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Santa:QAnon Conspiracy or not?

12/19/2020 1:25:49 PM

THE GOSSIPS

SANTA: QAnon Conspiracy or not?

As a promoter of Santa Claus, I admit to having been part of a worldwide conspiracy. My husband and I went so far as to take photos of Santa’s boot coming down our chimney and showing our seven-year-old son a dish of half-eaten cookies that he supposedly snacked on while depositing gifts. I did have a twinge of guilt when the pictures were taken to school to share as proof of Santa’s existence. 

  However, it was easy to rationalize that fairies, goblins and a toy manufacturing center in the North Pole run by elves are good things for children to believe in. Fantasies help spur their imagination and made them happy to know there is a world where sugar plum fairies exist. On the negative side, I risked not having him believe what I say to be true. Why should he trust me?

  Fantasies are ways of seeing a world composed of hopes, dreams, fears and plans for the future. At times they go so far that people project onto others what they imagine they might be thinking and feeling. They misread communications and assign imagined meanings. Tensions within marriages are often colored by such unconscious fantasies.

  Ethel Person, Professor of clinical Psychiatry says, “You need fantasy, but there has to be a way to put the brakes on. Killing your boss may be a pleasurable fantasy and can reduce tension, but murder is a terrible thing.” But, is it okay to imagine killing your boss as long as you don’t do it? What about sexual fantasies? Should you let your imagination run wild so it trespasses on established taboos? Being overtaken by fantasy can be detrimental to your mental health. Porn addition, for example, can grow to take precedence over real-life interactions. Fantasizing about a stranger you love may lead to stalking. 

  But, for healthy, well balanced individuals, there are many benefits of fantasizing. Reading travel magazines and imagining a vacation sailing the Rhine River or to South Sea islands can be a mood booster that let’s you escape from a mundane routine. Imagining escapes from reality are especially welcome to those sequestered in their homes.  Those caught in adverse family situations or in jobs they can’t walk away from can insert themselves in happier worlds through fantasy. 

  Allowing your mind to go to places without rules or parameters opens up creative possibilities useful to solving problems. Fantasy feeds artists, writers, and readers as well as those involved in scientific pursuits. Playing with ideas and thoughts often motivates many of us to try something new. Psychoanalyst, Lisa Schlesinger. writes that fantasy is a mental holding space that is safe. It is a place where the mind can play with the idea of change before doing it.

  Difficulty arrises when fantasy becomes reality in the mind, and barriers between thought and action disappear. Over the past year, the public has been inundated with misinformation from the alt right. Commentators on Fox News, QAnon and other conspiracy promotors spread lies, some of which were homegrown with others emanating from foreign entities. They created mistrust and chaos around institutions Americans have always held sacred. Fake news, a type of fantasy, is presented in such a way as to be believable and accepted as truth. Testing the accuracy of false statements requires hours of research that most people are not willing to give. It is easier to  accept fantasies presented by charlatans who they imagine will better their lives.  

  I find disproven and discredited far-right conspiracy theories so unbelievable it is a wonder anyone takes them seriously. QAnon conspiracies center on the idea of a “deep state” in which anti-American elements in the government, industry, media and other institutions are involved in bringing down President Donald Trump. It promotes that a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles are running a global child sex-trafficking ring that control the world and the media, and that Princess Diana was murdered after trying to stop the September 11th attacks. Conspiracy theorists subscribe to the idea that COVID-19 was planned. Why believe such an outlandish statements? 

  Unfortunately, like telling a seven-year-old that Santa is real, misinformation plays havoc with lives. Though social media sites attempt to ban such falsehoods, they are still gossiped about and passed on to friends through private accounts on Facebook and Twitter. An increasing number of people have let these harmful fantasies creep into U.S. politics. 

  During the past election, over two-dozen Republican candidates who engaged with QAnon conspiracies, ran for congress, and one, Marjorie Taylor Greene, from Atlanta Is headed there. QAnon believers who divorce themselves from reality are capable of bringing about real-world violence. The FBI published a report last year calling them a potential source of domestic terrorism.

  According to Pew Research Center, the majority of Americans who learn of right wing conspiracy theorists, believe they are a bad thing for the country, but they don’t know what to do about it. The fight for presidency is being taken to  bitter end by nay-sayers who do not believe in democracy. 

  So, what is the difference between conspiracy theorists and Santa promoters?  Santa is a benevolent jolly man who brings presents and fulfills wishes. He’s fair, and only rewards the good children, bringing coal to the bad. In the United States 85% of five-year-old children believe Santa exists, stopping by the age of eight.

  Some psychologists say that believing in him is harmful because it asks children to suspend critical thinking and encourages them to consume someone’s false ideas. Others experts consider it is harmless to let children believe that if they are good they will be rewarded, and is innocent fun for parents who get a kick out of surpassing their little ones with magic on Christmas morn. 

  I‘ve come to believe the Santa story more harmful than good after seeing what happens to people who don’t know how to separate truth from fiction. Santa doesn’t care if you believe in him or not. Kids can enjoy fantasizing about him as a storybook character as much as they imagine the Grinch stealing Christmas. They will still wait with excitement and anticipation for Christmas morning to come so they can open their gifts piled under the tree. 

  Whatever your beliefs, have a Merry Christmas and enjoy the holiday season. 

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REFERENCES:

(2020) 5 facts about the QAnon conspiracy theories. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/03/30/qanons-conspiracy-theories-have-seeped-into-u-s-politics-but-most-dont-know-what-it-is/

  Schlesinger,L.(2015) 5 Reasons Fantasizing is Good for you. Huffpost. retrieved from FANTSIZING

DiResta,R (2020 Right-Wing Social Media Finalizes Its Divorce From Reality. The Atlantic. retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/right-wing-social-media-finalizes-its-divorce-reality/617177/

Giubilini,A. (2018) Should we Believe in Santa Claus? Practical Ethics, University of Oxford. retrieved from http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2018/12/should-we-believe-in-santa-claus/

A Case For History

12/12/2020 11:50:25 AM

  Oregon City Falls

 The Oregon Trail ended near falls that became an energy hub for area, transmitting the first electric power to light Portland streets and providing energy to feed industrial mills along its banks. Today the buildings lie vacant in disrepair, with plans for them to be demolished and the falls  resorted to its original beauty. The wheel turned. The area has to be cleansed of debris to meet today’s needs. 

 A Case for History

In the New Reformers (1844) Ralph Waldo Emerson  wrote, “We are students of words: we are shut up in schools and colleges and recitation rooms for ten or fifteen years and come out at last with a bag of wind, a memory of words and we do not know a thing.”

His complaint is valid today, and that history is poorly taught, affects the nation. Lectures and memorization are history killers for most students. The relevancy of what  happened hundreds of years ago is difficult for most children to comprehend but unfortunately,  most  adults find it mystifying as well. A survey by the Woodrow Willson Institute found that only one in three Americans would pass the U.S. citizenship test, that 2 percent of those surveyed identified climate change as the cause of the Cold War and that many confuse the civil rights movement with the Civil War.

Americans are prone to consider history is boring and lacks practical purpose. Yet, the subject doesn’t have to be presented in dry, pedantic ways. It can be told through stories that bring the past to life. It is through them that we learn how to manage the future.  Knowing who we are, where we come from, and how the world operates is essential to deciding where we are going. History provides us with data that we use to make laws and develop theories about how society operates. 

Our ancestors exert both positive and negative influences on how we live today. Ignoring historical events thrust into a purgatory where human induced tragedies repeat themselves causing unnecessary for misery. Our handling of the pandemic is a case in point. The plan put together by the Obama administration, based on years of information about past pandemics only to be ignored by the present administration to the detriment of thousands of people.  The past is a map that delineates cause and effect and can help us understand human frailties and point out moral issues and evolving values  that keep up with changes in society. 

From 3100 years before the birth of Christ, around 5114 years ago, Egypt Old Kingdom dynasties went through 30 dynastic periods that are subdivided by scholars into seven kingdoms. The major shifts in kingdoms occurred during times of greed, political strife, invasions , and civil war. During peaceful times the country was prosperous, producing architectural masteries that displayed the kingdom’s wealth. With few threats, there was time to cultivate the arts in their highest forms.

China also went through dynastic cycles with many scholars consider the communist rule today but another repetition. According to theory, the various dynasties reach a political, cultural and economic peak when, because of moral corruption, they lose the “Mandate of Heaven, and fall, to be repacked by a new dynasty. The Mandate of Heaven says that there can be only one legitimate rule at a time and that the power bestowed on the emperor is blessed by the gods as long as he uses it for good. Dynasties  fall when children of wealthy rulers have privileges that make them lazy and less inclined to work for the betterment of the state. They  become focused on building personal wealth and power and willingly do so on the backs of peasants and the working poor. Dynasties were overthrown through rebellion and bloodshed, peasant revolts and external invasions.

Books have been written about the rise and fall of The Roman Empire,  The Third Reich, The West, and Texas Oil Tycoons. History tells of powerful leaders who rule bloated empires that fall under their own weight. It tells how discord and corruption run rampant brings about uprisings that usher in periodic stretches of order and prosperity such as the great Pax Romana—two centuries of peace under Augustus in 27 BC.

At this moment, I feel like I am living in the horror loop of a great historical cycle. Around me I see greed and desire for personal wealth above all supersede fairness and justice. It is a period where contemporary Machiavellis rule nations with dictatorial authority.  In 1530s when Machiavelli wrote “The Prince” in a letter to Lorenzo de Medici ruler of Florence, he meant it to be a guide on how to lead. His basic premise was that staying power justifies any means used to do so-no matter how horrific. That is certainly occurring in the United States and many other nations around the globe today. 

Though I will never concede that the end justifies the means, Machiavelli goes on to  argue that once leadership is obtained, reason and understanding should be used to better politics so that it will work for the common good. He gives warnings of what will happen when power is misused. His cautions can be applied  to ideas of the alt right and the way the media and politicians promote “fake news.” Contemporary Machiavellian leaders use evil methods to gain and maintain a power that they do not use for the common good. Instead, they line their own treasure chests and set up legal precedents that undermine democracy. They spread falsehoods and rumors that make people fearful. By doing so, they divide citizens, incite civil unrest and arm neighbors who take law in their own hands.

There is no doubt in my mind that the cycle we are in will eventually play out, and the current situation will end. Unfortunately, you and I may not live long enough to enjoy the fruits of the next “Pax America.” But, for the sake of our children’s grandchildren,  I hope they learn enough history to break through dysfunctional cycles that allows self-serving magnates to flourish at the expense of humanity. 

References

Wexler, N (2018) Three Myths That Explain Why Americans Don't Know Much About History. Forbes..retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/nataliewexler/2018/10/11/three-myths-that-explain-why-americans-dont-know-much-about-history/?sh=4aef9fdb47ba

Millmore, (2020) M: Egyptian Old Kingdom Dynasties. Discovering Egypt. retrieved from https://discoveringegypt.com/ancient-egyptian-kings-queens/egyptian-old-kingdom-dynasties/

The Dynastic Cycle. Students of History. retrieved from https://www.studentsofhistory.com/the-dynastic-cycle

History Vault: Rome:Rise and Fall. History. retrieved from https://www.history.com/news/history-vault-rome-rise-and-fall

(2019) Machiavelli’s ‘The Prince’ and its Relevance to the Modern Political Sphere. Dissertation  retrieved from https://ukdiss.com/examples/machiavelli-the-prince-modern-politics.php 

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