Right now, I'm in a cafe on Queen St. By all measures, it's a beautiful day. Outside, kids are being dragged, herded, and cudgelled with velvet lies about Santa.
Post-truth has always come early in life.
Despite the proof of our senses, and overwhelming evidence of climate change, we listen to songs about sleigh bells, and mutant flying venison.
Santa gets credit for these kids' presents, and parents do the heavy lifting. Driving, parking, shopping. The Santa lie is so extravagant, it's like Trump denying something he said five minutes earlier, on video.
The Santa cover story involves a mind-reading, all-seeing god of winter; flying reindeer; an army of artisanal elves; and instantaneous, simultaneous global home invasions.
At great effort and stress, chimney-less parents perpetuate the fraud. Santa gets credit for building a wall, and we pay for it.
And when things are going well - like before Trump was elected - it's probably harmless fun.
Why not tell kids that nice gets rewarded? Why not tell them that naughty get punished? What's the harm? Sure, it's not how the world works, but they can find that out later. Why not decorate a dead tree in the living room, like some arborist's version of Weekend at Bernie's?
But it's the opposite of the truth.
The nice are not rewarded. The meek don't inherit. The naughty don't just get the spoils, they get naming rights to the tournament, title over the land, and licensing on the merch.
The ruthless and truthless annihilate the ruthful, the toothless, the truthful. Such is life. C'est la vie. L'etoile de la mort.
The whole idea of naughty versus nice is a lie to soften up and tenderise the nice, so the naughty can come in, heat up the oil and make schnitzel.
I remember the speech from Oliver Stone's first Wall Street movie, where Gordon Gekko said: "Greed is good."
It made sense at the time, in the analogue 80s when you could financially cripple the Soviet Union with an arms race. Aircraft carriers are expensive. But with technology, cyber-hacking is cheap.
And just like that, the world order has flipped. And you can't argue with victory. (Well, you could, but that would require the mind-set nice people like us don't have.)
Putin, a guy who sees murder as a deductible expense, is in charge.
And to appeal to virtue, to aspire to justice, is just proof of weakness. That's all you've got? Pretty words?
"When they go low, we go high," might be a good strategy for a house auction, but it won't guilt a plundering despot into sharing.
You have a dream? Airy-fairy hokum? Christmas Eve TV? Muhahaha! (Or however Putin chortles.)
Meanwhile, in the Disney sidebar where we live, it seems nitpicky to criticise our politicians, who are, in the scheme of things, decent folk. At least they're susceptible to arguments about fairness or shame.
But it's genius that the new PM has deleted the portfolio of Minister of Housing.
If you don't name it, it doesn't exist. Problem solved. How can there be a housing crisis?
Obviously there isn't, because there isn't a Minister to grill about it.
If you don't have a fire department, you won't have fires.
I'm sure they ran through options before getting rid of it.
The Minister of Blame?
The Scape Minister?
The Monster of Housing?
So much easier to delete. Who's gonna notice at Christmas?
Besides, at Christmas, homelessness has its advantages. It's so much easier for Santa to visit you, when there's no roof to deal with.
And on that cheerful note, Merry Christmas - anyway.
@RaybonKan
www.raybonkan.com
