The Holiday Dilemma

In an attempt to imitate Aristotle's philosophy writing style in a modern sense, Lapillus, the philosopher, is arguing that holidays are pollutant to society to his friend Cattalonica.

LAPILLUS: Cat! Hey, how’ve you been?

CATTALONICA: Oh hey Lapillus, come out of you cellar, I see. I’m doing fine. Shopping for Christmas Dinner.

LAPILLUS: Oh, I see.

CATTALONICA: Do you have any plans for Christmas this year?

LAPILLUS: None currently. I don’t really believe in holidays.

CATTALONICA: Believe in them? What is there to believe in? They certainly exist…

LAPILLUS: Oh yes, not what I meant. I mean to say I don’t think they’re good for society.

CATTALONICA: What?! Why? Everyone loves Christmas.

LAPILLUS: That’s the problem. The over appreciation of Christmas is ruining society.

CATTALONICA: How so?

LAPILLUS: Well, would you say that there is a “best” way that society could act?

CATTALONICA: Well, of course. I don’t think we currently do, though.

LAPILLUS: No, we certainly don’t. But you would concede that we know how to act this way and could if we wanted to, yes?

CATTALONICA: I can’t see why not.

LAPILLUS: Alright then. Let me ask you, would you say that someone ruining a day everyone was enjoying is bad?

CATTALONICA: Obviously.

LAPILLUS: Let us say this is some regular Tuesday afternoon. It is not any more special than any other day. Would you say that the individual ruing Tuesday rather than Wednesday is any better or worse than the other?

CATTALONICA: Not really. I suppose if people were happier on Wednesday and it were ruined.

LAPILLUS: But if the same amount of happiness was ruined on each day, it would be the same?

CATTALONICA: Yes.

LAPILLUS: And you raise an interesting point: the happiness being ruined. You would agree that Christmas has higher overall happiness than a normal day, yes?

CATTALONICA: I would say so. As I said, everyone loves the holidays.

LAPILLUS: Exactly. Then would you not say someone ruining Christmas is more of an egregious action as it ruins more happiness than a normal Tuesday?

 

LAPILLUS: Tell me, do you try and act kinder on Christmas? Try and be nicer to family in friends?

CATTALONICA: Of course. Everyone tries to be nice on Christmas, unless they simply hate the holiday. Even then, they often still try.

LAPILLUS: Isn’t it also true that if being cruel on Christmas was not more egregious than being cruel on a normal Tuesday, we would not try and be on better behavior on Christmas?

CATTALONICA: I think we still would try to be nicer.

LAPILLUS: Why, might I ask?

CATTALONICA: Well, even though they won’t be punished for the actions more so than a regular day, the 

individual also sees the value of the day itself and wants it to be good for others and himself.

LAPILLUS: Precisely. But would you agree that if Christmas was no more important than a regular day and no 

actions were more egregious on Christmas than another, would you agree that we wouldn’t be any better on 

Christmas than any other day?

CATTALONICA: I suppose not.

LAPILLUS: We essentially act better on these holidays instead of regular days because we deem them as more 

important and therefore deserving of a high attitude.

CATTALONICA: That is all good and well, Lapillus, but how does this make them harmful to society? If we aim to 

act better on these special days, then why not put in similar effort in the other, non-important days? It’s just 

that humans generally don’t want to put in the effort. Holidays don’t cause this…

LAPILLUS: Exactly! They don’t want to put in the extra effort! For it is exhausting, yes? Constantly keeping 

yourself in increased check on these special days?

CATTALONICA: I suppose, but I should act that way on Christmas…

LAPILLUS: Being so well behaved takes an immense amount of energy when we attempt to be better behaved than our natural selves. But what if I told you that we could always act that well? And what if I told you that there was a relatively small price to pay for this grand increase in overall society betterment?

CATTALONICA: Let me guess…removing holidays?

LAPILLUS: You guessed it. Remove holidays �" all of them. Any day deemed any more important than any other day. Any celebratory day for anything, remove it. Tell me what we have then.

CATTALONICA: I suppose we would have days all of equal importance.

LAPILLUS: And, as we have shown, if no day is more important than another, no one at any point is enticed to be any better behaved on one day than he is the next. Let me ask you, what occurs then?

CATTALONICA: I would assume that since we know the best way to act and we can act that way, there exists no boundary to us acting that way aside from the effort and attention.

LAPILLUS: But do we not currently act in at least some way as a general good toward society?

CATTALONICA: I would say so, yes.

LAPILLUS: And if not more good than bad, we at least do some good?

CATTALONICA: Yes.

LAPILLUS: Yet this does not stop us from being our current level of goodness, as we have conditioned ourselves to such a habitual extent that we no longer feel it as a strain on us to act this way. This is what we must do to the current societal behaviors �" condition ourselves to be the best possible we can be.

CATTALONICA: I see. But how do holidays prohibit this? Why do we not simply do this habituation as things currently stand and continue our lives as we know them?

LAPILLUS: Because we have no reason to habituate the behavior. If Christmas, being more important than days prior to it, takes precedence for particular actions deemed “better”, then why would I put in effort society deems only necessary for Christmas? There is not burden for me to act a certain way.

CATTALONICA: I don’t follow.

LAPILLUS: See it like this: I have 1000 dollars free for use in my bank account.

 

CATTALONICA: Well, aren’t you blessed…

 

LAPILLUS: Not really…I’m not that fortunate. Either way, let us say I do have the funds and have three recreational things which I can spend things on: I can buy candy, I can buy a new laptop, or I can buy takeout every night until my next paycheck. Now, I REALLY love candy, but I know I need to buy a good laptop. Sadly, I am greatly predisposed to Taco Bell, so I know I must allocate some money there.

CATTALONICA: Alright.

LAPILLUS: I end up spending $50 on candy, $300 on takeout, and $650 on a brand new laptop. As you can see, the level of importance impacts how much of my resources I allocate to it. But let us say I appreciate and value the candy and laptop and takeout all in the same regard: I allocate roughly $333 dollars on each thing as I have no inclination to hold back in any particular category.

CATTALONICA: Clearly there is a difference here, though. I do not experience a limited resource in my attitude: I am no less capable of acting supremely nice on one day than another.

LAPILLUS: This is true. However, that is not entirely the point. I am arguing that you have no reason to spend the energy to habituate the best behavior for regular Tuesdays as you have already allocated a higher importance to Christmas. It is the importance which commands the behavior.

CATTALONICA: Then wouldn’t this make people only marginally better? They would take how well they act on holidays and act only better in terms of averages?

LAPILLUS: No. This would not be the case. If I remove laptops from my earlier analogy, I value takeout more than candy and will allocate more resources toward it. If I then remove takeout, leaving only candy, I will consistently allocate all my resources to candy as it is my only focus. That is my argument: we must remove all instances where we attribute particular meaning to particular days.

CATTALONICA: And were we to remove all holidays, each day would be of equal importance. No Tuesday would be of any more importance than a Friday and demanding of no better behavior.

LAPILLUS: Exactly. . Since this would necessarily occur, each day would essentially be the same commodity for our behavior. Since we know the best way to act and can act this way, we have no obstacle to acting this way once it is habituated.

CATTALONICA: And how might we habituate it?

LAPILLUS: Well here is the beautiful thing: the same social pressures which keep us from acting poorly on Christmas are the same social pressures which will entice us to habituate the best behavior until it becomes effortless.

CATTALONICA: Interesting. That actually seems to make sense.

LAPILLUS: Thank you. Now, I have to run off to go buy some egg nog. May as well make the best use of the holidays while they still pollute society! Talk to you later, Cat.

CATTALONICA: See you later, Lapillus.