Truth, justice and Father Christmas, the necessary intangibles

Lisa linked to this post on her WAHM blog  which was written by a woman who not only believes her children should be told the truth about Santa*, but also that they should go out and spread the word to their classmates**. My first thought was ‘you great, big, arrogant meanie’. I then sat down and composed a witty and stinging rebuttal, but decided to ditch that because someone has already given a far better reason for children to believe in imaginary concepts.

Death: Humans need fantasy to *be* human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.
Susan: With tooth fairies? Hogfathers?
Death: Yes. As practice, you have to start out learning to believe the little lies.
Susan: So we can believe the big ones?
Death: Yes. Justice, mercy, duty. That sort of thing.
Susan: They’re not the same at all.
Death: You think so? Then take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder, and sieve it through the finest sieve, and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. And yet, you try to act as if there is some ideal order in the world. As if there is some, some rightness in the universe, by which it may be judged.
Susan: But people have got to believe that, or what’s the point?
Death: You need to believe in things that aren’t true. How else can they become?

Extracted from The Hogfather by Terry Pratchett.

Yes, Father Christmas is an imaginary, man-made concept, but so are the ideals we strive for. You’d have to be a pretty cynical, and inhumane person to suggest we should not believe in them because they don’t actually exist.

**That is not her prerogative, they are not her children, and anyway, one does wonder about someone who delights in upsetting small kids.