“I saw mommy kissing Santa Claus…”
Don’t panic! you’re not at lost! I may be just that excited to go home this Christmas break, but santa has something to do with Plato’s concept of ideal and theories of imitation..
i supposed that we are all familiar with this song, and perhaps share the same experiences of hanging our christmas stockings and hoping that we are in the “nice list”, and that santa would come over to fill those empty stockings with mouth-watering candies, chocolates and our favorite toys. then will sneak from our room on Christmas Eve to see if Santa’s around riding on his magic sleigh, then… i bet you know the next part of the story..that our dear daddy was dressed up like santa, that’s why mommy’s kissing him..
according to Plato, it is innate for us human to immitate, however there are levels surrounding such principle. all things that we seeing are second-level imitations, those that were interpreted by artists like poets, painters, etc, are considered to be the third one. the original one is inside the sacred realm, which is genuinely created by the Big Guy up there.
Since Christmas Season is now approcahing, let’s take Santa Claus as an example.. the original idea of Santa Claus was the individual originally created by God, secondly, Saint Nicolas who was baptized to be the saint of children and was known for giving presents to children all over the world during Christmas Eve. Lastly, was the one played by our fathers.
it was said in Plato’s book that imitation can deceived people, through enhancing or reducing the meaning or the original essence of the “ideal”.
in this case, our fathers dress up like Santa Claus not merely to decieved us but to put into existence or into “reality” the way Santa was being presented by the society. however, it is still in the decisions of the parents to explain the truth to their kids, or if they’ll let them believe that Santa Claus did gave the toys.
Furthermore, (i think)..human beings only serve as the instruments to reproduce, after all, we all knew who’s the creator anyway..
