervous he was that the work of defending the core societal institutions was in the hands of a generation that knew more about how to tear down traditions than build them up? Whoever wrote that was onto something important. It will be a challenge to see the problem and rise to the occasion. But can our generation muster the strength to meet that challenge?
If we can, we will truly be heirs of the title “Greatest Generation.”
Escaping the Night
2 years ago
