So, Christmas Spirit?

To be honest, I think these days Christmas is all about buying gifts and spending money. Well, not these days literally, but this is a well-known consumer society tradition that has been present in our life since we can remember. It’s not just the action of spending hours in malls and shopping centers instead of spending time with friends and family what annoys me, but the common belief that we’ll find happiness by spending money we may not have, in order to buy things we don’t need, to some people we usually don’t like.

Thankfully, my family is not all like this. We like to show we care about others by giving them gifts, and I personally dislike those who use presents to emotionally compensate people they offended. My relatives are the 1st kind of people. We still give each other presents that we buy; but we also celebrate, with a family dinner, we are once more together, happy and healthy. Although —and I’m not going to lie to you— it’s been quite long since we last celebrated Jesus birth. I wonder how many people out there remember the original meaning of Christmas; I mean, I’m thinking of those who do not idolatrize Santa or credit cards.

I just don’t get it. To me, money ain’t the source of happiness. Material possessions either. So, I believe those who get crazy about buying and receiving presents for Christmas are missing the whole point of gifts: the reciprocity in the favor exchange. It may be the sociologist side in me, but I can’t help being reminded by Marcel Mauss’ work, “The Gift”, about the symbolic meaning of exchanging presents. So I just cannot tolerate the consumer meaning behind Christmas and every festivity.

Here you have some pictures that may, or may not, make you smirk.
If not, then they’ll make you think about Christmas spirit:

http://www.cinismoilustrado.com/2011/12/quien-es-santa.html

http://www.cinismoilustrado.com/2011/12/grinch-cards.html

http://www.cinismoilustrado.com/2011/12/jesus-nacio-por-tus-regalos.html

“We spend money that we do not have,
on things we do not need,
to impress people who do not care.”
will Smith.

Religion for Atheists?

Review from
"A banal and impudent argument for the uses of religion"
by Terry Eagleton.

What is religion? Where did it come from? What is it useful for? Why some people do not have a religion and others need it so badly?

To me, as a future sociologist, religion and the social means to organize are very interesting subjects. That's why I couldn't help to write about Terry Eagleton's review of Alain de Botton's book.

In this review, Eagleton explains what some authors and philosophers had said though history. Some, like Voltaire, agreed that religion has been necessary to control masses, but that atheism has been allowed among the elite; this way it had an indispensable social role. Auguste Comte, for example, “designed an ideal society complete with secular versions of God, priests, sacraments, prayer and feast days”, and Friedrich Nietzsche indicated that if God is dead, so is the conception of humanity.

"Religion for Atheists: A Non-Believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion", the book written by Alain de Botton, maintains Voltaire’s tradition when considers that religious beliefs and rituals are irrational, but at the same time are important in order to maintain a civilised society with a sense of community. In Eagleton’s words, this book takes other people’s beliefs and reorganizes them for moral sake, “social consensus and aesthetic pleasure. It is an (unoriginal) astonishingly impudent enterprise, (where) religious faith is reduced to a set of banal moral tags”.

But, honestly, despite all these comments and descriptions of religion uses, doesn’t humanity need to reaffirm empathy and its sense of society? Maybe “Religion for Atheists” is more than just an insult for religious believes, and it will allow us to discover a practical use for all those things dogmas tell us not to question... Well, we’ll have to find that out.

If you feel any interest in the subject, here you have another opinion about this book you can contrast with Eagleton's view. Just that this time is Richard Cole's review “Religion for Atheists by Alain de Botton: Alain de Botton's attempt to encourage secular society to steal religion's most fruitful ideas is admirable but ultimately hollow.” Now, if you are feeling the same way I am, and you want to know what Alain de Botton has to say, here you have him in the TED Talk "Alain de Botton: atheism 2.0"

If I could go somewhere else...

If I could choose to go somewhere, anywhere, I would take my time to decide. If it were possible, I'd like to visit every single continent and share with as many cultures as I could.

Although I’d love to travel across the whole extension of what once was the Roman Empire (form Antonine and Hadrian’s Wall to the Caspian Sea, from the Rhine and Danube to Egypt and North Africa) for historical reasons. I even remember wishing with all my hart going to Europe, especially to the romantic France and the gothic Germany. I love its architectural, musical and artistic tradition and evolution. In fact, I once wanted to study History of (Western) Arts; and I haven’t ruled out the possibility of studding Sociology of the Arts (including eastern arts).

But I must confess, since I can remember, I’ve been interested particularly on African tribes. It might be all the Discovery Channel’s programs I used to watch when I was a kid, and the anthropological part in me, telling me to take a leap of fate and go for adventures. No wonder why I’m studding Sociology, a close field of investigation to Social Anthropology. Still, this is one of the things I want to do before dying:

"To experience one of the most ancient cultures, to reconnect with our human roots."

Not sure about what's gonna happen...

After about six months without classes because of "the Chile's Students Movement" everything
(especially my universitary life) is pretty uncertain...

Honestly, I’m expecting to get out of this as soon as possible, and try to learn as much as I can in the process. But I’m not sure how much I can learn in about three months… Anyway, I look forward to passing every single subject, which includes Social Psychology, Social History of Latin America, Philosophy of Social Sciences, Methodology of the Social Investigation, and Psychoanalysis in the Theater. This last one is an optional class I’m attending to, because I’m pretty interested about Psychology and Psychoanalysis at the moment; so I won’t have to worry about passing it.

But I just can’t imagine how classes will be during December and January with all the tests, the high temperatures, the rest of my friends on vacations, and stuff… I don’t think it’ll be the best time to study. Hopefully, I’ll finish soon with all the study, pass, and have fun on February. But I’m just not sure about how that's going to happen: March will be waiting for me, for the exams.