Young Voices

For me it seems that the Christmas holidays consistently bring out the tensions between the sacred and secular worlds. There’s a constant pull between the commercial religion of so-called secularism where the mall is a shrine to the capitalist gods, and the need for some religious people to point out that we need to put Christ back in Christmas (as if it were up to us to defend Christianity against those who say ‘happy holidays’ instead of ‘merry Christmas’). I think that instead of treating the holidays as a time for theists and nontheists to compete, we should realize that the holidays are a wonderful time of year for reasons that are foreign to both those who cannot step outside of their religious worldview, and those who can’t imagine themselves in one.

Spending time with family has taught me that without good communication living with other people can be, as Sartre says, hell. I feel like all too often people make a hell for themselves by constructing antinomies – insurmountable oppositions – between positions or opinions. What we need, at Christmas and at any time of the year, is a good discourse ethics which rules out practices like refutation (“I have proven you wrong!”), and rules in practices of dialogue and communication. Too often I witness people whose arguments are good, and whose ideas are good, but whose practices in discussion are horrific. I think that if we put more importance on how we say things than on what we say, the world would be more pleasant place.

This may sound like a Christmas rant, but I am very thankful for my friends and family and for the time off school. Alas, in three days I will have to start writing that thesis too.

Cf. http://ortusmemoria.wordpress.com/2011/10/14/my-thesis-abstract/