Opus 2026-006: Arbitrary Dates

How many arbitrary dates are there in our lives and in our cultures?  One of the most arbitrary dates in existence would be New Year’s Day.  Who designated January 1 as the beginning of the year?  It has nothing to do with the winter solstice.  It has nothing to do with anything that I can think of.  Some king or council somewhere decided on January 1.  Now we know we have Jewish new year, Chinese new year and I’m not sure if there’s a Muslim new year, but I wouldn’t be surprised.  Some of them may be arbitrary.  Some of them may not be, but I know the one that we use in Western culture is.

Christmas Day is also somewhat arbitrary.  There may have been some historical motivation for picking December 25.  Some people like to talk about pagan holidays, others deny that.  But there’s no real reason.  We don’t know from the Bible when Jesus was born so we picked one.

Different cultures have different holidays.  We are seeing this more and more on our calendars as we reject the culture that gave us the prosperity that we have and we start trying to be multicultural.  I see holidays in my date book that I have no clue what they are.  Some of them, such as Kwanzaa, were made up recently with a definite political agenda.  Others are holidays celebrated in Hindu cultures, Jewish cultures, Muslim cultures.

Which ones we celebrate can be somewhat arbitrary also.  I do not spend any time on ethnic holidays.  St. Patrick’s Day is just a day to stay out of South Boston.  Cinco de Mayo isn’t even celebrated particularly in Mexico.  Guy Fawkes Day is something that nobody in America really understands.  Valentine’s Day I only celebrate because a divorce would be more expensive.

In reading the history of Rome I think I read that they got up to the point where they had 175 holidays a year.  Each one of those holidays had festivities and celebrations and parades and sacrifices and all kinds of nonsense.  It’s no wonder that Rome fell.

One thing we need to understand is that every time we get a holiday or a day off that does not reduce the amount of work that needs to be done.  It does not generate the profits that are necessary to pay salaries.  It just means that somewhere along the line it has to be made up.  So don’t wish any more holidays on us.

homo unius libri