Christmas in a Postmodern World (STORY)

Post Reply New Topic

Are adults on the Autism Spectrum more likely than NTs to consider the meanings of 'Christmas' and 'Postmodern' in the same thoughts?

Let's just say those awesome NTs in the lives of those of us on the Autism Spectrum would answer this question with a resounding YES!!

Christmas in a Postmodern World:
(STORY) https://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/201 ... ews61.html

Well, I'm an Aspie atheist who dislikes consumerism, likes science but with certain reservations, and has mixed views about modern times, so I don't think the article has much to say about me. It seems to be an attempt to condemn the decline of Christianity as merely the result of the foolish embracing of science and consumerism. I wish they'd done it in plainer English so it would be more clear what their points were.

As for Christmas, I don't bother much with rituals myself. These things seem very important to a lot of people so I wouldn't want to knock it as such, as long as its observance does no harm.

Thank-you for your response!

A moderate-length read worth reading - "The Need for Transcendence in the Postmodern World", by 'Vaclav Havel' was mentioned in (STORY) 'Christmas in a Postmodern World.'

^
And here it is:

https://newtheosophynetwork.com/quoted- ... lav-havel/

Rather like the article which refers to it, it seems to make assumptions about "the meaning of life" which somebody such as myself doesn't hold to. To me, there is no cosmic plan, and no particular meaning to my life beyond what it means to me and others who know me, yet I still seem to be no more harmful than anybody else is. Just my take on the matter of course. I don't see that it does any harm as such for people to assume there's some kind of plan out there, especially if it gives them comfort.

Thank-you for posting the LINK on Vaclav Havel's perspectives on Postmodernism.

Havel's speech on postmoderism was more understandable than so much of the overly confusing intellectual content on Postmodernism.

Staying on the holiday-themed examples of 'Postmodernism' 'A Postmodernist Perspective on Hallmark Christmas Movies' (LINK) was written - an eleven page paper (double spaced) with references.

The first page, page six, and the last page provides a rough (understandable) gist of............'A Postmodernist Perspective on Hallmark Christmas Movies.' Quite a choice of topic......written in a dissertation-like style!

LINK: https://eleonorabiondo.files.wordpress. ... movies.pdf

Christmas remains a strong cultural event in the lives of people living in the western hemisphere. I say remains as the religious aspect of this date is less important as younger people drift away from christian beliefs/dogma but the association with their upbringing, family reunions and general merry festivities will mean gift giving and decorating one's house etc will continue.

Yes a lot of these cultural observance things seem to drift over time. Christmas itself appears to have some association with older rituals such as the highly licentious Roman Saturnalia and the Norse Yule. Puritans banned Christmas in England for a time, considering it to be too far removed from the "true" righteous meaning of Christianity. So I'm not sure that we're dealing with an entirely new departure from the "proper Christian values" of Christmas these days. Rituals can be bizarre things to my mind. There was one place in South America I think (I wish I could remember which place) where donkey's years ago the missionaries tried to introduce Christianity. It kind of worked, but the locals still also held onto their older theology and procedures, creating a mish-mash of both which was senseless by anybody's standards. When confronted with this obvious fact, the locals were said to reply "yes, but we like it this way." Sometimes things don't have to make sense.

I wasn't familiar with Hallmark movies, but I sniffed around the Web and got the idea, not that I got to see much of their actual content as it barely exists for free. Interesting that the pdf sees them as embracing (and doing very nicely out of) capitalism. Apparently their audience likes them for "expressing traditional family values and steering away from political themes and stories that denigrate religion." Frankly I haven't found much out there that palpably denigrates religion as such. Mostly as far as I can tell it just seems to offer different perspectives and intriguing fictional parallels, but I guess some folks see that as some kind of attack. Even the IMDB says The Wizard Of Oz criticises or mocks religion, and so do quite a few films I never suspected of anything of the kind:
https://www.imdb.com/list/ls059617297/
Hope I haven't strayed too far off topic.

Yes according to historian Kenneth C. Davis christmas was celebrated as early as the fourth century BC, suggesting that it had almost nothing to do with Jesus Christ.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-unexpe ... raditions/

But this should not be necessarily surprising given both Easter and Halloween also have pagan origins. Also the months of the year and days of the week still pay homage to the old pre-christian gods of Roman and Anglo-Saxon origin.

In reality the puritans were probably correct but modern christianity is a compromise. The closest analogy I can think of is the Queen's birthday holiday in Australia which never falls on the late queen's actual birthday. But as with Christmas and Easter people really don't care as long as they get a holiday.

One facet of 'Postmodernism' is metafiction - or meta-narritive. The holiday movie schedules (STORY) include two, or three meta-narrative themed movies.

One example in the (STORY) is 'Lights, Camera, Christmas.' One possible 'meta-christmas theme' example not mentioned in (STORY) is 'Cloudy With A Chance of Christmas' - that is the storyline included characters in the news-media grappling with the issue of whether or not to use the fake snow machine - the perception/reality issue.

(STORY) Meta-Christmas to All!
https://theyulelog.substack.com/p/meta-christmas-to-all

A post in this tread (latest post in thread as of this writing) began with............. 'One facet of 'Postmodernism' is metafiction - or meta-narritive.'

Yes I see it, but I don't know what it means.

A link on 'metafiction' also known as meta-narrative uses in literature, film, etc. might clarify: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metafiction

EXCERPT: (Start of second paragraph) 'Although metafiction is most commonly associated with postmodern literature........'

This includes those holiday related films listed in LINK; 'Meta-Christmas To All.'

^
Yes understanding the meaning of the term paralanguage is a good start, but I still don't understand the sentence(s) that used it.

New discusison thread devoted to 'Postmodernism' here in the 'Politics, Philosophy, and Religion Forum' - Thread: 'Interest In Postmodernism / Autism Spectrum.'

See: viewtopic.php?t=410789

Last edited by Cornflake on 28 Dec 2022, 8:00 am, edited 1 time in total.: Added a link to the thread