I've been sitting here pondering the difference between Myth and Fantasy. For in this season of Christmas, a season in which both seem to feature so prominently, it seems to be increasingly difficult to isolate the tree from the trimming, particularly when it seems that the trimmings have become so visually dominant that they threaten to obscure the tree altogether.
Like so much of what passes as Christian tradition, I suppose, these days.
How is that, for example, I often ask myself that a small book less than a hundred pages in length which nonetheless told an epic story of kingship and kindness has generated so many thousands of pages of philosophical discourse? How is it, that when all those tomes (in my own Catholic tradition, all those volumes of Canonical Law, Encyclicals, Papal Bulls and theological debate) are stacked, one on top of the other; towering toward heaven with their millions of tons of reasoned discourse; that they still don't carry a fraction of the moral weight of that one small original tome. What is it, that the trimmings lack, that the tree retains?
I think that it has something to do with the peculiar power and the ephemeral nature of Myth. I mentioned in a previous Editorial that, for me, Myths are not those stories we tell each other which are untrue but, rather, those stories which we tell each other which communicate, in a way that logical linear reasoning cannot, those things which we believe, in fact, to be most true.
Because of the highly symbolic and imaginative manner in which Myth expresses itself, it necessarily resists prescriptive interpretation. Much to the annoyance of successive generations of lawyers within the Vatican, Myth, because it speaks from the very heart of the symbols with which it explains the universe, always speaks in a way that defies legalism and empiricism. Truly successful Myth, within any tradition, 'morphs' itself to fit exactly the changing shape of the needs of it's time. It is not redefined so much as it redefines itself. It changes it shape to meet the needs of each new generation of listeners but without ever compromising the essential 'truth' of its mythology.
Which brings me to what I see as being at least one essential difference between Santa Claus and Jesus Christ; the two protagonists who are currently arm wrestling for ownership of this auspicious season.
When my children were younger I, like many parents, spent a great deal of time, money and energy on perpetuating the fantasy of Santa Claus. Intercepted letters to Finland; reindeer teeth marks in the Christmas carrot, special wrapping paper; all fairly innocent and the source of much good natured amusement to all concerned.
I also spent a great deal of time, like many parents did trying to impart the power and tradition of the essential tenets of the Myth of Christianity. Retelling the story of the life of Christ; attending Church on Sunday; and engaging annually in much discourse on the way that Christmas, in it's rebirth of hope, was such an essential part of that 'dreaming'.
Sadly, among the general population; the guy in the red suit is doing substantially better business than the bloke in the manger; who is once again taking a serious battering in the popularity stakes.
Why? Everyone seems to have a different explanation.
The fundamentalists screech that Christian Churches have lost the plot and that an immediate return to the incineration of heretics and liberals (just to be on the safe side) is in order. The current Papacy through its recent appalling treatment of Balinese Theologian Fr. Tissa Balasuriya would seem to agree.
But I think it is because, in the modern world, a world which claims to be so rational, so logical... and so cynical, we have found it so much easier when faced with the Abyss, the modern malaise of Life without meaning, to flee into Fantasy than live through Myth.
Fantasy only requires that we daydream. It tells us pretty stories that do not in any way challenge us. It is escapist, indeed it may even be so enchanting and distracting that we cease to feel the need for anything beyond it. I don't believe that it is any coincidence, for example, that as the Hollywood special effects industry has perfected the Fantasy of Space Travel; that interest in, and budgets for, space exploration in the real world have shrunk dramatically.
After all, who needs the reality when the hallucination is vastly more accessible, convincing and comfortable?
I also find it amusing that, at a same time when contemporary society has rejected religiosity in such resounding tones, it's movie makers have chosen to fill it's cinemas; those modern day temples in which our collective stories are told; with fantasies such as 'Ghost' and 'City of Angels', and any number of other quasi-religious fantasies that preach the comfort of the immortality of the soul and yet demand nothing of it's devotees. But such is the widespread addictive and delusional appeal of Fantasy.
Myth on the other hand always requires a response. It challenges us because it is necessarily incorporated into the mindset that we bring to bear upon the world around us. The myth of Icarus did not lead the Wright brothers to spend billions of dollars making movies that created the mass illusion of flight. It lead them to build an aeroplane in which man might indeed fulfil that destiny.
Since Coca Cola subverted the Christmas legend of St Nicholas in the early 1950's, Santa Claus has become one of the most notoriously successful marketing icons of our time. He co-exists happily beside rampant consumerism and rapacious self-indulgence despite his altruistic demeanour; and he manages to do so because he is essentially a fantasy. Santa Claus can be put back into his box by his masters at any time he becomes inconvenient. He is highly unlikely to overturn the tables of the money lenders. A delightful daydream; a fantasy of an impossibly jolly and self sacrificing man with magical powers; whose only reason for being is to spread love and goodwill to all. Sounds slightly familiar.
But heaven help us if he was to ever to become a Myth. For then, like Christ or Ghandi or Mother Theresa, he may even become a role model; so powerful and pervasive that it might demand a response; might insist that we change the way in which we deal with each other, not for some brief period, once a year, but throughout every waking hour of our lives.
Claus vs. Christ. The Fantasy or The Myth. For those of us who prefer the empowerment of our 'dreaming'; who revere the power of Myth over the ineffectual and escapist daydreams of Fantasy, the 'bloke in the manger' is still ahead on points.
Pat Drummond
Editor