There must be some kind of reality there. It must in some way exist.

Clearly you have never, ever spoken to a small child. Subtle nuance is emphatically not within their grasp. (Although, if we’re being honest, your “some kind of reality” isn’t nuance, it’s sophistry.) A carefully couched deception like that is exactly the same as a lie to a small child.

When a kid asks a question they deserve the best answer we can give, every time, not having sunshine and rainbows blown up their ass.

So, as long as you’re destroying everything this kid clings to for some sense of security,

I’ve never met a child who cared nearly so much about Santa as their parents.

The entire world is magical to children. I think it’s wrong for parents to lie to their kids just to giggle at their gullibility and vicariously enjoy their ignorance.

So, as long as you’re destroying everything this kid clings to for some sense of security, why don’t you come out and tell her that reality sucks, her school is most likely going to dope her up and destroy her mind to keep her quiet in class, that she’s going to spend her whole life being exploited, being judged and hated for things she can’t do anything about, constantly having to work her butt off just to survive, how she’s going to endure constant headaches from being expected to take sides in ridiculous political disputes, and how she has a pretty good shot of having to attend the funeral of some friend or relation who died in a pointless war.

These aren’t inherent, unsolvable problems. They’re all political issues that could be solved if not for all the people who devalue reality.

More important, ok. More interesting, that’s debatable, as I’ve seen very interesting art.

The source of all art is experience. Experience is the intersection of objective reality and personality. All art expresses the reality of nature and the nature of the artist.

I learned a while ago that it’s not physically possible to create something as complex or beautiful as the universe or the things in it. You can only distort reality in a way that pleases human prejudices; because, as social animals, we are drawn to the mind of another human more than the reality that mind attempts to express.

So, as long as you’re destroying everything this kid clings to for some sense of security, why don’t you come out and tell her that reality sucks, her school is most likely going to dope her up and destroy her mind to keep her quiet in class, that she’s going to spend her whole life being exploited, being judged and hated for things she can’t do anything about, constantly having to work her butt off just to survive, how she’s going to endure constant headaches from being expected to take sides in ridiculous political disputes, and how she has a pretty good shot of having to attend the funeral of some friend or relation who died in a pointless war.

Go on, don’t pull any punches. Chances are nothing you can tell them about reality will be news to the children of today.

You know, I saw a very nice special on the history of Christmas on the History Channel this year. It explained all about how Santa Claus was a literary invention without the need to crush or traumatize any children watching.

So, actually you could take this in another direction. You could say, “Yes, there is a real Santa Claus. He is a real literary character.” And then you could run on and on about what a wonderful thing literary characters are, and what a magical thing it is that everybody can potentially invent them and gain fame and fortune from them.

Think about that. Even though he’s no longer under copyright or trademark, Santa makes a heck of a lot of money for a great many people each year. Can you honestly say that a thing that makes money for people has no reality?

There must be some kind of reality there. It must in some way exist. And I think that’s what the original article was getting at – that the reality of Santa Claus is not that of a physical person, but the reality of an idea – an idea which some hold as having great value. It could even be said that Santa exists in multiple states of reality, none of which you can just reach out and touch, but which do create effects that can be measured and proven.

More important, ok. More interesting, that’s debatable, as I’ve seen very interesting art.

I’ve always thought that it makes more sense to look at Santa Claus as the subject of two different stories: There’s the “outer story” that everyone knows, about the kindly man who lives at the North Pole and distributes toys out of selfless generosity, without asking anything in return. (In theory the toys are a reward for good behavior, but my experience is that the bar for “good behavior” is set pretty low.)

There’s also an “inner story”, which not everyone knows. For the benefit of the younger readers I’m not going to post it here; I’ll just note that it’s also a story about selfless generosity. The original “Yes, Virginia” editorial alludes to it in this passage:

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy.

That said, knowing the “inner story” carries some obligations, and one of them is to keep an eye out for people who say things like, “Santa gives all the best toys to rich kids. That means that they’re morally superior.” or “Santa is planning to reduce deliveries to neighborhoods where gay marriage is legal” or “Santa prefers chocolate-chip cookies to oatmeal cookies, and that’s why I’m forced to use drone strikes/suicide bombings against liars who claim to believe the opposite.”

If things ever get that out-of-control, then we might need to let everyone know about the “inner story”, and stop telling the “outer story” completely. But so far that hasn’t been an issue. (For the Santa Claus stories, I mean.)

That could be amusing. 🙂

No Santa Claus! That’s right. He doesn’t live, and he never did

Or maybe he did. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas