7 ms·

If you live in rural areas plenty of people tout the "bring merry Christmas back" mantra. The origin of the cups story may be one person but it's reflective of

If you live in rural areas plenty of people tout the "bring merry Christmas back" mantra. The origin of the cups story may be one person but it's reflective of a larger group.

ahepp 6y ago
It's not clear to me whether this is the cause or effect though. I don't know how to present this theory in a falsifiable way, but I get the distinct feeling that a lot of these culture war battles are conjured up out "weak man" arguments in a hyper-real manner. Buzzfeed writes an article about how conservative nuts (more properly a single conservative nut) is boycotting Starbucks because there's no Madonna in their latte foam. Blue tribe clicks the article and laughs at Red Tribe for being so stupid. Red tribe clicks the article and decides "Blue tribe is laughing, at us!". Red tribe grifter starts accepting donations to buy Starbucks cups and throw them into a paper shredder. Blue tribe starts a Foundation for Freedom from Religious Latte Art demanding depictions of Satan in their lattes. Suddenly everyone has extremely strong feelings about something as absurd as whether or not there should be a Madonna depicted in their latte. In many cases, it seems the original nut turns out to be someone who spent most of their life at reality TV auditions.
- majormajor 6y ago
  There's a common theme in a lot of these "you can't trust what you see" replies that it's specifically being amplified by the liberal side, to make conservatives look stupid. If you take that one step further down the sequence of events, though, we'd be aiming that critique at the Christian side of the media that's been making hay about the "War on Christmas" for decades. Find one person saying something, or one company doing something you can take the wrong way, use it to tell your audience they're under attack; lather, rinse, repeat. Growing up in it, I'd hear about this stuff in youth group, in chapel in school, even in not-officially-religious classes like History. Before the internet, it wasn't easy to escape that bubble if your parents were deep into it. Or do posters here really think there really are a lot of people out there trying to eliminate Christmas?
  - throwaway894345 6y ago
    I don’t think anyone thinks people are out to eliminate Christmas in the sense you seem to mean it, which is kind of the point. Or rather, I’m sure some people do, but they are rare and not representative of Christians in general despite the generalization. To be clear there are people who take offense to the phrase “Merry Christmas”, which is what some traditionalists (Christian or not) take issue with, but no one is making a weak man argument about them either, i.e., no one says most people take offense to Merry Christmas.
- johncessna 6y ago
  This is literally what the article is describing. It's worse than 'the other tribe is laughing at us.' It's, 'if i don't fight my battle here, even though I don't really agree with it, we'll lose the war' That's why weakmen are super weapons. You have to use them. If you do look at your own tribe and say 'yeah that person is a loon' then you risk the whole tribe itself, and you can't have that.
camjohnson26 6y ago
They wouldn’t feel like they need to bring Merry Christmas back if the overly politically correct voices hadn’t tried to cancel it in the first place.
- ookdatnog 6y ago
  This is an inversion of reality. If someone chooses to say "happy holidays" rather than "merry Christmas" out of sensitivity or political correctness, that does not constitute cancelling. The term cancelling is usually used for deliberate and sustained social pressure and boycotting campaigns. As far as I am aware this has not occurred on any significant scale to try to stop people from saying "merry Christmas". In the other direction, however, this has very much happened. Conservative Christian organizations have called for boycotts of companies who don't mention Christmas in their Christmas marketing (or, in some cases, even just for mentioning non-Christian holidays) repeatedly over the last two decades. [0] To avoid weak-manning here: I'm sure this is a pretty fringe group and not at all representative of Christians in general. But it is clear that the campaign to force people to use traditional Christmas greetings and imagery has always been more prominent and aggressive than the campaign to abolish traditional Christmas greetings. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_controversies#Retailer_controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_controversies#Retail...
  - ndiscussion 6y ago
    Many companies don't allow their employees to say Merry Christmas, because it could offend customers. When you interact with public employees and 10 out of 10 say "Happy Holidays", it becomes a social norm. Breaking that norm then feels uncomfortable, and people who are already biased against Christians will seize the opportunity to say that Merry Christmas is insensitive. You can only say that the messaging for "Bring Back Merry Christmas" is more aggressive - the tactics on the Happy Holidays side are certainly ruthless, because there's a profit motive behind it.
    - ookdatnog 6y ago
      You can find that frustrating, but that doesn't make it cancelling. To be cancelling, it has to be a deliberately sustained campaign. In this case, as you said yourself, it's just a plain and simple profit motive. Companies want as broad appeal as possible, so they instruct their employees to use neutral greetings. There is no intent there to destroy the traditional greeting, so it's clearly not cancelling.
themgt 6y ago
I'm actually an atheist who likes saying "Merry Christmas", not that I really care very much. But the small sliver of people who'd be outraged over cups at a hipster coffee chain are not reflective of the broader group, is the point. "the cups story may be one person but it's reflective of a larger group" is exactly the "weak man" fallacy/mode of group stigmatization that the blog post is about.
- chillwaves 6y ago
  I feel like Christmas the holiday has very little to do with Christianity the religion. Maybe that's why they are so upset? But for sure, I happily celebrate the cultural holiday known as Christmas.
marcus_holmes 6y ago
I'm not American. And I'm an atheist. Are there actually people who object to "Merry Christmas"? This seems so bizarre to me, I always assumed it wasn't a real thing.
- slumdev 6y ago
  It's real. What's worse: There are some people who celebrate Christmas but who choose not to wish others a "Merry Christmas" out of fear of offending them. Peak woke.
- chc 6y ago
  Not really. Very nearly 100% of the examples of "objections" to Christmas are just people or corporations choosing to say "Happy Holidays" or something instead. As in the OP, there's probably somebody you can point to who holds any dumb position you want to argue against, but there isn't really an anti-Christmas side of the public discourse in America.
- _nothing 6y ago
  There are some (but not many people) who will get upset at you if you tell them "Merry Christmas". These are generally people who dislike Christianity or another, and/or whom dislike its pervasiveness in American culture over other religions. Likely more prevalent are the people who don't like corporations, public services, etc. wishing everyone Merry Christmas year after year while ignoring the holidays of other religions. To avoid all of this, many places are switching to "Happy Holidays", except there are a not-insignificant number of people who are upset by this and feel that companies/governments should be saying "Merry Christmas" because they should be aligned with Christianity.
- fuzxi 6y ago
  I've only ever received two different responses to "Merry Christmas". "Thanks, you too", and "I'm Jewish." I have yet to see anyone get riled up.
runjake 6y ago
I live in a rural area and I don’t find this true here. I think you may be guilty of the very phenomena the parent is describing.

If you live in rural areas plenty of people tout the "bring merry Christmas back" mantra. The origin of the cups story may be one person but it's reflective of a larger group.

ahepp 6y ago

It's not clear to me whether this is the cause or effect though. I don't know how to present this theory in a falsifiable way, but I get the distinct feeling that a lot of these culture war battles are conjured up out "weak man" arguments in a hyper-real manner. Buzzfeed writes an article about how conservative nuts (more properly a single conservative nut) is boycotting Starbucks because there's no Madonna in their latte foam. Blue tribe clicks the article and laughs at Red Tribe for being so stupid. Red tribe clicks the article and decides "Blue tribe is laughing, at us!". Red tribe grifter starts accepting donations to buy Starbucks cups and throw them into a paper shredder. Blue tribe starts a Foundation for Freedom from Religious Latte Art demanding depictions of Satan in their lattes. Suddenly everyone has extremely strong feelings about something as absurd as whether or not there should be a Madonna depicted in their latte. In many cases, it seems the original nut turns out to be someone who spent most of their life at reality TV auditions.

majormajor 6y ago
There's a common theme in a lot of these "you can't trust what you see" replies that it's specifically being amplified by the liberal side, to make conservatives look stupid. If you take that one step further down the sequence of events, though, we'd be aiming that critique at the Christian side of the media that's been making hay about the "War on Christmas" for decades. Find one person saying something, or one company doing something you can take the wrong way, use it to tell your audience they're under attack; lather, rinse, repeat. Growing up in it, I'd hear about this stuff in youth group, in chapel in school, even in not-officially-religious classes like History. Before the internet, it wasn't easy to escape that bubble if your parents were deep into it. Or do posters here really think there really are a lot of people out there trying to eliminate Christmas?
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  I don’t think anyone thinks people are out to eliminate Christmas in the sense you seem to mean it, which is kind of the point. Or rather, I’m sure some people do, but they are rare and not representative of Christians in general despite the generalization. To be clear there are people who take offense to the phrase “Merry Christmas”, which is what some traditionalists (Christian or not) take issue with, but no one is making a weak man argument about them either, i.e., no one says most people take offense to Merry Christmas.
johncessna 6y ago
This is literally what the article is describing. It's worse than 'the other tribe is laughing at us.' It's, 'if i don't fight my battle here, even though I don't really agree with it, we'll lose the war' That's why weakmen are super weapons. You have to use them. If you do look at your own tribe and say 'yeah that person is a loon' then you risk the whole tribe itself, and you can't have that.

camjohnson26 6y ago

They wouldn’t feel like they need to bring Merry Christmas back if the overly politically correct voices hadn’t tried to cancel it in the first place.

ookdatnog 6y ago
This is an inversion of reality. If someone chooses to say "happy holidays" rather than "merry Christmas" out of sensitivity or political correctness, that does not constitute cancelling. The term cancelling is usually used for deliberate and sustained social pressure and boycotting campaigns. As far as I am aware this has not occurred on any significant scale to try to stop people from saying "merry Christmas". In the other direction, however, this has very much happened. Conservative Christian organizations have called for boycotts of companies who don't mention Christmas in their Christmas marketing (or, in some cases, even just for mentioning non-Christian holidays) repeatedly over the last two decades. [0] To avoid weak-manning here: I'm sure this is a pretty fringe group and not at all representative of Christians in general. But it is clear that the campaign to force people to use traditional Christmas greetings and imagery has always been more prominent and aggressive than the campaign to abolish traditional Christmas greetings. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_controversies#Retailer_controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_controversies#Retail...
- ndiscussion 6y ago
  Many companies don't allow their employees to say Merry Christmas, because it could offend customers. When you interact with public employees and 10 out of 10 say "Happy Holidays", it becomes a social norm. Breaking that norm then feels uncomfortable, and people who are already biased against Christians will seize the opportunity to say that Merry Christmas is insensitive. You can only say that the messaging for "Bring Back Merry Christmas" is more aggressive - the tactics on the Happy Holidays side are certainly ruthless, because there's a profit motive behind it.
  - ookdatnog 6y ago
    You can find that frustrating, but that doesn't make it cancelling. To be cancelling, it has to be a deliberately sustained campaign. In this case, as you said yourself, it's just a plain and simple profit motive. Companies want as broad appeal as possible, so they instruct their employees to use neutral greetings. There is no intent there to destroy the traditional greeting, so it's clearly not cancelling.

themgt 6y ago

I'm actually an atheist who likes saying "Merry Christmas", not that I really care very much. But the small sliver of people who'd be outraged over cups at a hipster coffee chain are not reflective of the broader group, is the point. "the cups story may be one person but it's reflective of a larger group" is exactly the "weak man" fallacy/mode of group stigmatization that the blog post is about.

chillwaves 6y ago
I feel like Christmas the holiday has very little to do with Christianity the religion. Maybe that's why they are so upset? But for sure, I happily celebrate the cultural holiday known as Christmas.

marcus_holmes 6y ago

I'm not American. And I'm an atheist. Are there actually people who object to "Merry Christmas"? This seems so bizarre to me, I always assumed it wasn't a real thing.

slumdev 6y ago
It's real. What's worse: There are some people who celebrate Christmas but who choose not to wish others a "Merry Christmas" out of fear of offending them. Peak woke.
chc 6y ago
Not really. Very nearly 100% of the examples of "objections" to Christmas are just people or corporations choosing to say "Happy Holidays" or something instead. As in the OP, there's probably somebody you can point to who holds any dumb position you want to argue against, but there isn't really an anti-Christmas side of the public discourse in America.
_nothing 6y ago
There are some (but not many people) who will get upset at you if you tell them "Merry Christmas". These are generally people who dislike Christianity or another, and/or whom dislike its pervasiveness in American culture over other religions. Likely more prevalent are the people who don't like corporations, public services, etc. wishing everyone Merry Christmas year after year while ignoring the holidays of other religions. To avoid all of this, many places are switching to "Happy Holidays", except there are a not-insignificant number of people who are upset by this and feel that companies/governments should be saying "Merry Christmas" because they should be aligned with Christianity.
fuzxi 6y ago
I've only ever received two different responses to "Merry Christmas". "Thanks, you too", and "I'm Jewish." I have yet to see anyone get riled up.

runjake 6y ago

I live in a rural area and I don’t find this true here. I think you may be guilty of the very phenomena the parent is describing.