From the Archives: Georgetown philosophy professor Jason Brennan explores ethics of voting

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on July 31, 2011. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016. I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Georgetown philosophy professor Jason Brennan explores ethics of voting

“Every day you see the same message: ‘get out the vote, get out the vote, get out the vote,’” says philosophy professor Jason Brennan.

“What if all the sentiments underlying that were just wrong?” he asks. What if they “could be shown to be wrong pretty easily?”

According to Brennan, his new book, The Ethics of Voting, shows those underlying sentiments to be, in fact, wrong.

Brennan, an assistant professor of business and philosophy at Georgetown University, summarized his book at a Cato Institute forum on July 21. After his presentation, he spoke with the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner about what motivated him to write The Ethics of Voting, how the book has been received by academics, and his new research on private behavior and the common good.

Brennan has long been interested in the topic of the ethics of voting.

Is voting special?

“Growing up,” he said, “I kept hearing, over and over again, the American civic religion [says] that voting is special, that political participation is special, that serving in the military makes you an especially good person.”

These claims were not satisfying to Brennan, he explained.

“I never found myself gripped by that,” he said. “I always wondered: What were the grounds underlying that? Why did people believe it?”

He also discovered, he continued, that “at the same time, there’s a kind of interesting philosophical question about what you should do in situations where we as a group are doing something bad but that your individual input doesn’t make a difference. That happens a lot in politics.”

Those two different but related things brought him to this topic.

Is voting rational?

He had read some of the literature about voter behavior but George Mason University economist Bryan Caplan’s 2008 book, The Myth of the Rational Voter, provided extra stimulus to write his own book.

“After reading that, I asked myself, suppose he’s right that voters are irrational. What does that mean about what they should do?”

The answer is not simple, he said. One cannot simply say, “Well, if they’re rational they shouldn’t vote, because individual votes don’t make a difference.” Instead, “it’s actually a real philosophical puzzle as to why it would even matter at all [with regard to] what an individual does and why they should vote well or not.”

Caplan’s book, Brennan said, was “like the last straw” in how it “pushed me over the edge to have to write something more about the philosophy behind” the ethics of voting.

Reaction from scholars

Brennan has received feedback from other academic philosophers, as well as from political scientists. Most of it has been positive.

Jason Brennan at Cato Institute, July 2011

The reaction he has had from philosophers, he said, “has been overwhelmingly very positive. Even if they disagree with the conclusions -- and many of them do -- what they’ve tended to like about it is that it takes on common sense. What it does is start with rather simple, plausible premises and leads to counterintuitive results. Philosophers tend to like that.”

Moreover, he added, “what a lot of philosophers have recognized, too, is that there are just a lot of unfounded assumptions about how politics works and what we should do. At the very least, I’m being a devil’s advocate in challenging” those assumptions, and that challenge makes philosophers “recognize that common sense [claims] about voting need to be justified, if they are justified” at all.

The reaction of political scientists, he said, “has largely been the same,” but faculty in political science departments who do political theory, “which is sort of philosophy but done in political science,” have a tendency “to be more skeptical because they tend to have a much more strongly emotional attachment to democracy than philosophers do.”

Private behavior as a public good

Brennan is now conducting new research on how private behavior contributes to the public good, something “that ended up being a major premise even in this book.”

He explained that “we can express civic virtue anywhere: by running a good business that helps people [and] makes them richer, by coming up with inventions, by making art, and so on.”

All these things, he said, help “promote the common good. They’re doing as much good as politics is doing, perhaps even more.”

The practical effect of this for individuals is that, “if you’re a person who is publicly spirited and you want to promote the common good, that doesn’t mean you have to get out of the market and go to the forum,” Brennan explained. “It might instead mean you should stay in the market and work there.”

Giving two prominent examples, Professor Brennan pointed out that “Thomas Edison did a lot more for us with his inventions than he ever would have done as a voter. Michelangelo did a lot more with his art than he ever would have done as a voter.”

He concluded by noting that “private civil society is really important for promoting the common good. If civic virtue is about promoting the common good, then private civil society might be the way to do it.”

Brennan wrote The Ethics of Voting while he taught at Brown University; it was published in April by Princeton University Press.

Guest Post: Boxing Day's journey from Pepys to shopping petitions and parliament

by Nelson Blackley, Nottingham Trent University

British members of Parliament have been debating whether shops should remain open on Boxing Day. Some 30 or 40 years years ago, shops stayed closed for longer during the holiday season – and on Boxing Day family time was the focus and leftover turkey the star of the show. But in recent years Boxing Day has fired the starting gun for the January sales, created (yet another) key moment in the British retail calendar and forced retail staff into work.

This growing commercialisation has created a backlash. In 2015, a petition on the government’s website to ban shops from opening on Boxing Day gathered a modest 27,525 signatures, but 2016 has seen the campaign gather greater momentum. Two similar petitions have been active this year. The first, also on the government’s official website, calls for all retailers to close on Boxing Day, claiming: “Some things are needed over the festive period, retail isn’t one of them.” It has received more than 140,000 signatures, easily meeting the required level of support to warrant the parliamentary debate. A similar petition on the website change.org claims has gathered more than 230,000 signatures.

So what is the historical background to Boxing Day and why are we so attached to it? Is it possible that this recent groundswell of support could begin to loosen the grip of consumerism during the Christmas break?

Pepys show

The Oxford English Dictionary claims the earliest use of the term “Boxing Day” is from 1830s England. It was “the first weekday after Christmas Day, observed as a holiday on which post-men, errand-boys, and servants of various kinds expect to receive a Christmas box”. This relates to a seasonal British custom for tradespeople to collect boxes of money or presents after Christmas as thanks for good service throughout the year.

This is actually linked to an even older English tradition, mentioned by Samuel Pepys’ in a diary entry from December 19, 1663, when servants of the wealthy, who would have to wait on their masters on Christmas Day, were allowed the next day to visit their families. Employers would give each servant a box to take home containing gifts, bonuses and sometimes leftover food.

Stony-faced. A statue of Samuel Pepys in London.
chrisdorney/Shutterstock

The 2016 parliamentary debate about the modern nature of Boxing Day did not involve a vote and so there will be no immediate change in the law. However it was a chance for MPs to demonstrate whether it is an issue with much parliamentary support. In response to the petitions, the government has said:

We do not believe it is for central government to tell businesses how to run their shops or how best to serve their customers. Therefore we are not proposing to ban shops from opening on Boxing Day.

Even if there is general support in Parliament, I don’t believe the UK government will amend the current trading laws and so prevent large stores from opening on Boxing Day any time soon – for several reasons.

Ker-ching

First, and most importantly, the retail sector is a critical part of the UK economy – and in fragile economic times it would be a brave government indeed that took any action that might damage it. Sales in the sector were £339 billion in 2015 (generating 5% of the UK’s GDP) and, with almost 3m working in retail, it was the UK’s largest private-sector employer.

There is also an important international dimension. The UK’s in-store sales on Boxing Day are boosted by an influx of foreign shoppers.

The second key factor reflects the radical changes seen in consumer habits as a result of online shopping, a point also acknowledged by the government in its response to previous Boxing Day petitions:

Consumers are now used to the freedom to buy what they need at any time that suits them. The government believes that all businesses should be allowed flexibility to meet their customers’ needs and offer consumers choice about when and how they want to shop. This will help drive competition, productivity and the local economy, as well as helping create jobs

Unsurprisingly, this is a view echoed by the British Retail Consortium (BRC) the trade association whose members represent 70% of the turnover of the UK retail sector.

Sacred time

That leads onto a third factor behind the government’s decision making. According to the Guardian, shoppers last year were more willing than ever to interrupt Christmas Day itself for some online bargain hunting.

Online sales in the UK on Dec 25, 2015 were the highest ever, up 21% on 2014 according to web services group PCA Predict – whose founder Jamie Turner highlighted the “convenience of being able to browse online throughout the entire Christmas period to find deals and discounts”.

However, there is one thing that seems to remain sacred. Experian and online retail trade association IMRG reported a dip in online between 1pm and 4pm on Christmas Day as families enjoyed Christmas lunch together (and perhaps even watched the Queen’s speech), then rising again in the evening as people sat down to relax and watch television.

At the heart of this debate lies the fear of missing out. For the government, for retailers and their shareholders, and for millions of bargain-hunting consumers. According to the BRC, the UK retail market is the “most competitive in the world” and in that context it becomes almost unimaginable that any large retailers would now make a voluntary decision to close on Boxing Day and so lose sales and market share to rivals.

The British boom in online shopping – the UK has the highest level of penetration in the world – has also brought with it the “click-and-collect” phenomenon. In other words, both parts of the UK retail industry work hand-in-hand – there will be millions of UK consumers who want to order products online over the Christmas holiday period and collect from a store on Boxing Day. More, you have to conclude, than the 140,000 petition signatories who long for a Christmas free from the ringing of the nation’s cash registers (or the sound of clicking on the pay now button).



Nelson Blackley, Research Associate - National Retail Research Knowledge Exchange Centre, Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Guest Post: Romans needed a mid-winter break too ... it lasted for 24 days

by Richard Flower, University of Exeter

In the Doctor Who Christmas Special from 2010, Michael Gambon’s Scrooge-like character remarks that across different cultures and worlds people come together to mark the midpoint of winter. It is, he imagines, as if they are saying: “Well done, everyone! We’re halfway out of the dark!”

The actual reasons for celebrating Christmas at this particular time in the year have long been debated. Links have often been drawn to the winter solstice and the Roman festival of Saturnalia. Some people have also associated it with the supposed birthday of the god Sol Invictus, the “unconquered sun”, since a fourth-century calendar describes both this and Christ’s birth as taking place on December 25.

Such speculation has inevitably led to claims that this traditionally Christian festival is little more than a rebranding of earlier pagan activities. But questions about the “religious identity” of public celebrations are, in fact, nothing new and were being asked in the later periods of the Roman empire as well.

This is particularly evident in the case of a rather obscure Roman festival called the Brumalia, which started on November 24 and lasted for 24 days. We cannot be sure exactly when it began to be celebrated, but one of our best accounts of it comes from the sixth century AD. A retired public official called John the Lydian explained that it had its origins in earlier pagan rites from this time of year, including Saturnalia.

Dionysus

Some people celebrated Brumalia by sacrificing goats and pigs, while devotees of the god Dionysus inflated goat skins and then jumped on them. We also believe that each day of the festival was assigned a different letter of the Greek alphabet, starting with alpha (α) on November 24 and finishing with omega (ω) on December 17.

A person would wait until the day that corresponded to the first letter of their own name and then throw a party. This meant that those with a wide circle of friends – and, in particular, friends with a wide variety of names – might potentially get to go to 24 consecutive celebrations.

We also have other evidence for the popularity of the Brumalia during the sixth century. A speech by the orator Choricius of Gaza praises the festivities laid on by the emperor Justinian (527–565), remarking that the emperor and his wife, Theodora, celebrated the Brumalia on adjacent days, since the letter iota (ι) – for Justinian – directly follows theta (θ) – for Theodora – in the Greek alphabet. Surviving accounts from the cellars of a large estate in Egypt also detail the wine distributions to officials and servants for the Brumalia of the master, Apion, which fell on the first day of the festival.

Yet, the origins of the Brumalia are far from clear. It seems to have been related to the earlier Roman Bruma festival, which took place on a single day in November and looked ahead to the winter solstice (or bruma in Latin) a month later, but little is known about this.

It is only really from the sixth century onwards that it appears in surviving sources, even though by then most Romans were Christians and had been ruled by Christian emperors for more than two centuries. John the Lydian also states that the “name day” aspect of the celebrations was a recent innovation at this time. As far as we can tell, therefore, this was not merely a remnant from a distant pagan past, but had actually developed and grown at precisely the same time as emperors, including Justinian, were endeavouring to clamp down on perceived “paganism” in their empire.

The historian Roberta Mazza, in one of the most comprehensive modern discussions of the festival, has argued that the Brumalia was simply too popular to get rid of entirely, but that Justinian sought to strip it of “pagan” elements. She says that in doing so, the emperor “reshaped and reinvented the meanings and purposes of the feast” and made it “both acceptable from a religious point of view and useful for constructing a common cultural identity throughout the different provinces of the empire”.

The true meaning of Brumalia

We know that the Brumalia continued to be celebrated at the imperial court in Constantinople until at least the tenth century, but it was certainly not without its opponents. John the Lydian reports that the church was opposed to the Brumalia, and similar statements of disapproval and attempts to ban it were also made by church councils in 692 and 743. For some Christians, it remained just too pagan for comfort. Controversy also surrounded other celebrations in late antiquity, including the wearing of masks at New Year, the Roman Lupercalia (with its naked runners), and the processions and dancing involved in the “Bean Festival” at Calama in North Africa.

How then should we view the Brumalia? Was it still essentially “pagan”, or had it become safely Christianised or secularised? I think that any attempt to neatly categorise these festivals, let alone their participants, is destined to fail. For some people, the religious elements will have loomed larger, while for others they will have been almost entirely irrelevant, as also happens with Christmas today.

The Brumalia could be celebrated in a variety of ways and have a multitude of meanings to different people throughout the empire, even if all of them saw themselves as Christians. Rather than arguing that Justinian or others who enjoyed the Brumalia were “less Christian” than its opponents, we might instead treat it as a vivid illustration of the fluidity and malleability of notions of culture and identity.

We cannot ever discover the true meaning of Brumalia, but we can be sure that it brought people together to commemorate being halfway out of the dark.



Richard Flower, Senior Lecturer in Classics and Ancient History, University of Exeter

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Guest Post: Why children believe (or not) that Santa Claus exists

by Jacqueline D. Woolley, University of Texas at Austin

The holiday season is upon us, and so are its attendant myths, most prominent of which is the Santa Claus story. This is the time that many children are told about a man who lives forever, resides at the North Pole, knows what every child in the world desires, drives a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer and enters one’s house through a chimney, which most children don’t even have.

Given the many absurdities and contradictions in this story, it’s surprising that even young children would believe it. Yet research from my lab shows that 83 percent of five-year-olds think that Santa Claus is real.

Why?

An evolutionary advantage?

At the root of this paradox is a very basic question regarding the nature of the young child as an inherently credulous being – that is, believing everything he or she is told – versus a rational one.

The noted author and ethologist Richard Dawkins, in a 1995 essay, proposed that children are inherently credulous, and prone to believing in just about anything. He even suggested that it was an evolutionary advantage for children to believe.

He illustrated that quite convincingly with an example of a young child living near an alligator-infested swamp. His point was that the child who is skeptical, and prone to critically evaluating his parents’ advice not to go swimming in that swamp, has much less chance of surviving than does the child who unthinkingly heeds his parents’ advice.

This view of young children who believe easily is shared by many, including 18th-century philosopher Thomas Reid, and developmental psychologists, who argue that children are strongly biased to trust what people tell them.

Not very different from adults?

Yet research from my lab shows that children actually are rational, thoughtful consumers of information. In fact, they use many of the same tools as adults to decide what to believe.

So, what are some of the tools that adults use to decide what to believe, and what evidence is there that children possess them?

I’ll focus on three: One is attention to the context in which new information is embedded. A second is the tendency to measure new information against one’s existing knowledge base. And the third is the ability to evaluate the expertise of other people.

Let’s look first at context.

Imagine reading an article about a new species of fish – let’s call them “surnits.” Then imagine you’re reading this article in two very different contexts – one in which your doctor is late and you’re in the waiting room reading the article in a copy of National Geographic, the official magazine of a scientific society.

In another context, you encounter a report of this discovery while waiting in line at the grocery store and perusing the National Enquirer, an American supermarket tabloid. My guess is that the context surrounding your introduction to this new information would guide your judgment about the reality status of this new fish.

We essentially did this with children. We told them about animals they’d never heard of, like surnits. Some children heard about them in a fantastical context, in which they were told that dragons or ghosts collect them. Other children learned about surnits in a scientific context, in which they were told that doctors or scientists use them.

Children as young as four were more likely to claim that surnits really existed when they heard about them in the scientific context versus in the fantastical context.

How children use knowledge and expertise

One of the primary ways we, as adults, learn about new things is by hearing about them from others. Imagine hearing about a new kind of fish from a marine biologist versus from your next-door neighbor who often regales you with reports of his alien abductions. Your evaluation of the expertise and trustworthiness of these sources presumably will guide your beliefs about the true existence of this fish.

In another research project, we presented young children with novel animals that were either possible (e.g., a fish that lives in the ocean), impossible (e.g., a fish that lives on the moon) or improbable (e.g., a fish as big as a car). Then we gave them the choice to figure out on their own whether the entity really existed or to ask someone. They also heard reports from either a zookeeper (an expert) or a chef (a nonexpert).

We found that children believed in the possible entities and rejected the impossible ones. Children made these decisions by comparing the new information to their existing knowledge. For the improbable animals – ones that could possibly exist but were rare or odd – children were significantly more likely to believe in them when the zookeeper claimed they were real than when the chef did.

In other words, children use expertise, just as adults do.

It’s the adults

If children are so smart, why do they believe in Santa?

The reason is simple: Parents and others go to great lengths to support the Santa myth. In a recent study we found that 84 percent of parents reported taking their child to visit more than two Santa impersonators during the Christmas season.

The Elf on the Shelf, originally a children’s picture book about elves who inform Santa about children’s behavior around Christmastime, is now a multi-million-dollar franchise. And the United States Postal Service now promotes a “Letters from Santa” program in which it provides personal replies to children’s letters to Santa.

Why do we feel compelled to go to such great lengths? Why does Uncle Jack insist on climbing onto the roof on Christmas Eve to stomp around and shake jingle bells?

The answer is simply this: Children are not unthinkingly credulous and do not believe everything we tell them. So, we adults must overwhelm them with evidence – the bells on the roof, the live Santas at the mall, the half-eaten carrot on Christmas morning.

How children evaluate

Given this effort, it essentially would be irrational for children not to believe. In believing in Santa Claus, children, in fact, exercise their scientific thinking skills.

First, they evaluate sources of information. As ongoing research in my lab indicates, they’re more likely to believe an adult than a child about what’s real.

Second, they use evidence (e.g., the empty glass of milk and half-eaten cookies on Christmas morning) to come to a conclusion about existence. Other research from my lab shows that children use similar evidence to guide their beliefs about a fantastical being, the Candy Witch, who visits children on Halloween night and leaves new toys in exchange for candy.

Third, research shows that, as children’s understanding becomes more sophisticated, they tend to engage more with the absurdities in the Santa Claus myth, like how a fat man can fit through a small chimney, or how animals could possibly fly.

Wondering what to tell your child?

Some parents wonder whether they are harming their children by engaging in the Santa myth. Philosophers and bloggers alike have mounted arguments against perpetuating the “Santa-lie,” some even claiming that it could lead to permanent distrust of parents and other authorities.

So, what should parents do?

There is no evidence that belief, and eventual disbelief in Santa, affects parental trust in any significant way. Furthermore, not only do children have the tools to ferret out the truth; but engaging with the Santa story may give them a chance to exercise these abilities.

So, if you think it would be fun for you and your family to invite Santa Claus into your home at Christmas time, you should do so. Your children will be fine. And they might even learn something.



Jacqueline D. Woolley, Professor and Department of Psychology Chair, University of Texas at Austin

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Guest Post: 5 Laws That Could Send Santa to Federal Prison

by David Rosenthal

While most people know Jolly Old Saint Nick as a friendly figure, he too is not immune from the perils of administrative overreach and overcriminalization.

To get you in the Christmas spirit, here is a list of some of the potential crimes and violations of federal law Saint Nick as he prepares to take flight for 2016.

1. The Reindeer Act

Many have tried finding Santa’s workshop—without success—but children have long mailed letters to the Santa Claus House located at 101 St. Nicholas Drive in North Pole, Alaska. This office location is the first source of trouble for Father Christmas. Under the Reindeer Act, signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1937, only Alaska Natives are allowed to own reindeer in Alaska.

While Santa has been operating out of the North Pole for many years, only Eskimos, Indians, and Aleuts inhabiting Alaska at the time the United States purchased the land from Russia are considered natives under the act, and Saint Nicholas is from the Greek village Patara in modern-day Turkey. Luckily for Santa, he might be able to avoid the $5,000 fine for violating this provision of the Code of Federal Regulations, but only if he applies for and is granted a special use permit to possess reindeers as a non-native.

2. The Lacey Act
Even if Santa gets around the Reindeer Act, he may face civil and criminal penalties under the Lacey Act if his purchase, sale, possession, or use of reindeer—or any other flora or fauna— violates any state or federal law or the law of any foreign nation, no matter what language or code that foreign law is written in.

Just as some unwitting Americans have been convicted of offenses such as the “importation of Caribbean spiny lobsters from Honduras” in violation of Honduran packaging laws, Santa could be committing a crime each time he crosses borders to deliver flora or fauna.

3. Flying Without a License
Despite Santa’s many years of experience, there is no Mr. Claus listed in the Federal Aviation Administration’s pilot certificates database. If Santa is piloting his sleigh without an airman’s certificate, he is in violation of 49 U.S.C. § 46317.

Any pilot who operates an aircraft without a proper license is guilty of a federal crime punishable by three years in prison (the sleigh would almost certainly be deemed an aircraft under 49 U.S.C. § 40102(a)(6)). And that is only for Santa’s role as a pilot. If his sleigh is not deemed airworthy, Santa will be in violation of 14 C.F.R. § 91.7 and subject to additional civil penalties by the FAA.

If Santa’s sleigh is approved, he then must post “within” the “aircraft” a copy of the registration, airworthiness certificate, and other official documents, to be displayed “at the cabin or cockpit entrance so that it is legible to passengers or crew,” per 14 C.F.R. § 91.203(b); the sleigh’s baggage compartment must be installed subject to Subsection C with a copy of FAA Form 337 authorizing such installation maintained on board the sleigh; and all fuel venting and exhaust emissions must meet additional requirements.

Hopefully Santa has a good compliance team.

4. False Statements
Any white lie that falls within the jurisdiction of the U.S. government could be a federal crime. As Heritage scholars have written elsewhere, there is one general federal statute for false statements that “should be broad enough to reach any fib or whopper that the federal government could have a good reason to prosecute.”

But there are dozens more specific criminal statutes that punish false statements regarding such minutiae as fluid milk products. If Santa parks his sleigh on federal land and encounters a park ranger while coming down the chimney, he’d better not tell a fib about what he’s up to or he could end up in big trouble. (He would also be violating another federal law if he parks his sleigh in a way that inconveniences another person on federal land, but I digress.)

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg once observed that, under federal false statement statutes, “the prospect remains that an overzealous prosecutor or investigator—aware that a person has committed some suspicious acts, but unable to make a criminal case—will create a crime by surprising the suspect, asking about those acts, and receiving a false denial.”

Here, once Santa gets off the ground, his real legal trouble is only just beginning. A government agent need only ask Santa if he committed burglary, trespass, or larceny, or ask him, “Are you really Santa Claus?” In that case, Santa really would need a Miracle on 34th Street to stay out of the slammer for lying.

5. IRS Tax Gift
Even if Santa evades capture during his Christmas Eve flight, he then must deal with Uncle Sam upon his return to the North Pole. Under IRS gift tax rules, the giver of gifts above a certain threshold is taxed at a rate up to 40 percent of the value of the gift. While individuals are allowed to make gifts up to $14,000 per recipient without encountering any tax consequences—most toy trucks and dolls would probably fit under this exemption—gifts above the limit must be reported on IRS Form 709.

As such, each time Santa drops off a shiny new BMW for mom or dad, he will be on the hook for an even bigger tax bill on April 15. Willful failure to file a gift tax return can land Santa in prison for up to one year under 26 U.S.C. § 7203. Let no good deed go unpunished.

The List Goes On
While those are just a few examples of how Santa may be held criminally and civilly liable for violating U.S. law, there are several other ways in which he operates in legal gray areas.

For instance, how does Santa compensate all of his elves who are working around the clock to finish making toys before the big day? If they are not receiving proper overtime pay in a safe work environment, Santa will be in violation of numerous provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Finally, given the size of his operation, Santa must be complying with the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate.

If Santa cannot even stay in line with every single government rule and regulation, how is the average American supposed to keep up? Attorney Harvey Silverglate argues that the average American unwittingly commits three felonies a day due to vague laws and governmental overreach.

The American people—and Mr. Claus—deserve better. Heritage scholars have identified a comprehensive strategy to combat the problem of overcriminalization, which threatens liberty by using the criminal law and penalties to attempt to solve every problem in society and compel compliance with regulatory schemes.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Reprinted from The Daily Signal.


David Rosenthal is a visiting legal fellow in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

Guest Post: How did we come to celebrate Christmas?

by Bronwen Neil, Australian Catholic University

Christmas is literally “the mass for Christ”, the day on which Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus.

Pope Leo I

The western date for Jesus’ birth is quite arbitrary. It was chosen by Pope Leo I, bishop of Rome (440-461), to coincide with the Festival of the Saturnalia, when Romans worshipped Saturn, the sun god. This was the day of the solar equinox, the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere, which officially marked the halfway point of winter.

Leo thought it would distract his Roman congregation from sun worship by celebrating the feast of Christ’s birth on the same day. He described Jesus as the “new light”; an image of salvation, but timely in that the days began to lengthen from 25 December onwards.

The date of the feast varies within Christian denominations. Western Christians celebrate the Nativity on a fixed date, 25 December. Some Eastern Orthodox Christians celebrate it on 6 January together with Epiphany, the revelation of the infant Jesus to three wise men. The Greek and Russian Orthodox celebrate Christmas on 7 January and Epiphany on 19 January.

Where did Christmas traditions originate?

It is true to say that the western Christmas began as a Christianized pagan feast. The Christmas tree is also a pagan symbol of fertility.

In northern countries, when the nights are long and cold, the feast of Christmas traditionally gave Christian people something to look forward to: rich food (reindeer if you are in Sweden, pork and lamb if you are in Greece), lots of candles, Catholic Mass at midnight or Protestant services on Christmas morning. Fir trees were brought inside and lit with candles as a symbol of the hope that spring would return with new crops and plentiful food.

Fir trees were brought inside to symbolise the return of spring, new crops, and plentiful food. It’s also a pagan symbol of fertility.
Ievgenii Meyer/www.shutterstock.com

The early church also celebrated Christ’s Resurrection in spring, the season of new life, since it coincided with the Jewish Passover feast on 14 Nisan, a date that depended on when the first full moon occurred in March or April. Many of our Easter symbols, like the bunny and the egg, are ancient fertility symbols. No one knows how chocolate got dragged in!

It is also an interesting coincidence that the Jewish Festival of Lights, Hanukkah, falls in November or December each year, and is celebrated with the lighting of the candelabra (menorah), traditional foods, games and gifts.

Where did Santa Claus come from?

The Santa Claus myth (spoiler alert: don’t read any further if you are under 10!) came from the legend of Saint Nicholas. Nicholas was a bishop in the city of Myra (in modern Turkey), who wanted to help poor young women get husbands. He left bags of money of the doorsteps of their family homes in secret, an anonymous gift to the poor to be used as a dowry.

A 1950s Coca-Cola advertisement

For this he became known as the patron saint of virgins and children. Over time, his generosity was remembered by people giving gifts to children in secret on the feast of St Nicholas, celebrated on December 6 (in western Christian countries) and 19 December (in the eastern churches). His name in English became Clause, after the Dutch Sinterklaas. Dutch children and others in western Europe leave food out in a shoe or a clog for Nicholas’ horse on the eve of 6 December, and receive presents on the day of the feast.

Our modern image of Santa Claus as a rotund gentleman of a certain age dressed in a red-and-white suit and matching hat comes from an incredibly successful marketing campaign by Coca-Cola in the 1930s. Since then, suburban Santas always dress in the image created by the Coke brand.

But this image comes from an earlier depiction of Father Christmas who had nothing to do with the American Santa Claus until the 1850s.

Until the Victorian era, when childhood was recognised as a separate stage of life, and the Christmas feast came to centre around children, Father Christmas, or Lord Christmas as he was also known, was the personification of a mid-winter feast of merrymaking for adults – and he brought no presents. He was useful as a symbol for Catholic-sympathising writers in the early 17th century who wanted to defend Christmas from attacks by the Puritans, radical Protestants who intended to ban the feast.

(For a Jewish perspective on the Wars of Religion, see Stephen Feldman’s book, Please Don’t Wish Me a Merry Christmas: A Critical History of the Separation of Church and State (1997).)

Tuck Postcard, Photo Oilette Series, 1919.

From the 1850s onwards, the English Father Christmas was depicted as a bearded old man wearing a long red robe trimmed with white fur and a pointed red hat, who brought gifts to good children. This image can be seen on English postcards from the early 20th century.

Christmas in the modern era

A lot of the significance of the original feast is lost when we in the southern hemisphere celebrate it in the middle of summer. A family barbecue at the beach cannot really capture the atmosphere of a cold and dark mid-winter.

This seems to be the main reason for the emergence of the alternative “Christmas in July”. Today we give presents to adults as well as kids on the eve or day of 25 December, and usually not anonymously. It would be interesting to see what would change if none of our gifts had name tags attached – Secret Santa at the office is based on the same concept.

Our gifts are also reminiscent of the tributes that the three Magi – who symbolise, according to tradition, the non-Jewish peoples – gave to the infant Jesus.

Incidentally, according to two of the four Gospels, Jesus was born in Bethlehem, but given the lack of corroborating evidence for a census there that year, it is now thought that Jesus was more likely born in Galilee, where he grew up. Bethlehem was significant for the Gospel writers as being the birthplace of King David 1,000 years earlier, and a royal city for the Jews.

The Magi gave Jesus gold, frankincense and myrrh, when they understood that the baby they were looking at was both human and the son of God. That mystery at least remains intact.



Bronwen Neil, Associate professor, Australian Catholic University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Why young children often prefer wrapping paper and boxes to actual presents

by Julie Brierley, University of Hull

We’ve all been there: you spend an unthinkable amount on a child’s toy – lulled by the promise that the interaction with the flashing lights and whooshing noises will excite, stimulate and educate our little people. Yet on the big day, we watch as our child’s interest in the toy quickly diminishes and the attraction of the discarded wrapping paper and packaging takes over.

We watch with confusion as our young children show us the real pleasures of Christmas – not their new shiny toy, but all that is destined for the recycling bin. And as they roll around on the floor in the wrapping paper and jump in and out of the boxes, we question our own sanity in spending ridiculous sums of money on a child who would have clearly preferred a cardboard box for Christmas.

But while our child’s preoccupation with screwed up wrapping paper and packaging may seem barmy to us adults, it is in fact just another way to play – and can help children to learn about themselves and the world around them.

The psychology of wrapping paper

At a very early age, children use play to drive their own learning. And when young children are allowed and actively encouraged to explore and follow their own interests, they develop understanding from their actions.

In recent years, neuroscientific studies have led to a greater appreciation of the importance of young children’s brain development. These studies have shown us that the first three years of a child’s life are a critical period for learning and development. This confirms a direct relationship between the quality of experiences young children gain and the growth and development of the brain.

‘Just look at this paper!’
Shutterstock

So, when children explore and experiment with objects such as boxes, paper and ribbons, they are using both their sensory and physical senses to extend their thinking.

“What is this and what can I do with it? Can I fit my hand inside? what else fits in?” – young children’s questioning minds are pivotal to their learning. And engagement in self-directed play helps to aid learning and supports the development of language as well as mathematical, scientific, creative, personal and social concepts.

The power of play

In today’s society, the power of play is frequently misunderstood and underestimated. Children these days have less time to “free play” given that so much of their playtime is structured or involves a parental onlooker.

But young children are physical beings, who gain sensory perceptions and feedback from the whole of their bodies – and these perceptions contribute to essential brain development. So seemingly meaningless actions such as twirling, jumping, rolling and messing around with objects can actually help children to learn about who they are and the world around them.

Through the sensory and physical exploration of the discarded boxes and Christmas wrapping paper, the foundations of learning and cognitive development are occurring. Children become sensitised and motivated to further their explorations, allowing more complex thoughts and understanding to develop.

Living the dream.
Shutterstock

So a young child who repeatedly fills and empties a box, climbs in and out, puts things in then tips them out, is not just making a mess. Instead they are exploring the “insideness” of the object – which helps them to understand concepts such as capacity, volume and space.

And with this in mind, rather than just filling the toy cupboard with a load of manufactured creations, it is important that young children are also able to make their own discoveries and to construct their own understanding, too.

So this Christmas, make sure your child has a chance to play with all the wrapping paper before it is neatly tidied up and disposed of. Because not only are you helping them to cultivate a desire to learn, you are also helping to develop their inquisitive resolve and creative expression.

You will also be allowing them the opportunity to strengthen the bits of their brain that are responsible for development – and this will help to ensure they have the foundations for future learning. And what could be a better gift than that?



Julie Brierley, Lecturer in Early Years & Education, University of Hull

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Guest Post: What would you have eaten for Christmas in medieval times?

by Iona McCleery, University of Leeds

With Christmas almost upon us, there will be plenty of frenzied present shopping and meal planning. Haven’t made that Christmas cake yet? Fear not. If you were preparing the festive meal 600 years ago you’d have far more on your plate.

The picture below is a calendar page from a Book of Hours, a type of prayer book popular among pious rich people in the Middle Ages. Apart from the costumes they are wearing, the people at the bottom of the page seem much like us – keeping warm and enjoying their food and drink.

The 12th Day of Christmas

It may surprise you to learn that this particular calendar month is January. The feast day celebrated by the couple is Epiphany on January 6, picked out in red (Epyphania). Our Christmases, hectic though they may be, are actually a doddle compared to the traditions of old. Medieval people celebrated all 12 days of Christmas, from December 25 through to Epiphany – the day the three kings turned up with gifts for the newborn Jesus – although they did not usually feast every day. Some households had their big feast on Christmas Day. For others it was the first of January or the 6th, depending on local custom.

Wealthy or poor

There’s not much detail as to what the couple ate at their winter feast. The artist was more interested in depicting the strawberries and flowers in the margins than in putting food on the table. This is typical of medieval manuscript art. Even elaborate descriptions of royal feasts say little about food. We know even less about what the poor ate, although lords probably feasted their tenants at least once over Christmas.

We do know that preparations for winter would have begun in the late autumn. Humans and animals both ate the same basic foodstuff: grain. Poorer people did not have enough grain for animals over winter so most pigs and cattle were fattened up on acorns and slaughtered. Calendars commemorate this strategic act for the months of November and December as in the images below, paired with the relevant signs of the zodiac (Sagittarius and Capricorn).

Fattening in November and slaughtering in December.
Courtesy of the Brotherton Library, University of Leeds

Of course, the wealthy could continue to keep their animals alive, so they had fresh meat all winter. It’s not true that they used spices to liven up rotten meat: cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon and pepper were imported from India or Indonesia, so if you could afford them you could afford good meat. The rich could also afford sugar – candied fruit, sugared almonds and sweets have always been popular Christmas treats.

The poor would have eaten sausage and bacon instead, salted fish if they could get it, stored or dried apples, peas and beans, perhaps a bit of honey, and would only have had the added flavours of onion, leeks and garlic. Even salt was expensive. The hungriest time was actually not the months that we associate with winter cold, but the months of April and May. It was then that stores had run out and there would be little growing yet in the garden. Nor was there much dairy as hens naturally lay less in winter and cows don’t produce milk until after they have their spring calves.

Yuletide feasting

The best way to find out what the wealthy ate is to turn to their financial accounts and cookery books. Cookery books such as the Forme of Cury, written for the household of King Richard II (1377-1399), provide some tasty recipes. For a recent project we made recipes from this text and others for the public to try at festivals and markets around Yorkshire. In Castleford Market in December 2012 we prepared seasonal tastes such as gingerbread, mutton stew (mounchelet) and apple pudding (pommesmoile).

An opulent Christmas feast.
Courtesy of the Brotherton Library, University of Leeds

But it was nigh on impossible to prepare the main dishes that the rich had at their feasts. Turkey originally came from the Americas so was not found on English tables until the late 16th century. It probably replaced a showier but much less tasty bird: the peacock. The price of these birds meant that most people had to be content with another large expensive bird, the goose, which was a traditional Christmas main course until relatively recently. Also closely associated with Christmas was the wild boar – a boar’s head was often brought into the hall to accompanying carols. But it wasn’t always intended for eating.

And then elaborate displays of prepared meat, sugar or wax in the form of fantasy animals, angels and castles were often part of the entertainment, sometimes even moving mechanically or exploding.

So count yourself lucky as somebody who won’t go hungry this winter. You may have left the pudding quite late but you can leave the peacock and pommesmoile for next year.



Iona McCleery, Lecturer in Medieval History, University of Leeds

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.