Christmas, between commercialism tension and moral tension
Commercialism vs Christmas
One of the US newspapers, New York Daily News has wrote that the story of Jesus has been overwhelmed by commercialism and other non-religious things.
In their article about the commercialism and Christmas, the news focuses on the recent reality where more people are viewing Christmas as a day where gifts are exchange and people are getting together.The first thing they mentioned in the article was the percentage found by a poll, where 69% of believers have said that they have attended Christmas worship services, but only 54% believers that will obligatorily go to the church, which signify quite a worrisome figure for Christmas. Subsequently, they continually talked about the same-sourced poll, where one-third of the respondents were revealed to regard Christmas as a cultural celebration, rather than as a religious holiday.
Although the title of the news suggested it was about commercialism and Christmas, but the commercialism topic was not entirely discussed in the article. There were certain time the issue of commercialism was brought up, but just on the surface, like when the news reported that the New Yorkers were mainly agreed that due to the overwhelming commercial appeal during this festive season, Christmas has lost its sacred spirit. It also included in this article, that for many celebrators, they are getting into the Christmas spirit by spending some green - referring to the American dollar.The rest of the article was full of facts and figures from Pew Research Center poll in order to further emphasize the fact that Christmas is no longer a religious holiday.
On the other hand, another article from BBC News, wrote his opinion regarding the tension during Christmas might be because its the time of the year where people have to start to fork out money from their own pockets. In their report, the first thing they emphasized is the fact that in spite of credit crunch, the nation’s High Streets still can see shoppers shop for Christmas. Being one of a few news article that does not see commercialism as the reason of the holiday tension, BBC News wrote that people tend to fail in adjusting the financial status with their wish to make others happy.
The rest of the article focuses more on the consequences of excessive spending during Christmas time may lead to a miserable time especially when the time comes for the debts to be paid. They included one psychological term “cognitive dissonance” to explain the stage when consumers have conflict between their thought and action. In its article, he added that due to the over-flowing marketing influences, people tend to enter into transactions, even after knowing very well that they are not able to afford it.
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