Face-to-Face is a feature that allows two members of the Redwood community to grill each other, argue, or simply converse about a relevant issue or event. We provide the topic, and they do the rest. This month’s participants are seniors Zack Cohen and Indigo Mutha. The issue: Should Thanksgiving really be celebrated?
Is a modern Thanksgiving a holiday worth celebrating?
Indigo Mutha: It’s a very consumeristic holiday at this point. We don’t really celebrate anything, we’re trying to smooth over all the things we’ve done from the past year that we kind of regret. We focus on ourselves more than giving thanks for anything.
Zack Cohen: I think that Thanksgiving is all about coming together to be with your family and friends you don’t normally see and just enjoying each other’s company, and being thankful for what you do have. I mean, every holiday in America has a consumerist element, and I don’t really think that Thanksgiving is one of the most consumeristic.
IM: I don’t think anyone truly knows what they are thankful for anymore. We have so much that we don’t have enough time in one day to be thankful for everything.
ZC: But even if were just surrounded by our loved ones then we can just be thankful for that. I don’t think that you need to go through your whole life and just check off what you’re thankful for, you just have to be able to appreciate that you’re surrounded by the people that you love.
Is seeing all your extended family a blessing or an annoyance?
ZC: I think that it’s always good to see family, even if it’s awkward or uncomfortable.
IM: I don’t think it’s a particularly negative thing, because I do enjoy seeing my family, but there are definitely parts of people’s families where, sometimes, you are not going to work things out and you’re not going to have any connections.
ZC: But don’t hate on the holiday just because people have dysfunctional families.
IM: I’m not hating on the holiday because of dysfunctional families, I’m hating on it because to try to put that all into one day is just like trying to pay sale price for something that’s retail.
ZC: But if you’re going to shut yourself out from the people you have problems with its always going to start with one day, one conversation, one meal. If you want to smooth things over, there needs to be a start.
Should the controversial history of Thanksgiving affect the way we celebrate?
ZC: In terms of the argument that we shouldn’t celebrate Thanksgiving because it has a rocky history with European treatment of Native Americans, I think that that argument is illogical and hypocritical in trying to take the moral high ground when in reality, a good chunk of our holidays celebrate some component of slaughtering Indians, taking their land, and forcing them to live in a way they didn’t want to. Thanksgiving has evolved into something more, and if you want to pick a holiday to destroy because of its history with Native Americans, I propose Columbus Day.
IM: I think if you were going to pick on anything you should just pick on the entire country because, hey, America is built purely on slavery.
How does the pressure that comes with Thanksgiving affect the way we celebrate it?
IM: There can’t be anything out of place, and it feels like the weight of so many years of tradition from not only your family but from the ideas of society. If you believe in following that, or you just follow that unconsciously, it kind of is a lot to deal with.
ZC: I think that’s part of what makes Thanksgiving so great – down the road, you can reflect back on, “Hey remember the time that mom burned the turkey?” Or, “Remember the time that so and so got caught in traffic and couldn’t come?” It builds experience that can help to smooth over family relationships, if that’s what the true goal of Thanksgiving is.
IM: As you say, mom may have burnt the turkey, but mom may have also burned the turkey in front of her in-laws and then broke down and cried because of how horrible it ended.
ZC: Then why pick on Thanksgiving in particular? There’s going to be expectations for everything we do in life, and if you fail to live up to those expectations and the pressure of society, than you might break down and cry.
IM: I just think that its a ridiculous holiday in itself because you’re trying to cram years worth of material into one day, and that’s just an ignorant approach because its just trying to consolidate a book into a sentence, and you just cannot do that.
ZC: But I think that part of the Thanksgiving experience is seeing people you haven’t seen in a while, and making those bridges.
IM: You’re a very optimistic person, I like that.
