Post by RS Davis on Nov 26, 2003 9:23:01 GMT -5
This Holiday Is Designed to Celebrate, Not Faith and Charity, But Thought and Production.
By Gary Hull
Thanksgiving celebrates man's ability to produce. The cornucopia filled with exotic
flowers and delicious fruits, the savory turkey with aromatic trimmings, the mouth-
watering pies, the colorful decorations--it's all a testament to the creation of wealth.
Thanksgiving is a uniquely American holiday, because this country was the first to
create and to value material abundance. It is America that has been the beacon for
anyone wanting to escape from poverty and misery. It is America that generated the
unprecedented flood of goods that washed away centuries of privation. It is America, by
establishing the precondition of production--political freedom--that was able to unleash
the dynamic, productive energy of its citizens.
This should be a source of pride to every self-supporting individual. It is what
Thanksgiving is designed to commemorate. But there are those, motivated by hatred for
human comfort and happiness, who want to make Thanksgiving into a day of national guilt.
We should be ashamed, they say, for consuming a disproportionate share of the world's
food supply. Our affluence, they say, constitutes a depletion of the "planet's
resources." The building of dams, the use of fossil fuels, the driving of sports utility
vehicles--they insist--are cause, not for celebration, but for atonement. What if, they
all wail, the rest of the world consumed the way Americans do?
If only that were to happen--we would have an Atlantis. For it would mean that the
production of wealth would have multiplied. Man can consume only what he first produces.
All production is an act of creation. It is the creation of wealth where nothing before
existed--nothing useful to man. America transformed a once-desolate wilderness into
farms, supermarkets and air-conditioned houses, not by taking those goods away from some
have-nots, nor by "consuming" the "world's resources"--but by reshaping valueless
elements of nature into a form beneficial to human beings.
Since human survival is not automatic, man's life depends on successful production. From
food and clothing to science and art, every act of production requires thought. And the
greater the creation, the greater is the required thinking.
This virtue of productiveness is what Thanksgiving is supposed to recognize. Sadly, this
is a virtue rejected not only by the attackers of this holiday, but by its alleged
defenders as well.
Many Americans make Thanksgiving into a religious festival. They agree with Lincoln,
who, upon declaring Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863, said that "we have been the
recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven." They ascribe our material abundance to
God's efforts, not man's.
That view is a slap in the face of any person who has worked an honest day in his life.
The appropriate values for this holiday are not faith and charity, but thought and
production. The proper thanks for one's wealth goes not to some mystical deity but to
*oneself*, if one has earned that wealth.
The liberal tells us that the food on our Thanksgiving plate is the result of mindless,
meaningless labor. The conservative tells us that it is the result of supernatural
grace. Neither believes that it represents an individual's achievement.
But wealth is not generated by sheer muscle; India, for example, has far more manual
laborers than does the United States. Nor is it generated by praying for God's blessing;
Iran, for example, is far more religious. If the liberal and conservative views of
wealth are correct, why aren't those countries awash in riches?
Wealth is the result of individual thought and effort. And each individual is morally
entitled to keep, and enjoy, the consequences of such thought and effort. He should not
feel guilty for his own success, or for the failures of others.
There is a spiritual need fed by the elaborate meal, fine china and crystal, and the
presence of cherished guests. It is the self-esteem that a productive person feels at
the realization that his thinking and energy have made consumption possible.
Come Thanksgiving Day, when some success-hating commentator condemns America for being
the world's leading consumer, tell him that he is evading the underlying fact: that this
country is the world's leading *producer*. And then, as you sit down to dinner,
celebrate the spiritual significance of the holiday by raising a toast to the virtue of
your own productive ability and to America's productive giants, past and present.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Dr. Hull is co-editor of The Ayn Rand Reader and is a senior writer for the Ayn Rand
Institute in Irvine, Calif. The Institute promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of
Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.
Copyright © 2003 Ayn Rand® Institute
This article is copyrighted by the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI), and cannot be reprinted
without permission except for non-commercial, self-study or educational purposes. We
encourage you to forward this op-ed to friends, family, associates or interested parties
who would want to receive it for these purposes only . Any reproduction of this article
must contain the above copyright notice. Those interested in reprinting or
redistributing this article for any other purposes should contact media@aynrand.org.
This article may not be forwarded to media for publication.
By Gary Hull
Thanksgiving celebrates man's ability to produce. The cornucopia filled with exotic
flowers and delicious fruits, the savory turkey with aromatic trimmings, the mouth-
watering pies, the colorful decorations--it's all a testament to the creation of wealth.
Thanksgiving is a uniquely American holiday, because this country was the first to
create and to value material abundance. It is America that has been the beacon for
anyone wanting to escape from poverty and misery. It is America that generated the
unprecedented flood of goods that washed away centuries of privation. It is America, by
establishing the precondition of production--political freedom--that was able to unleash
the dynamic, productive energy of its citizens.
This should be a source of pride to every self-supporting individual. It is what
Thanksgiving is designed to commemorate. But there are those, motivated by hatred for
human comfort and happiness, who want to make Thanksgiving into a day of national guilt.
We should be ashamed, they say, for consuming a disproportionate share of the world's
food supply. Our affluence, they say, constitutes a depletion of the "planet's
resources." The building of dams, the use of fossil fuels, the driving of sports utility
vehicles--they insist--are cause, not for celebration, but for atonement. What if, they
all wail, the rest of the world consumed the way Americans do?
If only that were to happen--we would have an Atlantis. For it would mean that the
production of wealth would have multiplied. Man can consume only what he first produces.
All production is an act of creation. It is the creation of wealth where nothing before
existed--nothing useful to man. America transformed a once-desolate wilderness into
farms, supermarkets and air-conditioned houses, not by taking those goods away from some
have-nots, nor by "consuming" the "world's resources"--but by reshaping valueless
elements of nature into a form beneficial to human beings.
Since human survival is not automatic, man's life depends on successful production. From
food and clothing to science and art, every act of production requires thought. And the
greater the creation, the greater is the required thinking.
This virtue of productiveness is what Thanksgiving is supposed to recognize. Sadly, this
is a virtue rejected not only by the attackers of this holiday, but by its alleged
defenders as well.
Many Americans make Thanksgiving into a religious festival. They agree with Lincoln,
who, upon declaring Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863, said that "we have been the
recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven." They ascribe our material abundance to
God's efforts, not man's.
That view is a slap in the face of any person who has worked an honest day in his life.
The appropriate values for this holiday are not faith and charity, but thought and
production. The proper thanks for one's wealth goes not to some mystical deity but to
*oneself*, if one has earned that wealth.
The liberal tells us that the food on our Thanksgiving plate is the result of mindless,
meaningless labor. The conservative tells us that it is the result of supernatural
grace. Neither believes that it represents an individual's achievement.
But wealth is not generated by sheer muscle; India, for example, has far more manual
laborers than does the United States. Nor is it generated by praying for God's blessing;
Iran, for example, is far more religious. If the liberal and conservative views of
wealth are correct, why aren't those countries awash in riches?
Wealth is the result of individual thought and effort. And each individual is morally
entitled to keep, and enjoy, the consequences of such thought and effort. He should not
feel guilty for his own success, or for the failures of others.
There is a spiritual need fed by the elaborate meal, fine china and crystal, and the
presence of cherished guests. It is the self-esteem that a productive person feels at
the realization that his thinking and energy have made consumption possible.
Come Thanksgiving Day, when some success-hating commentator condemns America for being
the world's leading consumer, tell him that he is evading the underlying fact: that this
country is the world's leading *producer*. And then, as you sit down to dinner,
celebrate the spiritual significance of the holiday by raising a toast to the virtue of
your own productive ability and to America's productive giants, past and present.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Dr. Hull is co-editor of The Ayn Rand Reader and is a senior writer for the Ayn Rand
Institute in Irvine, Calif. The Institute promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of
Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.
Copyright © 2003 Ayn Rand® Institute
This article is copyrighted by the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI), and cannot be reprinted
without permission except for non-commercial, self-study or educational purposes. We
encourage you to forward this op-ed to friends, family, associates or interested parties
who would want to receive it for these purposes only . Any reproduction of this article
must contain the above copyright notice. Those interested in reprinting or
redistributing this article for any other purposes should contact media@aynrand.org.
This article may not be forwarded to media for publication.
