Christmas cards reflect the times
Airdate:
Thursday - December 24, 1964
WOR Show Original Airing
First Spoken Line After Theme Ends
you just got to come up and look around. . .
Show Description
[ Courtesy: Dave Post - ]
Notices the rise of the hip, putdown and sexual Christmas Cards. What's next?
Social changes first manifest in the peoples rituals. When someone picks out a Christmas card, they are saying something very important about their tribe, world. Modern cards are very different than 1900's cards.
Santa Clauses in 1900 were very European. Looked Germanic or Nordic.
Figures hardly anyone is listening, so it is OK to do this type show. Advises listeners to stop listening and go out and look at the sky, or take a walk.
Last few years cards had a guarded quality to cover up emotion about other people. They were often hip/beat oriented.
1964 is post-JFK and now Christmas cards are no longer hip/Jules Feiffer/beat style. 1964 Christmas cards are secular religious. Natural romantic/Rousseau or trees or ski slopes or lakes or red cards with a bit of gold. They are transcendental or honoring nature not man. Oriented toward selfishness. It has become a statement of taste.
Cites a growing trend to not send any so that they don't make any statement that can be used against you.
The reason a particular card is selected is far deeper than willing to admit or knows. More than colors or style of Santa Claus. Why do preferences change?
Sometimes self-proclaimed atheists send out the most religious cards.
Tells story about an 11 year old he met. Why do kids relate to criminals as hero? Underdogs are the heroes in literature. Legitimate underdogs are pursued by police and criminals are pursued by police. Police only pursue underdogs. Under dogs are good therefore those pursued by police are good.
Many youth feel life is composed of an infinity of troubles, i.e., inequality, repression, badness and evil perpetrated by others. They are victims. The kid feels that the most fortunate person is the person who has no trouble at all. They are somebody who is dead.
Representative of many kids who have a secret death wish, which is related to drug use. It is an obliteration of consciousness. If you can retain the old words like consciousness, beauty and truth and apply them to the obliteration of those things, you have achieved the cake and eating it that everyone wants. So a man will obliterate his life with drugs and will call it "expanding his consciousness". He uses old phrases to cover up a new way to get stoned.
Shepherd agrees with the kid that there seems to be no remedy, no escape from troubles. We have tried political, economic philosophies, revolution upon revolution to no solution. Kid has restated theme religious folks have had for years that the only place there is no trouble is heaven where he stops being a part of the world.
Now, this feeling of sad disaffection is shared by religious people and atheists.
"Peace on Earth, Goodwill toward men…and all through the house not a creature was stirring not even a mouse and the only people who were working were radio nuts."
