The Critical Benefits of Believing in Homer and Santa Claus

I think a sort of debased idealism is the biggest problem for my generation. We think utopia is possible so we declare war on whatever conceivably stands between it and us, marching out from London, atom-emblazoned banners held high, chanting scientia vult. This is nothing new. It’s encapsulated in Bacon’s famous declaration: “Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est.”

So what do I mean? I’m talking about a debased movement away from letting our children (or anyone really) believe in anything untrue. Take for example this article claiming that you shouldn’t tell your child Santa is real for fear of disappointing them. Instead of buying into a demonstrably “false” idea, the kid is better off developing his critical thinking skills. But isn’t there some truth in Santa? No, I’m not a mother trying to cheer up her child; I’m entirely serious. Ideas have consequences (enter Richard Weaver stage right).

Homer probably didn’t actually exist, but isn’t he real? Hasn’t the idea of Homer produced a greater number of “real” effects than a large number of other “real” people? Say, somehow, we discovered that the Buddha never existed in a material sense. Would the “critical thinker” immediately have to reject the validity of Buddhism as a school of thought? It seems to me that to deny that we should teach our children about ideas and ideals, “fake” as they are, is ultimately an attempt to rob them of higher realities.

We suffer from the same problem even in advertising. “Standards” earn criticism because most people can’t reach them. Everything must be beautiful. All relationships must be equally valid, all systems equivalent. While some standards might be damaging, we can’t let bad standards evolve into attacks on ideals as such.

I’m not arguing for the supremacy of ideas; I don’t intend to parrot nineteenth century German philosophers. I simply think we have to recognize the power and effects of ideas upon our world, which themselves argue for the “reality” of those ideas. Letting kids believe in Santa will likely do more to foster critical thinking than telling them the jolly, red-suited man doesn’t exist. As Whittaker Chambers observed, Marxist Communism, though flawed and even evil, is real, even if its application is impossible; it has produced more “real” consequences than many “real” people.

I think it is in this sense that Camille Paglia is willing to stake her career on the statement that God is man’s greatest idea; it is this conception we should be teaching to our children, not so-called “critical thinking.” That’s my idea anyway.