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SOCGRAD MINI-LECTURES
by
Over the years, I have been lecturing on each holy-day
as they come along...trying so sort out the sociology of it all
from the politics and economics of some of it.
As usual, Halloween will fall on 31 October...and will be a
time of rare delight for children and some anxiety for parents.
A. ORIGINS OF THIS DRAMA OF THE HOLY For most of Western
History, Hallowed Evening was a time of great danger and fear...it was the name
applied to the evening preceding the Christian feast of Hallowmas, Allhallows, or
All Saints' Day. The observances connected with Halloween are thought to have originated
among the ancient Druids, who believed that on that evening, Saman, the lord of the dead,
called forth hosts of evil spirits. The Druids customarily lit
great fires on Halloween, apparently for the purpose of warding off all these spirits.
Among the ancient Celts, Halloween was the last evening of the year and was regarded as a propitious time for examining the portents of the future. The Celts also believed that the spirits of the dead revisited their earthly homes on that evening. After the Romans conquered Britain, they added to Halloween features of the Roman harvest festival held on November 1 in honor of Pomona, goddess of the fruits of trees. ...from Encarta
B. THE SECULARIZATION OF SOCIETY With industrial capitalism came secularization...Halloween became a time of camp; the fear of unquiet spirits were mocked and made safe by the sheer fun of running about on a soft Autumn night dressed in forbidden clothing doing forbidden things....like begging, extorting, and playing pranks on those whom we do not, as children, much like.
C. AS A RITE OF PASSAGE Sociologically speaking, Halloween became a drama of the Holy in which children were sanctified to the community by the sharing of solidarity supplies: candy, apples, cakes, and other treats small to adults but large to children.
By such rites of passage, a baby is converted into child; when we tell our children that they are too young to go out with their brothers or sisters, we are telling them that the social space available freely to them is limited to the home/farm/grounds.
D. By such rites, COMMUNAL SPACE is created in the moment of seeking and giving of sacred supplies. For most of the rest of the year, communal space is a very, very weak social fact. Halloween thus opens up a world of exploration for the youngster...a world in which there is joy, surprize, delight and innocent trust in the adult world.
E. SACRED SUPPLIES Most Dramas of the Holy reserve scarce goods and special services as a Sacred Supply with which to define that particular time/space as a Drama of the Holy. Sex, alcohol, hashish, dance, gambling and exotic foods are regularly used as sacred supplies for adult Dramas of Holy...and such supplies are defined as forbidden/taboo for non-persons...so candy, cakes, fruits and other comestibles are used; these are scarce enough in most homes...or forbidden for dietary reason....so they can be used in this miniature Drama of the Holy.
F. With the schoolification of America, Halloween
became institutionalized, rationalized, formalized and organized. Teachers taught children
to use art, dance, dress and drums to participate more actively in the creation of this
drama of the holy...
By the 1930's, Schools held Halloween parties, dances, contests, and pre-game festivities
during the football season...another sort of drama of the holy.
G. COMMODIFICATION OF THE HOLY. Today, in the effort to manufacture markets out of such Dramas of the Holy...[Christmas, Easter, Sweetest Day, Mother's Day, 3rd Cousin on your Mother's Side Day and such], Halloween has become a multi-billion dollar economy in its own right.
Part of this effort to commodify holy days derives from the effects of
globalization on local markets and local employment...if a merchant can invent a new
market which taps into deeply religious sensibilities, that merchant can squeeze a great
deal of discretionary income and quite a bit of dedicated income from the family purse.
Walmart's, Krogers, K-Mart, Wards, Sears and a thousand other retail
outlets push Halloween goods upon those with discretionary income...as well as those
without...
Grown men and women...especially women, wear one-time shirts, sweaters,
hats and coat garnished with pumpkins, skeletons, Witches and such...[at my bridge tourney
Monday, six of the 31 women wore such decorations].
H. CREATING FREE PLAY SPACE In college towns [such as
Boulder], Halloween has become a mini-mardigras...a time of daring, identity exploration
[via costuming], a time of creativity [I once saw a string of bacteria on Halloween in
Boulder], a time of sexual freedom, a time of melding and merging with unknown and
unknowable others...and a time to gaze upon the color and charm lost at massified work,
school, medicine and church.
By such means, young people convert the dreary drabness of 'ordinary' life into
a time of joy and sociality...Goffman would say that the structure of face rights is
expanded; definitions of stigma abrogated; sanctifications of ordinary objects entrained.
Truly, it is a time when our monochromatic Pleasantvilles
take on a kodakcromatic coloring...pure delight at what life
could be.
I. REBELLION AND REVENGE. For teen-agers, disconnected from family, community, school and work, Halloween is a time for pre-theoretical rebellion and revenge...it has become, truly for fire fighters, a devilish night.
Most middle class kids and many working class kids have the economic and social power with which to participate joyously and openly in this communal Drama of the Holy...some do not. Those who lack social power due to racist or ethnic discriminations are particularly vulnerable to ad hoc expression of rage and rebellion....after all, they still have some physical ability to subvert commodified institutions.
And Adults too have pre-theoretical rage to unholster...some put dangerous treats out to the children; some go on Neighbor-Hood patrols to prevent children from cutting across lawns or skipping over fences in their hurry to enjoy the free space.
J. GLOBALIZATION: As with Christmas time in Japan, Halloween is part of the Cultural Imperialism of the USA--spread by advertizing and by Americans abroad. As my colleague, Timothy Mason notes; the American commerical version of Halloween has been exported with some success to Europe.
French pastry shops are
festooned with paper witches, spiders and ghosties, while dejected infants, their faces
daubed with greasepaint, sidle their way back from school where some young American
teaching aid has cheerfully introduced them to Yankee culture by encouraging them to
damage an
innocent vegetable or two beyond edibility.
J. THE LARGER MEANING. Still the larger meaning of Halloween for most children is
a opening up of social space from family to neighborhood...escorted by parents and by
older sibs, children learn that there is a larger world out there peopled by loving
strangers and filled with wondrous surprizes...
As for me, I'll watch the Detroit Lions beat the Green Bay Packers on Thanksgiving Day and
think about the commodification of sports.
TR
PS: I once heard Gregory Stone give a paper on Halloween;
I didn't take notes and I don't recall the points he made
but I'm sure some of that presentation has informed my
understanding of Halloween...to Stone, I dedicate this
Mini-lecture.
TR Young,
28 Oct '98