Happy Thanksgiving!
Thanksgiving is the "Producers Holiday" a day and a weekend when we celebrate the abundance that we create.
"Thanksgiving is a typically American holiday. In spite of its religious form (giving thanks to God for a good harvest), its essential, secular meaning is a celebration of successful production. It is a producers’ holiday. The lavish meal is a symbol of the fact that abundant consumption is the result and reward of production. Abundance is (or was and ought to be) America’s pride—just as it is the pride of American parents that their children need never know starvation." -- http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/tha...
"How do we get this bountiful harvest? Watch any hardworking American. We create it by working hard year after year, and by wanting excellence for ourselves and our loved ones. What we don't create ourselves, we use our best judgment to trade value for value with those who have the goods and services we need, such as our bankers, hairdressers, and doctors. We alone are responsible for our wealth. We are the producers and Thanksgiving is our holiday." -- http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/O...
"The unearned" comes to us in another form as well, and one that requires a response slightly different from gratitude. Just as we cannot fully return the benefits conferred upon us by those who inhabit the top of the pyramid of ability, so we cannot return the benefits conferred upon us by all the producers who have gone before us and who have advanced civilization in ways large and small. For some centuries now, most people in the West have earned goods and services by productive labor and free trade. In that sense, they have paid their own way. But what their labor has been able to buy has differed dramatically. And that difference is something that they have not earned. The sheer fruitfulness of today's economy as compared to the economy of the past, the sheer abundance of capital and knowledge that lies at our disposal, is not a product of our own making.
And here, I suggest, is a role for the concept of "thankfulness," which formerly meant the proper response to gifts from God or Providence. Let us secularize the concept of "thankfulness." Let us use "thankfulness" to mean "an outward expression of appreciation for all who have benefited us by advancing civilization through their achievements and philanthropy." And let us designate Thanksgiving as the day on which we express that appreciation. -- http://atlassociety.org/objectivism/a...
"In free-market America today, we have so much food at such a low cost that obesity rather than emaciation is a health problem.
Which brings us to what we do the day after Thanksgiving and the month that follows: We shop! We crowd the malls to buy gifts for others—and usually a little something for ourselves. Yes, some people complain about commercialized holidays, but the whole purpose of fall harvest feasts throughout human history was to celebrate production. How wonderful that we can make our lives comfortable with attractive clothes and fun toys, consumer electronics and interesting books, movies and music, fine furniture and furnishings, to say nothing of tasty treats! And we can share our regard for those significant individuals in our lives with gifts of the same." -- http://atlassociety.org/commentary/co...
"Thanksgiving is a typically American holiday. In spite of its religious form (giving thanks to God for a good harvest), its essential, secular meaning is a celebration of successful production. It is a producers’ holiday. The lavish meal is a symbol of the fact that abundant consumption is the result and reward of production. Abundance is (or was and ought to be) America’s pride—just as it is the pride of American parents that their children need never know starvation." -- http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/tha...
"How do we get this bountiful harvest? Watch any hardworking American. We create it by working hard year after year, and by wanting excellence for ourselves and our loved ones. What we don't create ourselves, we use our best judgment to trade value for value with those who have the goods and services we need, such as our bankers, hairdressers, and doctors. We alone are responsible for our wealth. We are the producers and Thanksgiving is our holiday." -- http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/O...
"The unearned" comes to us in another form as well, and one that requires a response slightly different from gratitude. Just as we cannot fully return the benefits conferred upon us by those who inhabit the top of the pyramid of ability, so we cannot return the benefits conferred upon us by all the producers who have gone before us and who have advanced civilization in ways large and small. For some centuries now, most people in the West have earned goods and services by productive labor and free trade. In that sense, they have paid their own way. But what their labor has been able to buy has differed dramatically. And that difference is something that they have not earned. The sheer fruitfulness of today's economy as compared to the economy of the past, the sheer abundance of capital and knowledge that lies at our disposal, is not a product of our own making.
And here, I suggest, is a role for the concept of "thankfulness," which formerly meant the proper response to gifts from God or Providence. Let us secularize the concept of "thankfulness." Let us use "thankfulness" to mean "an outward expression of appreciation for all who have benefited us by advancing civilization through their achievements and philanthropy." And let us designate Thanksgiving as the day on which we express that appreciation. -- http://atlassociety.org/objectivism/a...
"In free-market America today, we have so much food at such a low cost that obesity rather than emaciation is a health problem.
Which brings us to what we do the day after Thanksgiving and the month that follows: We shop! We crowd the malls to buy gifts for others—and usually a little something for ourselves. Yes, some people complain about commercialized holidays, but the whole purpose of fall harvest feasts throughout human history was to celebrate production. How wonderful that we can make our lives comfortable with attractive clothes and fun toys, consumer electronics and interesting books, movies and music, fine furniture and furnishings, to say nothing of tasty treats! And we can share our regard for those significant individuals in our lives with gifts of the same." -- http://atlassociety.org/commentary/co...
Yes!!
"just as it is the pride of American parents that their children need never know starvation."
Yes!! I hear more people concerned that their children not be decadent. They're concerned if they just bequeath them the wealth they create, their children won't appreciate it. It's a good problem we have.
"Let us use "thankfulness" to mean "an outward expression of appreciation for all who have benefited us by advancing civilization through their achievements and philanthropy."
People who talk to Ayn Rand fans who can only tell you how life is a box of $hits and things will only get worse should read this.
"Yes, some people complain about commercialized holidays"
And others complain with full on religious sanctinmony when they see an ad selling something for the winter holidays that doesn't exploit Christmas, so people complain either way.
"How wonderful that we can make our lives comfortable with attractive clothes and fun toys, consumer electronics and interesting books, movies and music, fine furniture and furnishings, to say nothing of tasty treats!"
Yes!! People who think AR is about how life sucks and the only question is how fast the armageddon comes, take note!
I am very thankful for all human ingenuity has brought us.