Allan Massie: The Christmas paradox
Christmas is the one Christian feast celebrated by non-believers. Easter is nearer the heart of the Christian message, but for secularists the birth of a child has more meaning than the story of the Crucifixion and the promise of Resurrection. In most families, the coming of a baby is not only welcome, but represents hope and a trust in the future. So only the most resolute of non-believers don’t, I surmise, respond in some degree to the Christmas story. The angels’ message – “Peace on Earth and goodwill to all men” – is one to which we can all say “Aye, Aye”
Of course here in Scotland the response “Aye, Aye” often implies scepticism. It’s like saying “that’ll be the day,” and certainly as one looks round the world, peace and goodwill to others are very evidently absent. We in the West may no longer be openly engaged in any war; the last troops are home from Afghanistan. But we are scarcely at peace. Our Special Forces are at the least training and assisting the Iraqi army which is at war with Islamic State, and RAF planes have been in action against that enemy too.
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Hide AdMeanwhile, at home, the threat of terrorist plots is real. Scarcely a week goes by without the news that another such plot has been foiled. Only the most cynical can dismiss these reports as government propaganda.
We have also become aware that, no matter how thorough the work of the intelligence service and the police may be, there is really nothing they can do to prevent what are called “lone wolf” attacks. We have been lucky so far; our luck may not hold. But the Islamist terrorists have already scored one victory here: the succession of ever more stringent anti-terrorism laws passed by parliament since 2001 have restricted our civil liberties. We now take it for granted that our activities may be monitored, our communications intercepted.
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In other respects things are pretty bad too. More than six years after the financial crash, we are still faced by several years more of government-imposed austerity, and, frankly it’s not going to matter much which party or combination of parties forms the next government: there will be severe cuts in most areas of public spending.
Official figures suggest that the British economy has made a strong recovery, with both unemployment and inflation down. Nevertheless few people feel better off than they were a year or two ago, and I doubt if many regard the future with a lively hope for better times.
Discontent with the status quo is rife. Such discontent fuelled the ‘Yes’ campaign in our referendum; such discontent is filling Ukip’s sails. There seems to be general agreement that we now have a political class that is disconnected from the people it is supposed to represent. This may be the case, though I confess to being sceptical. For one thing there’s little doubt that today’s politicians are more aware of public opinion than politicians were half a century ago. They could scarcely fail to be, given the incessant polling of public opinion and the proliferation of the social media.
Indeed a more pertinent criticism might be that politicians now are so acutely conscious of public opinion – or what is believed to be public opinion – that they blow with the wind. Nevertheless, the contempt that many so evidently feel for our politicians, and the insistence that the system is “dysfunctional”, are evidence of a deep malaise.
Some of the chief problems that face us as a society have little to do with politics. There have been extraordinary medical discoveries and advances in my lifetime, and more are coming thick and fast. Only this week there was a report about the use of an individual’s DNA as a diagnostic tool.
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Hide AdThe consequence has been the prolongation of life far beyond working age, even beyond capability for pretty well anything. Individually and as families we may welcome this; we are happy to have grandad or great-granny kept going.
For society as a whole it’s another matter. The cost of treating the aged takes up more and more of the resources of the NHS; and it’s going to get worse. It’s as much an ethical as a political problem, a matter for churchmen and philosophers rather than politicians; and one sees no prospect of a satisfactory resolution.
What one can say is this: if two or three generations ago, you had told people that the time would come when we permitted abortion – the killing of the unborn – almost on request, and devoted an ever greater share of the NHS’s staff, time, expertise and money to the prolongation of life into extreme old age, they would have been amazed, and indeed incredulous. The truth is that the extraordinary achievements of science today are leading us into a moral maze in which we are all lost.
Never mind. It’s Christmas, the season of, among other things, good cheer. The 12 days of Christmas which run up to the Epiphany on 6 January are “time out”, a holiday for the spirit, when you can close the curtains against the world, a time for family and friends.
Of course many deplore the “commercialisation” of Christmas, and do so with good reason. Others reproach us for a display of greed as we manically shop. This charge is however misplaced. After all, we are shopping at Christmas, not for ourselves, but for others. Christmas shopping is evidence of generosity, not selfishness. This indeed is one of the many paradoxes of the modern Christmas; it is a time of extravagance and over-consumption – yet it is also a time when we value love, family, friendship, home, the domestic virtues.
Finally, no matter how irritating the sound of canned supermarket carols may be, it’s still the case that at some moment, we may find ourselves listening to the Christmas message of peace on Earth and goodwill to all men, and responding with an “aye, aye” which on this occasion is heartfelt rather than sceptical.
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