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gwillen comments on How to deal with Santa Claus? - Less Wrong
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I think among all your examples, the Santa Claus story is unique in our society in that adults tell it to children with a completely straight face and actual intent to deceive. And they get angry at adults who tell children the truth about it. Or children who tell younger children the truth. Or sometimes even children who admit knowledge of the truth.
That seems very different to me from a typical myth or fable.
(Of course, I scope this to our society because one society's myth is another society's religion, so all these things are a bit relative.)
I think a lot of people view religion that way. A noble lie to keep adult children in line.
I think some people who oppose religion view it that way, but I would be surprised if there was a substantial contingent of people who are themselves atheists, but nevertheless view religion as a valuable tool to control the masses.
I can imagine maybe a small number of high-level US Republican strategists thinking that way. But not any large number of people.
I'm not so sure anymore. There are lots of these social lies/delusions. I'm increasingly wondering if the world isn't full of con men, sniggering up their sleeves at me when I take their insane dogmas as earnest expressions of what they believe.
Maybe they're not insane. Maybe I'm just too credulous.
Yes, but these days the con to push isn't religion but "social justice".
It's certainly one of the strong, competing ideologies.
And there have got to be plenty of conscious cons, just because it would be so lucrative. But there seems to be very intense commitment in the rank and file.
Hanlon's Razor.
I wouldn't call it malice.
Social creatures lie for advantage.
Davis' Razor:
When I told my first family that we're not going to baptise our son and we'll raise him atheist (and implicated the same for any future children), my father asked: then how will you teach him morals, what is good and bad? Only religion can do that!
Note how in the context of a church, with adults bringing their children, even if you primarily intend the Noble Lie for your children, you can hardly fail to notice that they're are some adults just as credulous as the children. Likely you'll think that the Noble Lie Show is a good thing for those credulous adults as well.
And isn't that kind of the point of a faith community? To reinforce each other's faith?
Drill that kind of thinking in them when they're young, so it will stick when they're older. Santa/Jesus are pretty well interchangeable for children.
He sees you when you're sleeping
He knows when you're awake
He knows if you've been bad or good
So be good, for goodness sake
You better watch out
You better not cry
You better not pout
I'm telling you why
Santa Claus is coming, to town
I don't think it's just a strange coincidence that Santa leaves a lump of coal in your stocking.
Apparently so; but not the intent to maliciously deceive — to deceive in order to weaken and exploit, in the manner of a con-artist or quack.
My point was that the intended epistemic status of statements made in everyday life, especially around children, is not all that clear. It requires analysis — indeed, literary analysis — to figure out what is a truth claim, what is a fictional canon, what is a parable or metaphor, and what is just pure pretend.
People cry over fictional deaths — children and adults, too. That involves some sort of participation, suspension of disbelief, or perhaps entering into the story (eitsing, a possible antonym of Hofstadter's "jootsing" or jumping out of the system). This is not unusual or pathological in the slightest. It is a normal part of human culture.
Being able to drop into a role, participate in play-acting or ritual, and so on — that's a social skill.
Maybe this is the point on which the apparent disagreement here turns. I'm aware of the story that parents do this, but I've never actually seen it — neither in my own (Christian, American) upbringing, nor others I've seen.
Mind you, I have seen parents be upset when someone mocked their child for thinking Santa was real, or made the child disappointed or anxious with the revelation. But that's a bit of a different thing; the upset seems explicable by the child's unhappiness.
But the idea "many or most (Christian, American) parents actually become upset when their kid finds out that Santa is a story" seems to me to itself be part of the story.
I have no evidence for 'most', and no hard evidence for 'many', but I can tell you I've witnessed it, so I have evidence for 'more than none at all'.