At first, the thought of visiting the Easter Bunny with my 372 day old seemed like an excellent idea. The collection of parents and children did nothing to dispel that thought (both were well behaved). But as I stood alone (my wife was walking our daughter around because she tends to be impatient) in line somewhere around the 35th minute I began to ask myself 'Why exactly am I here?' It wasn't just the commercialization of THE Christian holiday that annoyed me, it was the irony of the fact that I was attending this function to be with my family, and was standing in line alone. I was going to gain absolutely no value from these overpriced photo sets as we have more photos of my dear daughter than we could possibly use.
So why was I there? Are the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus necessary benchmarks in measuring normalcy? Do fables like the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus still have value in the raising of children? Should I be asking any of the readers of this blog?
These are the questions...
Nicely put, I can not wait to never do that.
ReplyDeleteSince it's a perversion of the original holiday, which itself I consider suspect, participation is a nice example of a betrayal of both faith and reason at the same time.
'participation is a nice example of a betrayal of both faith and reason at the same time.'
ReplyDeleteI have never thought if it this way. I wholeheartedly agree with the first half of your assertion, but from a strictly economic standpoint I gained SOME value from the experience, otherwise I would not have agreed to participate.
The fact that I am still reflecting on what that value actually is leads me to believe the second half of your assertion might actually be true.
"but from a strictly economic standpoint I gained SOME value from the experience, otherwise I would not have agreed to participate."
ReplyDeleteThat's the kicker of economic thinking, isn't it? We assume everyone's a rational maximizer, that they are acting in their best self interest, to determine what's in our own best self interest. But if you want to know what's in your own best self interest, just act and see what you did. By our assumption, whatever you did was the best course of action for you at the time.
Maybe those assumptions only work in the aggregate... I'll have to look into that.
Just caught this quote:
ReplyDelete"In one recent survey, 37 percent of New Yorkers said they'd leave the city if they could. Of course, since none of them left the city, and since all of them could, the only proper conclusion is that 37 percent of New Yorkers lie to pollsters."
-Steve Landsburg, More Sex is Safer Sex
nod to EconLog
So is this brilliant, or an indication that Economists simply have no understanding of the way possibility is used in the English language?
I would have to agree that economics/economists need to work on setting up tests that are hyperintensive in their definitions, or learn to analyze social science data less literally.
ReplyDelete