I’m serving on my department’s Morale Committee for the next year, part of a group responsible for organizing events and opportunities for coworkers to socialize in an environment devoid of work-related stress. With the Holidays we’ve been tasked with setting up luncheons, charity events, and whatnot. December’s multitude of events have proven especially challenging due to the importance so many people place on these holidays and, for many, their sacred nature.

A big one was to rename our yearly “Chinese Gift Exchange” to something more politically correct since we had a new Chinese-American employee who was wondering what made it “Chinese.” If you’re scratching your head at this one, think of what a “Chinese Fire Drill” constitutes. They don’t have “Chinese Gift Exchanges” in China.

So that one was easy. Change it to “Holiday Gift Exchange.” Ta-da!

The other big issue was maintaining a secular nature to the festivities. “Christmas Pot Luck” became “Holiday Pot Luck” when one committee member pointed out that she was Jewish. How to decorate the office tree became an issue for debate because stars and angels were too religious in nature, but non-religious ideas, such as placing a photograph of the department at the top of the tree, were considered offensive to our Christian coworkers.

The debate was actually a fun one. No one was taking things too seriously, but we all maintained respect for the many differing perspectives on how to proceed. I appreciated all of these concerns and made my own suggestion for a tree-topper, one secular in nature and expressing a sentiment I felt all could agree with. The committee went with my idea.

No big deal right?

I’ve come to learn that these pragmatic issues of being sensitive to cultural diversity and supporting pluralism are being framed as “Culture Wars” in certain right-leaning circles. Bill O’Reilly has taken a position that there is an actual secular conspiracy against Christianity. Fox News’ John Gibson has even written a book “The War on Christmas” to enflame Christian fundamentalists and polarize Americans into debate over what should be a season of unification, appreciating our different religious beliefs, and celebrating our universal belief in goodwill to our fellow humans.

Bringing “Culture Wars” and “War on Christmas” memes into the Holidays are a rhetorical device meant to bring Christmas, Christianity’s holiday, to the forefront of the various celebrations. But this time of year is not just for Christmas, the holidays include Hanukah, Kwanzaa, the Yule, Winter Solstice, Thanksgiving, and sometimes even Ramadan and Diwali, which encompass an equally diverse number of religions and cultural backgrounds. When a pundit charges “War on Christmas,” they are rejecting the ideals of the enlightenment and belief in pluralism on which America was founded.

That’s why I love “Happy Holidays!” It’s inclusive, sensitive to everyone. At the same time, I’m not offended when people wish me “Merry Christmas,” but I wonder if the people who voice this sentiment would be okay with being wished a “Happy Hanukah?”

For the tree-topper in our office, we went with my idea of an Earth with a banner that read “Peace on Earth,” a sentiment I hope we all share.

Merry Christmas to the Christians.

Happy Hanukah to the Jews.

A Pleasant Ramadan for the Muslims (when it coincides with December).

A Festive Diwali for Indians (when it coincides with December).

Great Kwanzaa to African Americans.

Many Yuletides for the Pagans.

A Reverent Winter Solstice for the Secular Humanists.

A merry, happy, joyful, extended vacation for everyone else.

…and Happy Holidays to all!!!

Cross-posted at Centrist Coalition:

Dr. David Brin recently directed his readers to The Claremont Institute’s article “Not Your Father’s Republican Party,” which summarizes the Republican party’s ideological evolution from the progressive days of Lincoln, through modern conservativism, into new conservativism, and ending with Bush Jr.’s seemingly half-way progressive, albeit “faith-based,” half-way neoconservativism (That’s not the best way to describe it, I know. Alternatives welcome).

While I find the article’s stance on the Republican Party’s ideological shifts accurate, I also accept that other perspectives are also possible and equally valid. The article reminds us of how our “left/right” political dichotomy tends to make us fall into the trap of equating party with ideology, when, in fact, a party’s ideology is forever shifting and may completely contradict its positions from a mere decade before.

Posted by Ryan Somma at December 20, 2005 11:52 AM

Storytellers continue adapting Wells’ many novels into movies, television and radio shows, and yet none of these interpretations eliminate the joy of reading his original works:

“The Invisible Man” has spawned countless spin-offs, comedies and horror films alike. In it, Welles addresses the common fantasy many of us share of turning invisible and turns it on its head. The scientist in this book believes he will have many advantages as an invisible man, but the reality is more of a nightmare. He must run around nude in the winter, sleep is difficult because light comes right through his eyelids, and everyone he tries to sneak up on either hears him or detects his mass.

“The Island of Dr. Moreau” has seen 3 adaptations, the first being 1933’s “The Island of Lost Souls.” This tale takes a cautionary tone, where most of his works are more neutral toward technology. It embraces Darwin’s concepts that human beings are evolved from animals, and when Moreau transmogrifies animals into humans, their animal-like behaviors take more human qualities as well. They drink, fight, and copulate like drunken sailors on a binge. When their society collapses, the human observer falls with all of the animals, living much like one of them. Recidivism we all may fall prey to.

“The Time Machine” has 3 adaptations (that I know of). Wells used it as a vehicle to satirize the differences between the wealthy and the worker classes by speculating on the evolutionary outcome of this social architecture. In an ironic future, the worker class has evolved into a race of monsters, the morlocks, dwelling in caverns below the earth, instinctually caring for the machinery that runs the world above. At night they come to the surface to feed on what the wealthy class members have evolved into, tiny, childlike creatures weak both physically and mentally. The book is wonderful for its speculations on the Earth’s fate and Welles’ fantastic understanding of Evolution.

“The War of the Worlds” saw its third film adaptation this year by Steven Spielburg. His production was preceded by the film “Independence Day” and another film adaptation in 1953. Before these, the legendary Orson Welles produced his historic and infamous radio adaptation. While many see the books conclusion as deus ex machina, with the Martians falling prey to the many viruses and bacteria that inhabit the Earth, Wells eloquently explains how millions of years of evolution won the war:

These germs of disease have taken toll of humanity since the beginning of things–taken toll of our prehuman ancestors since life began here. But by virtue of this natural selection of our kind we have developed resisting power; to no germs do we succumb without a struggle, and to many–those that cause putrefaction in dead matter, for instance–our living frames are altogether immune… By the toll of a billion deaths man has bought his birthright of the earth, and it is his against all comers; it would still be his were the Martians ten times as mighty as they are. For neither do men live nor die in vain.

“By the toll of a billion deaths man has bought his birthright of the earth.” What an inspiring way to convey our species experience with Natural Selection. The superior Martian technology cannot take a planet that we have won through hundreds of millions of years of adaptation.

These are only the most prominent of H.G. Welles works. “The Star” is one of my favorite short stories, impossible to adapt to any medium beyond the written word. It tells the story of a new star appearing in the sky. This is Uranus recently collided with another planetoid and now falling toward the sun. In a few thousand words, Wells catalogues modern society’s inability to comprehend the threat facing them and the swift cataclysm that befalls the Earth, leaving a world forever changed in the wake of the flaming planet’s passing.

In order for a work to transcend prose and become literature, it must continue to speak to us in the present day, speak to timeless properties of the human condition. H.G. Wells’ works achieve this, but also go the steps further, revealing to us elements of our existence of which we were unaware. Like the very best of speculative fiction writers, Wells takes us to the true end of the Earth, expands our horizons to threats outside of our immediate surroundings, and exposes flaws within our psyches that only the most fantastic situations can illustrate.

Most of all, Wells remains a wonderful read after over a century of being in print because he embraced science, evolution, technology, and progress. He adapted his worldview to the new facts of his age, saw the truth, and worked it into his cognitive schema. He wrote about the truth, which endured, and his works have endured with it. That was his most inspiring virtue.