{"id":4362,"date":"2009-12-23T11:16:12","date_gmt":"2009-12-23T11:16:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2009\/12\/23\/the-ethics-of-santa\/"},"modified":"2009-12-23T11:16:12","modified_gmt":"2009-12-23T11:16:12","slug":"the-ethics-of-santa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2009\/12\/23\/the-ethics-of-santa\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ethics of Santa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Janet has a post grappling with the ethical implications of telling children about Santa Claus<\/a>. SteelyKid is too young for this to be an issue yet, but on this issue, like many others, I turn to my favorite literary philosopher, Terry Pratchett:<\/p>\n

\n

“All right,” said Susan. “I’m not stupid. You’re saying humans need… fantasies<\/i> to make life bearable.”<\/p>\n

REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.<\/p>\n

“Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little–“<\/p>\n

YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE<\/EM> LIES.<\/p>\n

“So we can believe the big ones?”<\/p>\n

YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.<\/p>\n

“They’re not the same at all!”<\/p>\n

YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW<\/EM> ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE. ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET– Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME… SOME RIGHTNESS<\/EM> IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.<\/p>\n

“Yes, but people have got<\/em> to believe that, or what’s the point<\/em>–“<\/p>\n

MY POINT EXACTLY.<\/p>\n

She tried to assemble her thoughts.<\/p>\n

THERE IS A PLACE WHERE TWO GALAXIES HAVE BEEN COLLIDING FOR A MILLION YEARS, said Death, apropos of nothing. DON’T TRY TO TELL ME<\/EM> THAT’S RIGHT.<\/p>\n

“Yes, but people don’t think about that,” said Susan. Somewhere there was a bed…<\/p>\n

CORRECT. STARS EXPLODE, WORLDS COLLIDE, THERE’S HARDLY ANYWHERE IN THE UNIVERSE HUMANS CAN LIVE WITHOUT BEING FROZEN OR FRIED, AND YET YOU BELIEVE THAT A… A BED IS A NORMAL THING. IT IS A MOST AMAZING TALENT.<\/p>\n

“Talent?”<\/p>\n

OH, YES. A VERY SPECIAL KIND OF STUPIDITY. YOU THINK THE WHOLE UNIVERSE IS INSIDE YOUR HEADS.<\/p>\n

“You make us sound mad,” said Susan. A nice warm bed…<\/p>\n

NO. YOU NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN’T TRUE. HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME<\/EM>? said Death.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

(From Hogfather<\/cite>, one of my favorite Discworld books.)<\/p>\n

It’s too clever by half to pass muster as actual philosophy, but it works for me. Happy Hogswatch, everybody.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Janet has a post grappling with the ethical implications of telling children about Santa Claus. SteelyKid is too young for this to be an issue yet, but on this issue, like many others, I turn to my favorite literary philosopher, Terry Pratchett: “All right,” said Susan. “I’m not stupid. You’re saying humans need… fantasies to… Continue reading The Ethics of Santa<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,139,104,37,75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-culture","category-humanities","category-pop_culture","category-society","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4362\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}