I probably wouldn’t post this at all, much less Pit her, (don’t really care much), except that Even Sven has gained inordinate praise in the “Posters Whose Asses You’d Like to Kiss” thread for having improved so markedly of late and becoming a truly excellent poster, wide, witty, charming, a fresh, new taste sensation, when my experience has been exactly the opposite. Previously, I either didn’t think much about her at all or I thought favorably of her posts for lending a quirky international, Peace Corps perspective to these boards, but it’s only yesterday that she began seriously chapping my buttocks, so I thought I’d share some of that tattered skin.
Specifically, here in posts #26 and 30 of this thread, where she decides to interrupt my Mundane and Pointless bemoaning of excessively religious semi-mandatory office Xmas parties, calling me a jerk and generally racking up, IMO, pretty advanced jerk points herself. I read this and go “WTF? Even Sven? I always thought you were a cool young lady, but now I see you’re really a mean-spirited attacker of those whose perspectives differ from yours by a hair or two.” Even Sven’s moronic hostility in this thread surprised me a bit, so from my perspective, I’ve experienced the diametrically opposite reaction to the one expressed in the “Butt-puckering” thread, and I thought I’d share that here.
Having read the posts in question, I am totally on even sven’s side.
Sorry dude, if you exhibit the attitude you describe, then you comport yourself like a miserable, antisocial jerk, which is what she appears to be saying.
Let’s take the opportunity then to discuss this mild (and Mundane and Pointless) attitude in the Pit.
Which religious beliefs, if any, would you consider too extreme for you to recite (and sing) in public at a non-sectarian, multicultural institution’s holiday party? If you worked at such an institution, and a party were announced at which you felt obliged to show your face and it were run by cannibals and idol-worshippers, let’s say, all singing songs about their favorite traditional human cuts of meat, would you feel obligated to join in the songfest, and learn the lyrics to “Come Roast Ye, All Tasteful”?
Glad to oblige. I’ll give you that I was over the top and too personal given the forum.
You don’t celebrate Christmas. That’s cool.
But what’s with the tangible loathing you feel towards it? It’s just another culture’s holiday. Since when do we hate other cultures for no other reason than they are not our own? In your first post you talk about how you find Christmas carols “offensive” and you want to “bleach your brain” of them. WTF? I’ve never heard of anyone who hates another culture so much that they use those kinds of words to condemn their celebratory songs.
They don’t even do anything bad on Christmas! I was put in an awkward situation when I ended up taking part in a female genital mutilation celebration party in Timbuktu. I could see getting worked up about that, maybe. But the singing of a centuries old song that nobody even understand throwing you into a “month of dread” because it references the angel archetype? Get over yourself.
I have personal morals, and there are damn good laws, that would forbid me from participating in actual murder and cannibalism.
I would happily sing about it though.
I sing a lot of songs myself. Do I actually believe that the IRA are a fearless bunch of heroes? No, I don’t. Do I really think you should love the one you’re with? That he’s killing me softly with his song? Do I really wish I was in Carrickfergus? (No, because I’ve heard it’s a shithole.)
But they’re fun songs.
As a fellow atheist, can I rhetorically ask you back: what is it you’re so scared of that you can’t sing along with words that have no actual meaning? What magical pixie will make your utterance of those words do something nasty to you? What deity is it that forbids you from speaking or singing aloud something that should, to you, be an utterly meaningless fiction?
If you simply can’t bring yourself to do it, for whatever reason, then why not just politely not sing along?
You seem to be elevating something that is culturally significant to your culture, into something occult and powerful. I’m confused by your attitude.
Huh. Until your final three words, I was thinking that this would be one of the shortest, most happily reconciled Pit threads ever, but now, maybe not so much. How exactly do I manifest this “Totally Not Over Myself” attitude in public? Or are you objecting to what I think and feel, as opposed to what I speak up publicly protesting loudly and profanely?
What they do bad at Christmas is impose their religious beliefs on those who don’t share them, and pretend that because they’re in the majority (which they might not even be in) in this country, and that everyone should either join in their culture (which I find celebrates all sorts of offensive concepts) or feel ostrasized. Again, I have no problem if the Christians (or the Moslems or the Scientologists) in the office want to contact each other privately and arrange for an off-site celebration of their group, but I object specifically to
giving a party during work hours specifically celebrating one group’s religious traditions
spending company money (apart from the hours of people’s time off work–I’d much rather get that paid hour off) on decorations, food, drink, etc. to lionize one group and not everyone
being generally clueless as to why some people might be uncomfortable singing about the Baby Jesus and the holy Virgin and God’s beneficence.
I’m good with other culture’s celebrating what they please–my attitude is always “Hey, if they want to spend their time babbling about absurd shit, and self-identifying as people who don’t enjoy thinking very deeply about the things they profess to believe in, that’s okay with me.” It’s when they try to impose it on me malevolently and imply that I’m a jerk for not giving them a big, sunny thumbs up, that I Pit them, and when they try to impose it on me benevolently and cluelessly, that I’ll jot down a few thoughts in some more mundane and pointless venue.
These (and other songs) are NOT “culturally significant” to my “culture,” though, and whatever small cultural significance they might assume is roughly equal across various religious and ethnic groups. Imagine if I were to announce one day, though, “Hey, people, let’s all meet up in the conference room across from my office, do no work for a few hours ,and we’ll all sing Buffalo Springfield tunes, because I think they’re fun to sing. The university will pay for food and drink!” I would think everyone would consider me as strange, and rightly so, and wasteful, and rightly so, and inappropriate, and rightly so. Further if someone felt very strongly about marriage and fidelity and such, that person might feel vaguely uncomfortable to join in a group song of “Love the One You’re With.”
When I was very young, my family was friends with Hawk Littlejohn. When Hawk was a child, a local Cherokee medicine man declared Hawk to be his successor, based on unusual patterns in the lines of his hands. Hawk was apprenticed to the man and learned traditional religion and medicine from him. When Hawk was a young man himself, the local Klan beat him and left him for dead, because Hawk refused to accept Christianity.
That’s imposing religious beliefs on those who don’t share them.
What you experienced isn’t. Your coworkers don’t even know that you’re irreligious, it sounds like.
My suggestion: tell your boss that, for personal reasons, Christmas celebrations make you really stressed and nervous, and ask to be excused. That’ll be absolutely true, and if they draw incorrect conclusions from it (i.e., that your family sucks and that’s why you’re stressed), that’s not your problem. Word will get around, and folks will leave you alone about it.
And no, I’m not a Christian, but I love celebrating Christmas. I can even enjoy hearing religious carols (although I still feel weird about singing along to them).
I see your mental accuity hasn’t improved at all, PRR. It is still a mystery to you why people don’t love you for being a repulsive shitstain on the boxerbriefs of the SDMB.
What culture are you from then? I’m from a judaeo-Christian one that has a lot of fun during a co-opted pagan solstice celebration with an overlay of Christianity and myriad other apocryphal bullshit and traditions, that gives people an excuse to party on down, have some extra booze and food, chill out, spend time with family and friends, and exchange gifts. I see it as a culturally significant celebration, whatever its religious significance, and am happy to participate in it.
Most people I know over here are atheist, and I don’t know a single one who doesn’t celebrate it to some extent, nor anyone who’s got such a stick up their arse about the whole thing as you do.
That’d be Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. LTOYW was written by Stephen Stills, who was, along with Neil Young, part of Buffalo Springfield, but the most well-known version of the song was the 1971 CSNY cover. And if it was good enough for the Isley Bros. and Aretha Franklin, it’s good enough for any God-fearing, Christmas-loving, party-hearty university employee.