|
one thing i learned during my period as santa claus is that santa claus is the superego--but also that the superego function poses a kinda problem for the xmas retail logic, so has to be attenuated.
you dont see department store santas threatening kids with lumps of coal. that would get in the way of cultivating that smooth relationship to consumerism-as-freedom-and-as-total-self-definition so central to the meaning of xmas.
and perhaps therein lies the problem: the breakdown of parental authority begins with department store santa clauses eliminating the threat of misery for xmas if you, kid, do not obey.
santa should have interrogated the kid and when systematic misbehaviour was discovered, threatened the kid with a lump of coal as the opening round of a series of escalating afflictions: shape up or you'll find yourself with hellfire and damnation or plagued with locusts or at the center of a shower of frogs.
and if the kid objected, santa should have tasered him.
i'm santa claus. don't fuck with me.
boundaries, that's what we need.
boundaries and punishments.
we need isolated nuclear families made up of people who are willing to tell kids like it is:
"santa claus will NOT bring you commodities if you do not obey."
you have to be strong about this.
sometimes the truth is hard.
__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
|