Bob Reuter is the President of the Alliance of Humanists, Atheists and Agnostics Luxembourg, Allianz vun Humanisten, Atheisten an Agnostiker Lëtzebuerg (AHA Lëtzebuerg). Here we talk about parenting, critical thinking, and Santa Claus.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: “This meeting is being recorded”… got it!
Bob Reuter: [Laughing].
Jacobsen: Today, we are here with Bob Reuter. My name is Scott Jacobsen. So, we had a conversation at the World Congress and General Assembly of Humanists International. Something interesting that came out of that was simply a breakfast conversation over parenting and myths that are just in a cultural milieu. I have been working at the ranch here doing regular farm work. So, doing a lot of manual labour, you have a lot of time to just ponder things.
Reuter: [Laughing].
Jacobsen: It kept coming to mind as one of the conversations that arose in Copenhagen. I reached out to you. You agreed. We just had some pre-talk to focus on what I am considering niche Humanism or reflections on certain aspects of humanistic principles in action. This one, in particular, has to do with these mythologies like Santa Claus in North American culture and European culture. There will be differences in general. But the emphasis in general is for kids to have a good time, to bond with their kids. However, there can be different interpretations of that. We will be talking a little bit about that today. What is Santa Claus within Luxembourg?
Reuter: I think there is this part of kids having a good time, getting a load of candy, chocolate, etc., toys, and being spoiled by their parents. But I think there is also this discipline aspect. There is this tradition of using the promise of Santa Claus bringing you gifts, but also the fear of Santa Claus not bringing gifts. It can be used as an educational method by certain parents. So that kids learn. I think it is around this period of development of kids around the age of 3 to 4, 5, where they still believe this, but then no longer believe it. Because it’s not true. You have a lot of kids who are very behaviourally expressive – let’s say. Where parents might use the threat of Santa Claus not bringing or the bad guy, because Santa Claus in Luxembourg has this assistant who is this – you would call it – ‘black-faced’ [Laughing] person who is dressed in black but he is generally representing fear or danger, he might put you in his sack and take you away. You don’t know where, so…
Jacobsen: [Laughing] How are parents, generally, using Santa Claus, not necessarily consciously but, as a cultural byproduct? It is part of what is seen as good parenting, as a minor point, to bring into a certain season or year.
Reuter: I wouldn’t even say it is implicitly or explicitly seen as good parenting. It is just standard. It is the default cultural position. “This is there in our culture”. Yes, it has been co-opted by Consumerism and Capitalism to get kids stuff that they don’t even need, apart from all the chocolate and candy. There are toys and stuff like that. So, it is part of what is just to be done. It is not even defined as good parenting. But you really see, when you question this question for whatever reason, if logical reasons or the critical thinking reasons. Because it is lying to your kids, basically.
Jacobsen: [Laughing].
Reuter: When you talk to other parents, it becomes a question of good parenting or not, in a sense; it is an ambivalent thing, really, because some parents might realize, “Yes, this is lying, but I will, nevertheless, do it. Not just because it is a part of our cultural habit, but they tend to associate this with something good for the kids. It is a good experience”. I still remember. They will tell you. “When I was a kid, this was wonderful. This was magic. It was an expectation of Santa Claus bringing these candy or gifts. There was magic. It was wonderful”. They wouldn’t want to keep that from their kids. That is one way of justifying why they lie to their kids.
Jacobsen: This is relevant to your expertise in psychology. Elizabeth Loftus at University of California, Irvine has a very good academic track record with false memory, rich false memory research looking at how pieces of information can be inserted or removed from memories that are recorded or entire events can be fabricated whole cloth in the reconstructive act of remembering or recollecting. So, do you think this is playing a factor in this cultural recollection in time as a youth, as a positive thing, all the time – [Laughing] or most of the time?
Reuter: I’m not sure. But I think, conceptually speaking: I don’t see why it wouldn’t play a role because the age when Santa Claus plays a role is the age when we do have some problems in establishing memories about stuff because most of us don’t remember how life was before 2, sometimes 3. So, it is around 4-ish, 5-ish, where kids go to kindergarten where there is something happening in their lives that you can have as a point in time, on a timeline. You can associate the things happening around then; that’s the time Santa Claus plays a role. I wouldn’t be astonished if there is a lot of re-storytelling after the fact about remembering this period of time as something being only nice, as that is the narrative that we are confronted with afterwards. And then, trying to remember the good things, partially also, I think over the past 50 years, at least, that the traditions around parenting have become less aggressive and less brutal, I would say, to make it extreme because corporal punishment is really banned from public discourse – let’s say – as something legitimate. Because the practices around Santa Claus are, probably, nicer now than they were back in the day.
Jacobsen: From the Christian vantage, point of view, the “death, burial, and resurrection, of Christ”, they have this mythology around Christmas. Yet, the Consumerism-Capitalism you mentioned before somehow plays a role in a gigantic bunny and lots of chocolate. I don’t understand the connection. There’s a non sequitur there. Are you aware of any connection?
Reuter: There is this traditional storytelling that I see a lot in atheist and humanist communities, which is that all these are seasonal celebrations, like Winter solstice and Spring solstice, as Easter is closer to Spring. That these celebrations were there, just as seasonal celebrations. Because we tend to forget that in industrial and post-industrial societies that our ancestors lived in close connection to the seasons and the natural rhythm of the farm, and, previously, as hunter-gatherers of nature in general. These moments were important in the history of humanity. Somehow, these other religious traditions connected to that. Sometimes, I don’t think you necessarily need to have a complex cultural studies explanation. Sometimes, it is just a nice celebration that people tend to redo. Once people experience something nice, they tend to do it again. Even though they might have, in the beginning, some fabrication of justification. But later on, why do we still celebrate Christmas does not have to be linked to the reason why someone started it? It is just because we did it last year, and it wasn’t too bad.
Jacobsen: [Laughing].
Reuter: Or there is no reason to stop doing. Sometimes, traditions run on the fuel of being traditions. You stop a tradition when you have a good reason to stop it. Sometimes, you just don’t come up with a good reason to stop doing it. And chocolate! Chocolate is nice, always.
Jacobsen: [Laughing].
Reuter: I’m pretty sure chocolate was not part of all these traditions 200 years ago because chocolate was not globally available.
Jacobsen: Also, there’s an aspect of, ideally, a kid stopping believing in Santa Claus. The joke I’ve heard, “You don’t want your kid to be the first one to learn Santa Claus isn’t real, because that kid’s going to be an asshole. And you don’t want your kid to be the last kid, because that kid is not the sharpest knife”. So, you want to be somewhere in the middle there. You can use these cultural aspects, which aren’t going to be in every culture. In other words, every culture will have things like this, which is more to the point of this interview. How do you use those for points of critical inquiry development in kids relevant to the kid’s age at that time?
Reuter: As a parent, my first approach was never to actively tell these lies. Never to really reinforce the mythology of Santa Claus, for instance. I would say something like, “We celebrate Santa Claus. We celebrate children’s day”. This wording. I would never actively reinforce the belief in the metaphysical reality of Santa Claus as a magical figure that, after his death, is still there. And I would also ask questions, like these probing questions, to have my kids think themselves in a rational or a realistic way. So that, they might realize, themselves, that this is not real. But I tend to think my kids were, in that sense, kind of special because we never really reinforced these realities, beliefs. It was just a holiday, like you could have a holiday around Harry Potter. They could understand this was a character in fiction because they didn’t gobble up this belief in this magical figure, which they had to deconstruct. But I, recently, learned that my son – he’s now 13 – told me that, in kindergarten, he, actually, kind of believed it. Because other kids were telling this story. That Santa Claus was real, because they were told by their parents. So, there was, apparently, this tension. That I never realized back in the day that he had about this being real. It was a good opportunity for him, for critical thinking, basically, because his parents had never told him. We were not actively telling him that it is not real. But there were kids telling him that it is real. He had this idea. That this is just a myth. It is just a story. He was confronted by other kids who did not have more authority on this matter because they were just kids, as he was. It was interesting. To some extent, when you said, “You don’t want your kid to be the first, because then he’s an asshole”.
Jacobsen: [Laughing].
Reuter: I tend to think that is what I want my kids to be.
Jacobsen: [Laughing].
Reuter: I know I can be this asshole. I know it’s not always easy and nice. I, often, get told to play nice and not play the asshole. I reject this cultural imperative of not being an asshole, because we put the normal at the wrong place. It is bit like apostle Thomas, in the Christian tradition, is seen as the bad guy. No, sorry! He is the only ‘scientist’ in the Bible.
Jacobsen: Doubt is a good thing. Doubting Thomas was good.
Reuter: Yes! That’s a good thing. I don’t like having saints in the humanist tradition. I think he should be a figure. Well! The story is not around because then he, nevertheless, believes when Jesus is resurrected. He doesn’t follow-up by asking, “Were you really dead?”
Jacobsen: [Laughing].
Reuter: That would be the thing I would ask. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Just seeing that someone is not dead and was told to be dead, then he was never dead, to me; that’s the easier or more possible explanation.
Jacobsen: My one side note to that. We know all these accounts, if you just assume as true: these are eyewitness testimonies. We know from Elizabeth Loftus. Eyewitness testimonies are the worst possible forms of evidence.
Reuter: Exactly.
Jacobsen: In Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s words, we are terrible data taking devices. I would strongly encourage people to popularize this argument. I don’t see it anywhere. Use Elizabeth Loftus’ research when people make arguments for eyewitness testimony and the Gospel accounts, or other eyewitness religious accounts, because it is the worst form of evidence, and it is taken as the strongest in these traditions. That, I think, is an evidentiary basis for putting the strongest form of doubt on any of these claims.
Reuter: Doubting things, I think that’s a value. We should develop this narrative of doubt as something good. On the other hand, we have seen it with the coronavirus crisis. That skepticism and doubting can backfire. So, this is a very ambivalent thing, because doubt and then not thinking thoroughly afterwards is also not leading to good conclusions.
Jacobsen: Yes.
Reuter: Then you will doubt everything and fabricate your own mythology and believe that. That’s dangerous too. Who am I as an individual to know, to have access, to the wisdom or knowledge of the world or about the world without an entire community of scientists?
Jacobsen: I think there is a definite linkage there between the attitude of doubt and cynicism related to the stance of denialism. That’s the thing more of what you are talking about… we see this with the climate change, anthropomorphic climate change, issue. People will be doubtful on the slant of cynicism and will deny anything rather than proportional to evidence skepticism. In other words, I am saying, “They are taking a pseudoskeptic stance”.
Reuter: Yes, but I think this default position in a lot of cultures is that believing in religion is seen as something good and desirable, I don’t share this. Why would this be something good? You just believe because someone tells you. This is behind a lot of these traditions. You just don’t question them. You just accept some official narrative. That tells you that Santa Claus, for instance, to come back to that, is a good thing. A lot of people without reflecting on it, accept that. Because that’s what they will tell you. That’s what we were told, that Santa Claus is a nice tradition, that we should not take it away from kids or we will harm them, not necessarily actively, but not exposing them to this good experience would be taking something good from them. Honestly, I don’t see what is good about parents telling their kids that there is this big brother watching them, who knows everything you do and writes it in the book and uses this to favour you or against you. I think, at least in certain kids, let’s say the kids who believe it: I think this can have rather dramatic effects that they will have self-doubt. They will be too much thinking about their own behaviours. Because, of course as a kid, naturally, you will do things that your parents don’t’ necessarily like. It is part of what it means to grow up as a kid. It is a part of self-determination. It is always developing in this ambivalent space of being compatible [Laughing] with social life and someone with their own agenda. Of course, kids need to learn to play nice as a member of a group, but part of becoming a grown-up, emancipated adult is also having your own objectives, your own feelings, emotions, and your own agenda.
Jacobsen: Secular humanists don’t do fervour well, don’t do proselytization well. I think that’s sort of boiler plate Secular Humanism. How do you deal with that delicate tension in a society between individual self-expression and social responsibility when parenting and coming up on these soft issues, e.g., Santa Claus, easter Bunny, and things of this nature?
Reuter: I think it is futile to keep kids from exposure from these narratives. I don’t think that being exposed to these narratives is more harmful than being exposed to other narratives like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, or whatever mythologies. Those are clearly visible mythologies. As long as you don’t have these certain religious mythologies, I think most kids will think, “This is narrative. These are storytelling”. You can still see the value in these celebrations. Because I think celebrating your relationship to your kids is something good, per se. I just don’t think I need this consumerism aspect too much [Laughing]. Because it is not something I like with this development of the tradition of Santa Claus since WWII. Being a good parent is overwhelming your kids with… stuff.
Jacobsen: [Laughing].
Reuter: I think we can see something fundamentally human in all these stories that have a religious covering because they are around the seasons. They are about what it means to be human, what it means to be a parent, what it means to be a child, what it means to become married, what it means to die or have someone in your family die. I think we should not cut ourselves from the foundations of these, what most of these experience as religious celebrations, because there is something underneath that every human can use. I think we should be free to decide what ones we choose and what ones we don’t choose.
Jacobsen: One big takeaway from the World Congress and General Assembly, for me, was the wide range of concerns for people. I remember having one, in particular – a little off-topic, but I remember having one meeting in a workshop. We were in the round with a set of chairs. People were discussing, “What do you consider for humanists at risk in your country or your region?” North Americans and Western Europeans gave theirs, which are a little more light, typically.
Reuter: Luxury problems.
Jacobsen: Yes.
Reuter: [Laughing].
Jacobsen: Then one gentleman, I won’t mention, but from the Middle East, North Africa region. Paused, off-the-cuff, mentioned, “Honestly, I don’t want to have to be walking around in my country with the fear of being beheaded”.
Reuter: Yes.
Jacobsen: There was silence for about five seconds. Then I wrote that down on the notes, because I am a good person. I was the notetaker. These sorts of things, on the softer issues, we can parse. What is a humane act? What is a concern or not? In Canada, we do the same. We look at our constitution. It has in the Preamble, “Recognizing the Supremacy of God”. It’s symbolic. If we got it off, it would be a symbolic victory. It’s nice. But it’s not the major issue. We are looking at encroachment from the United States Evangelical Christians. What about the separate Catholic school system? What about dealing with traumatic issues in the Residential School System and how this impacts humanistic communities, and so on? So, the rank-ordering, qualitatively, what tends to matter more voting on it democratically? I think, individually, in your own case as a parent and the Santa Claus myth. It is similar in that same way, parsing and picking and choosing those moments to express those values, appropriately. Other times, it is deciding to be an asshole.
Reuter: At times, I think we need to put the right to be an asshole more on the stage. It might seem like something light, but it is transformative for an entire culture. That we don’t assume religious belief is just a default position or that not saying something when you see that it is not true, not saying it because you would be seen as the asshole. And yes, I also see that skepticism and doubt can backfire with climate denial and people thinking that they looked it up for themselves. They did their own research. I once did a radio piece about that. That thinking for yourself. Yes, that is something that we as secular humanists value a lot, like a lot. I think it is foundational in the philosophical movement of the Enlightenment, doubting established truth. This is not an easy act. Thinking for yourself is really hard, thinking for yourself is not just saying, “I don’t believe what I was told anymore and, now, I come up with some fantasy of my own, and then believe that”. You can do that. But it doesn’t give you access to the truth, but I don’t think access tom the truth is simple at all, at all. Some truths – plural – about the world; that’s hard. It is a collaborative effort we call science. Thinking for yourself is hard, I got comments about, “Now, he is telling us that we should believe everything that we are fed by the government”.
Jacobsen: [Laughing].
Reuter: Are you not listening? No! That’s exactly not what I was saying. I was saying, “You should! You should have a stance of responsibility as an autonomous critical thinker”. But I am also saying, “Critical thinking is not easy”. Yes, and they proved it [Laughing].
Jacobsen: Yes. Is there anything we haven’t covered when it comes to dealing with this as a parent?
Reuter: Maybe, one thing that I would like to add is that I tend to think that a lot of people, even in pedagogy and psychology and developmental psychology, used to think there is something like a religious tendency or instinct.
Jacobsen: I have heard this.
Reuter: That all kids, naturally will evolve towards magical thinking or religious thinking. That they will ask the big questions: Why are we here? Were do we come from? That they always come up with something resembling theological discourse. That there must be some God. At least, in my two kids, I saw that. Let’s say, I have two cases that disconfirm this, refute this, claim. Because I think that traditionally, yes, all kids developed religious thinking because they were brought up in a religious culture, where these ideas were there just to take. But when you don’t grow up in a culture or a household where religious explanations aren’t the first that you get, then you develop a worldview that is just what you see. Okay? You don’t need all these magical goblins and dwarves, and whatever, and fairies and gods and angels. It’s not a gloomy, bad view on the world. It is just, at least that’s what my son told me, “It is just the world”. That’s all. “It is just what I see”. I am not claiming that what we see in the real world. As scientists and physics would say, quantum physics tells us a different story about what the world is. I do think we have a certain construction of reality because of who we are as a cognitive species. But, at least, you don’t need this other layer of magical thinking necessarily. I think it really depends on how you are parented, and how you grew up, and how you are educated, and what narratives that you are fed that help you make sense of the world.
Jacobsen: Bob, thank you for taking the time to talk about Santa Claus with me.
Reuter: [Laughing] You’re welcome.
Jacobsen: [Laughing].
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