After a couple of decades since it was first published, the award for the worst take on Christmas, religious or not, still goes to Randroid Supreme Leonard Peikoff’s essay, Why Christmas Should be More Commercial. Even The Grinch would say “I think you’re taking it a little too far, Leonard.”
(I’d rather not link to it myself, but this search should get you there.)
It starts with this gem of a paragraph…
Christmas in America is an exuberant display of human ingenuity, capitalist productivity, and the enjoyment of life. Yet all of these are castigated as “materialistic”; the real meaning of the holiday, we are told, is assorted Nativity tales and altruist injunctions (e.g., love thy neighbor) that no one takes seriously.
…and it ends with this one:
America’s tragedy is that its intellectual leaders have typically tried to replace happiness with guilt by insisting that the spiritual meaning of Christmas is religion and self-sacrifice for Tiny Tim or his equivalent. But the spiritual must start with recognizing reality. Life requires reason, selfishness, capitalism; that is what Christmas should celebrate — and really, underneath all the pretense, that is what it does celebrate. It is time to take the Christ out of Christmas, and turn the holiday into a guiltlessly egoistic, pro-reason, this-worldly, commercial celebration.
In a pluralistic societies like those in the United States, Canada, and the other G7 countries, a national holiday that has religious origins can’t be exclusively religious.
But Peikoff’s take is just too dickish. He clearly states that he’s not into the whole “love thy neighbor” thing, which is based on the Golden Rule, which is something all religions and most philosophies — Objectivism being a notable exception — follow.
If there’s anything positive about the essay, it’s that perhaps it might help convince people that capitalism — especially the current variety — is not an unalloyed good.
So yes, peace on earth, good will, and most definitely love thy neighbor, and Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
In case you need a primer on the founder of Objectivism, Ayn Rand, here’s the best short video summary I’m aware of:
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