On Santa and the Noble Lie
Plato,
in his “Republic”, admits that his ideal Republic must use what he called a
“noble lie”. The lie is that there are four kinds of men; of gold, of silver,
of brass and of iron. The men of gold are the philosopher-kings, the men of
silver are the guardians, and the men of brass are the artisans, and the men of
iron are the farmers. The upper classes of Plato’s Republic tell this to the
lower classes, to reconcile themselves to their lives; but it is a lie, as
Plato admits, for there is only one breed of human, not four.
A deception
this crass and self-serving is called noble? And stranger still, Plato thinks
it would work? For surely artisans and farmers are wise to the world’s lies.
Their livelihood is the market, so they know very well that the buyer must beware!
They’ve seen brass called gold, and gold called brass! Plato’s Noble Lie can fool
only the naïve and unworldly; to wit,
his Republic’s upper classes. His philosopher-kings fool only themselves.
A lie
self-serving when told, intended for permanence, ineffective to its cynical
hearers, corrupting to its tellers; what is noble about any of that? I would
call a lie noble only if it costs the teller, and it’s built to be temporary,
and it improves the minds of the hearers when the deception inevitably fails. A
lie is noble if it creates philosophers.
Therefore
consider the legend of Santa. It’s a lie, all right; a known falsehood told to
the young by their parents, their peers, shopkeepers, radio, TV, the Internet,
NORAD… even the President of the United States is in on the conspiracy! Stated
baldly like that, it sounds weird; but that’s the plain truth. And the purpose
of this elaborate prank? To collapse! Eventually, inevitably, the child
discovers that there is no Santa Claus; so you shouldn’t believe just anything
you hear! Santa, in the very act of vanishing, leaves behind a lasting gift: sales
resistance.
Santa
Claus is a failed myth, deliberately told by unbelieving adults to their
credulous children as an initiation into skepticism. His liberating miracle is
that he does not exist. Santa is to the gods as a vaccine is to disease; a
failure coopted into a warning. Santa is a paradoxical saint of a doubt-based
culture.
I
say this as an outsider to the Santa cult; for I do not participate in the
rites of shopping. However, I did initiate my daughter into skepticism via the
Tooth Fairy; an equally noble lie.
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