"Happy Holidays", PC?
I have usually not been too concerned with being politically correct but this is beginning to change. I find myself more often in positions where offensive statements can come back to bite me in more immediate ways. As I tend to do, when I start along a thought-path, I like to take it to it's logical conclusions, and sometimes even beyond. Not quite sure wherefrom that urge arises. This particular thought-path led me to a few different conclusions only one of which is particularly interesting.
Most people in work, semi-formal or other social situations will use the politically correct, "Happy Holidays" (depending of course upon where you work and with whom you hang). But I submit to the objective reader that this should also be considered politically incorrect. If we are going to discourage the use of "Christmas," then in order to be truly secular, we can't use "holiday." Holiday is a colloquial shortening of holy day. And if holy is synonymous, as it often is, with sacred, then it could not be more perfectly opposed to secular. The idea of political correctness is to not make assumptions about people or unintentionally leave them out of the discussion. Any talk about holy-anything and I, just like many of my atheist comrades, get left out.
When someone wishes me a happy holiday, it tends to ring in my ears a bit. I don't celebrate Christmas, I don't celebrate Hanukkah, or any other day rooted in inanity. So what's the solution? "Happy Winter Solstice!" or "Merry Solstice!" and various others. The winter solstice is not something for which one has to suspend their disbelief or their thinking minds. And we should celebrate, it marks the successful ending of another astronomical year (successful meaning we didn't destroy ourselves).
So, Happy Solstice Everybody!
Most people in work, semi-formal or other social situations will use the politically correct, "Happy Holidays" (depending of course upon where you work and with whom you hang). But I submit to the objective reader that this should also be considered politically incorrect. If we are going to discourage the use of "Christmas," then in order to be truly secular, we can't use "holiday." Holiday is a colloquial shortening of holy day. And if holy is synonymous, as it often is, with sacred, then it could not be more perfectly opposed to secular. The idea of political correctness is to not make assumptions about people or unintentionally leave them out of the discussion. Any talk about holy-anything and I, just like many of my atheist comrades, get left out.
When someone wishes me a happy holiday, it tends to ring in my ears a bit. I don't celebrate Christmas, I don't celebrate Hanukkah, or any other day rooted in inanity. So what's the solution? "Happy Winter Solstice!" or "Merry Solstice!" and various others. The winter solstice is not something for which one has to suspend their disbelief or their thinking minds. And we should celebrate, it marks the successful ending of another astronomical year (successful meaning we didn't destroy ourselves).
So, Happy Solstice Everybody!