"Happy holidays" is bullshit Christian normativity.

[nhammen]

Here's the thing about normativity... It's a time-saver based on statistics and probability.

This is the same argument that is used in favor of stereotypes... I find it mildly disturbing that you are using it seriously.

Proof?

Proof of what? That this argument is used in favor of stereotypes by people smart enough to know some statistics, but not smart enough to use statistics correctly? How about a website from a professor at Syracuse that uses this argument: http://www.moralhealth.com/2009/12/stereotypes/

So I meet a random unknown who happens to be Shea and wish him a Happy Holiday and he tells me to "Fuck off!".. And that's okay with people here?

I don't think responding to an attempted nicety with cussing and venom is something anybody here has advocated. I would not be okay with that. Are you trying to strawman here?

They aren't condemning it either.

Did you seriously just... You aren't condemning the slaughter of English majors, so you must be for it?

Let me state it plainly. YOU are the one who brought up responding to "Happy Holidays" with venom. That was entirely YOUR idea, and NOBODY ever suggested doing it. This strawman of yours is absurd.

[nhammen]

It looks like we need a clearer notion of normativity. The definition I used earlier was the one asserted by Shea: "I think everyone should be celebrating Christmas right now, and I will make you celebrate it with me with a thinly veiled code word for Christmas."

The definition of normativity I am using is more like "I think everyone should be celebrating Christmas right now, and anybody who does not shouldn't be a member of my society, unless they change their ways."

I still don't think I have the right wording. And in fact this wording is actually similar to Shea's, because both ways someone is excluding others from what they consider American society to be - possibly without realizing it.

Maybe "I think everyone should be celebrating Christmas right now, and I will make sure anybody that doesn't feels like they don't fit in to society, unless they change their ways." But that seems a bit on the weak side. It's not just about making someone feel bad. It's about making them excluded. It's about making them

know

that they are not a normal person. Hence why it is called normativity. Maybe "I think everyone should be celebrating Christmas right now, and every person who does should make sure everyone that doesn't knows that they aren't normal."

Honestly, the best discussions happen when you try to define something, because that gets into what you are really talking about.

[Tamuz]

Shouldn't we be slaughtering English majors, though? They're just more mouths for the taxpaying jobhavers to feed.

Good post!

[nhammen]

They are not saying "I think everyone should be celebrating Christmas right now" or they'd just be saying "Happy/merry Christmas", the fact that they're saying "Happy Holidays" means that they recognize people who don't celebrate Christmas.

Also the intent of how it started matters, and "Happy Holidays" did not have heinous origins. If the phrase "Happy Holidays" had been created by the US government during the cold war as a way to de-americanize atheists, then yes it would be a horrible example of bullshit Christian normativity and would need to be purged from the language, but it wasn't. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it created with the intent of having less Christian normativity?

And colored was used to be less insulting to black people. And yet...

Honestly, thats what this debate reminds me of. At one point there is a word or phrase that is used, and is considered offensive. Then a new word or phrase is created to replace the old one, so as to be PC. But since it is used in exactly the same places as the old word or phrase, it actually changes nothing, and just reminds people of the old word or phrase. But it still lets people who use the new word or phrase feel good about themselves, because they obviously aren't being insulting at all.

[Psyche]

At least in one sense, we might say that normativity is the

quality

of being normative, like clarity is the quality of being clear. And so Christian normativity might involve being normative with respect to Christianity.

So then what does being normative mean in this context? Making/establishing Christianity [as] the ideal or normal? Prescribing or imposing christian values upon others?

I think the exclusion might be driven by the same attitude that a stranger saying to me, "Isn't God great?" or "Damn she's hot, right?" might. There's an assumption of a universally shared trait that I don't have, and so my otherness gets unduly emphasized and that makes me uncomfortable and different — though not offended.

Happy Holidays is supposed to avoid this effect by referring to all holidays happening in december and very early January, as well as the off-from-work holiday that most of us seem to get. Some people might indeed still be excluded from this pool (but some people might be excluded from statements like "great day!", too), but the assumption that drives the exclusion is supposed to be less unwarranted in America than the one that drives "Merry Christmas".

The problem with this attitude brought up cemtered around the fact that Hannukah doesn't merit the attitude "Happy Holidays" seems to assert. But it seems avoidable to me, if focus is placed on New Years, which people who have a distinct cultural calendar probably still recognize for the same reason they'll say to a stranger that it is December. Is this wrong?

But since it is used in exactly the same places as the old word or phrase

Except it isn't. Christmas is over, but Happy Holidays is still in play until New Years is over, and perhaps until we return to school, right?

[Tamuz]

It's gonna be a long time until we all return to school.

[Uite]

Honestly, thats what this debate reminds me of. At one point there is a word or phrase that is used, and is considered offensive. Then a new word or phrase is created to replace the old one, so as to be PC. But since it is used in exactly the same places as the old word or phrase, it actually changes nothing, and just reminds people of the old word or phrase. But it still lets people who use the new word or phrase feel good about themselves, because they obviously aren't being insulting at all.

As long as the intention behind the words doesn't change, any new words will just incorporate everything the old words had. I think the best example of that is with words related to disabilities. It seems like every five years or so, new terms have to be invented, because the old ones have already become slurs...

[Mastermind of Sin]

This whole thread:

Member of the minority: When you act this way I feel this way.
Member of the majority: You shouldn't feel that way. Your feelings are illegitimate. I have no idea how your positions feels, because I am not ever subjected to it, but I still feel comfortable telling you to get over it. I don't mean to be offensive!

Tamuz: Uhhhhhh

Me:

http://everydayfeminism.com/2013/07/int ... ly-matter/

Hey Hey Hey Shea:

Not everything is about you.

[Psyche]

It's gonna be a long time until we all return to school.

darn it

[N]

This whole thread:

Member of the minority: When you act this way I feel this way.
Member of the majority: You shouldn't feel that way. Your feelings are illegitimate. I have no idea how your positions feels, because I am not ever subjected to it, but I still feel comfortable telling you to get over it. I don't mean to be offensive!

Tamuz: Uhhhhhh

Me:

http://everydayfeminism.com/2013/07/int ... ly-matter/

Hey Hey Hey Shea:

Not everything is about you.

This thread is though?

[GreyICE]

Oh hey, missed this thread. Merry Christmas TSQ!

[AniX]

Someone wished me Happy Holidays today. Fucking Christian New Year normativity bullshit.

[GreyICE]

Someone wished me Happy Holidays today. Fucking Christian New Year normativity bullshit.

You know, you should find a slogan for asexuals. A unique holiday greeting.

I suggest "I hope you die alone."

[Psyche]

is as if they don't realize that the gregorian falender isnt thenonly game in town

[Thestatusquo]

Just reread this thread.

Reminded me of how huge dicks posters on this site can be, especially KK and psyche. So that was sweet.

Just wanted to remind everyone that happy holidays is not more inclusive. Even if that is its aim it is hurtful and causes Jewish people to feel out of place and reinforces otherization.

[shaft.ed]

Missed this last year, but as a religious and cultural atheist I often say Happy Holidays (or something like "have a good holiday") to people cause I thought it covers New Years and just Winter Holiday from school etc. I guess the later is a major thing for my work cycle being in academia. Xmas to New Years is one of the few times when almost all activity in labs shuts down. Most of the internationals go to their home countries and visit family.

I certainly wouldnt ever say it as a sort of greeting or to strangers


Forgot how dense Junpei could be also, too

[Psyche]

eh
people can disagree over a moral issue without being dicks
i think this was one of those times

[Thestatusquo]

Denying someones experience and telling them they shouldn't be offended is being a dick.

I mean, rationalize it however you want. I'm not the person who has to live with it. I would note that I almost completely stayed out of this discussion last year after I raised the issue because of how painful (your posts in particular) it was to have people constantly deny my experience and my emotions. I'm anticipating a similar vacancy from this thread, but this issue is important enough to me to bring it up again.

Shaft.ed: It must be nice to have the only completely sanctioned break from lab work fall on christians religious holiday of choice so as to make celebrating it easier. I wonder what that feels like.

[Untrod Tripod]

oh man

I was going to post about how much it makes me smile to just say "thanks, you too" to people but I had already posted that a year ago

I am a creature of habit

[DeathNote]

I remember not reading this thread.

[Psyche]

The way I used to post was so pedantic. I like the way I used to thoroughly think through things (something I don't really do much on this forum anymore), but at the same time I totally missed the point. I can see that as sort of dickish - I glazed over someone's feelings to focus on their argument.

shea made this statement

When you say happy holidays, what you are actually saying is "I think everyone should be celebrating Christmas right now, and I will make you celebrate it with me with a thinly veiled code word for Christmas."

and instead of paying attention to the emotion he was trying to connote, I only concerned myself with whether the statement was concretely true or false (I still think it's plainly false)

I think that if I could do it all again, I'd have treated the OP more charitably and focused more on clarifying the sentiment it conveyed, but still left with the belief that "Happy Holidays" is a suitable, and even effective weapon in the war on Christmas.

It's possible that this difference arises from our different social experiences. Where I'm from (South Carolina), everyone celebrates Christmas and to say "Happy Holidays" is to acknowledge and validate other religions, and even irreligion, in a way that's taboo in my community. "Happy Holidays" is an overtly liberal exercise, and to conservatives it threatens the Christian hegemony they believe holds our nation together; this has even been preached to me countless times in my churches. Seeing someone claim that the phrase in fact an agent of that hegemony just strikes me as ridiculously counterfactual.

[Psyche]

Denying someones experience and telling them they shouldn't be offended is being a dick.

I mean, rationalize it however you want. I'm not the person who has to live with it. I would note that I almost completely stayed out of this discussion last year after I raised the issue because of how painful (your posts in particular) it was to have people constantly deny my experience and my emotions. I'm anticipating a similar vacancy from this thread, but this issue is important enough to me to bring it up again.

Shaft.ed: It must be nice to have the only completely sanctioned break from lab work fall on christians religious holiday of choice so as to make celebrating it easier. I wonder what that feels like.

I think you're just really wrong here. We have to tell

some

people that they shouldn't be offended. One of the main devices of american conservatism is to be unjustly offended - by public displays of same-sex affection on the streets, by "X-mas" and "Happy Holidays", by people standing in solidarity with victims of racialized police brutality, and so forth. There are so many examples of moments when we are

obligated

to tell people that their offense makes no sense. To claim that all experiences of offense are righteous is to subvert their very meaning.

I really, sincerely believe that it's important to make that distinction whether it's applicable here or not and I wish I could make you understand that I'm not doing it because I don't care about how you feel.

[Majiffy]

If someone were to wish you happy holidays on January 9th

Did they finally make my birthday a holiday? I'm getting tired of waiting.

[Natirasha]

There is a fine line where sociological criticism becomes pedantic or invalid to even sympathetic majorities. It's a hard line to really justify and generally falls under the classic 'I know it when I see it' phrase.

I think claiming Happy Holidays is "actively participating in a system of control that is hurtful and offensive" passed the line for a lot of people here, which is really saying something since mafiascum is quite liberal in that regard.

[Psyche]

Well the claim makes a lot more sense to me now than it did before. To be honest, actually, I think I'm fully in Shea's camp now on the issue. Damn it.

"Happy Holidays" used specifically to connote inclusion of minority religious identities is actually just a mainstream liberal tactic for skirting the actual challenge of Christian hegemony in America. The word choice of "Happy Holidays" gives liberal peoples their special sort of moral self-satisfaction without doing anything to address the issues that drive that word choice in the first place.

It's like proudly announcing, "I don't see race". The sentiment is nice, but it's worse than useless.