Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving has many associations -- struggling Pilgrims, crowded airports, autumn leaves, heaping plates, drunken uncles, blowout sales, and so on. At its best, though, Thanksgiving is associated with, well, thanks giving. The holiday provides a moment when many otherwise harried individuals leading hectic lives decelerate just long enough to muster some gratitude for their harvest. Giving thanks -- acknowledging that we, as individuals, are not the sole determinants of our own fortunes seems an admirable, humble, and even situationalist practice, worthy of its own holiday.

No doubt, expressing gratitude is generally a healthy and appropriate practice. Indeed, my sense is that Americans too rarely acknowledge the debt they owe to other people and other influences. There ought to be more thanks giving. Nonetheless, the norm of Thanksgiving seems to be to encourage a particular kind of gratitude -- a generic thankfulness for the status quo. Indeed, when one looks at what many describe as the true meaning of the holiday, the message is generally one of announcing that current arrangements -- good and bad -- are precisely as they should be.

Let not complacency and idleness accompany our gratitude this year.