I received an email from my bookkeeper a couple of days before Christmas. Her salutation was “Happy Hanukkah.” I’m not Jewish and don’t celebrate Hanukkah. Should I be offended that someone would wish me a happy holiday that I don’t celebrate myself? Should a devout Christian be offended when the store clerk says, “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas?” Should a Jew, Muslim, or atheist be offended when the store clerk wishes them a Merry Christmas when they don’t celebrate Christmas?
I recently completed Cynical Theories by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay. If you like dry, academic analyses, this book is for you. It’s not an easy read, but it does a great job of walking the reader through how the classical liberalism that emerged from the Enlightenment period in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries and influenced the great American experiment has been largely abandoned by modern higher education institutions. At first it was the rise of post-modernism which seeks to deconstruct pretty much every societal norm. That was followed by post-colonial theory which seeks to amplify non-white voices and deconstruct the effects of the colonial period on colonized populations. These shifts ultimately lead to critical race theory which claims that political and social systems in the west were designed by white people to their benefit while oppressing people of color. And finally, intersectionality which studies the interconnected nature of things like race, gender, color, religion, sexuality and economic class that impact discrimination and oppression. This is where goofy constructs like “Black people can’t be racist” or “People from India or China aren’t ‘people of color’ – they’re white adjacent” come from.
Since various combinations of these theories have come to dominate university campuses since the 1990s, college grads and the people they influence have learned that there is political capital accessible by being offended. I was speaking with an HR professional about this trend recently and how it is affecting the modern workplace. She told me that while harassment and discrimination still occurs at the workplace, the percentage of “legitimate” cases is shrinking while frivolous claims are increasing exponentially. She said she has several investigations on-going where workers had entered the company’s progressive discipline process over attendance or performance issues only to file a hostile work environment or similar charge in an attempt to insulate themselves from further disciplinary action or termination. The bar for what they find hostile or harassing has dipped remarkably low. But each has to be investigated – with kid gloves.
How does this apply to being wished a Happy Hanukkah? The correct answer to this dilemma is so incredibly simple that it’s amazing this is even an issue. If an individual is nearing a holiday season that is important to them and wishes another individual a happy whatever, then the receiving individual should accept that wish in the spirit it was offered. I don’t care if it’s a specific Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Festivus, or a general, Happy Holidays. An individual is wishing you happiness! We should be grateful when a Jew wishes us a Happy Hanukkah or an African American wishes us a Happy Kwanzaa, even if we’re not Jewish nor Black. It is ridiculous for an individual to be offended that someone wished them happiness from their own frame of reference rather than using the preferred constructs of the receiver. Yet it happens. Why?
As Pluckrose and Lindsay point out, intersectionality studies allow for one to identify themselves in ever thinner slices, but never as an individual. Every individual is really just a combination of intersecting identity groups. One might be white/male/heterosexual(cis)/protestant/… or one might be black/female/lesbian/atheist/… but one cannot simply be Bob or Angie. And all identity groups are not equal. Since a black female is part of the two most oppressed groups (women and people of African descent), her identity as a victim trumps most all others. If she also happens to be gay, trans or disabled, she has access to additional oppression capital.
For modern social scientists, Bob or Angie may be able to accept a Happy Hanukkah wish from a Jewish colleague, but someone who identifies themselves through the lens of societal power and oppression structures may not be able to. The modern social scientists much prefer Bob and Angie see themselves as members of a number of oppressed groups than to see themselves as unique individuals. And that’s unfortunate.