The Christmas Complex
by Wentworth Sutton, assistant vice-principal, Mitchell Hepburn Collegiate Institute, Don Mills, and president emeritus, Semiologico-Hermeneutic Institute of Toronto
Western civilization is the story of the conflict between two personality types: the obsessive-compulsive and the schizoid. Obsessive-compulsives are of course those people whose lives are dominated by ritual, order, and cleanliness, while schizoids are aloof, introverted, and emotionally cool. Obsessive-compulsives seek control, while schizoids seek to escape it. Both types are well represented in modern British societies, and often in conflict.
For example, today we see these two personality types battling to determine the role which electronic technology will play in society. The obsessive-compulsives want to use the computer to collect and classify boundless oceans of what they call information but which we may more aptly characterize as numbers, while the schizoids want to use electronic technology to reduce human interaction to a computer function, an affair of electronic consultation conducted without any actual contact between human beings (the powerful social influence of the schizoid personality may be seen in the way people routinely talk about contacting people by telephone – the point of the telephone is precisely the avoidance of contact with someone).
These two personality types are often referred to as disorders, but given their powerful positions in society any such reference reeks of the arbitrarily moral. Whether they are correctly described as disorders or not, it is pretty clear that the conflict between them has directed and will continue to direct the evolution of society. For example, the development of democracy is often attributed to the prevalence of schizoid traits in British cultures. Aloof and introverted schizoids want to be free of external control, and democracy helps them to reduce it to a minimum.
On the other hand, that other defining institution of modern society, the bureaucracy, is definitely a product of obsession-compulsion. It is an attempt to create the dreamworld of the obsessive-compulsive, where there is never any doubt about the "correct" way to act, and in which the obsessive-compulsive virtues of collecting, cleaning, classifying, and controlling are the cornerstones of society. Of course, you can imagine how thrilled schizoids are with bureaucracy.
As lively as the battle usually is between these two personality types, there is one time of year during which the schizoid personality reigns supreme. That time of year is Christmas. The schizoids have seized control of Christmas and are making tremendous headway with it. Christmas, once a mere twelve-day celebration, now preoccupies us for all of November and December.
What does it mean to say that Christmas is schizoid? What I mean is that it exhibits typical characteristics of the schizoid personality. As I have mentioned, schizoids are characteristically aloof and emotionally cool, so it may seem illogical to hold up Christmas, that period of love and togetherness, as an example of the schizoid. However, we have to think about what love and togetherness mean at Christmas. In general, they mean very little. Love is reduced to the parroting of syrupy sentiments about peace and goodwill, while togetherness is reduced to assembling to exchange packages and to indulge in the soulless orgy of Christmas dinner.
In other words, the schizoids have tamed Christmas. A Christmas which was actually about love would be intolerable for many schizoids. Emotional immaturity is a defining characteristic of the schizoid personality. Schizoids cannot establish mature emotional bonds with others, since their emotions consist chiefly of desire and of anger at the frustration of desire. Schizoids survive in society by keeping these emotions under strict control. If sufficiently provoked, they are capable of losing control in a fit of schizoid rage, but they are not capable of love or other complex emotions. The Christian requirement to love one's neighbour as oneself is quite simply incomprehensible to schizoids, and to cope with the emotional side of the annual Christmas rites they have transformed it into an exchange of sentiments learned from mass produced greeting cards.
Why don't schizoids simply ignore Christmas? That would seem to be the logical approach. However, Christmas incorporates symbolism of great emotional appeal to the schizoid. For example, schizoids frequently dream about children who have been immobilized – the children are symbols of their own stunted and rigidly controlled emotions. Should we be surprised, then, about their interest in a festival which features at its heart a story about a child wrapped in swaddling clothes?
Similarly, schizoids often dream that they are looking at things through glass. This symbolizes their own withdrawn approach to life (and incidentally explains the appeal to schizoids of dealing with others through the screen of their computer). Looking at things through glass is a prominent feature of commercial Christmas iconography – going to look at the "Christmas windows" is in fact a recognized Christmas custom – and we cannot be surprised that schizoids find this appealing.
Again, schizoids tend to have powerful appetites. If they cannot be part of the world, they must incorporate the world into themselves. In their childlike way they therefore tend to consume whatever is available for them to consume. Christmas has been transformed by schizoids from a festival of love to a festival of consumption – consumption of food, consumption of alcohol, consumption of goods – and supposedly this festival is dedicated to children. The story of the magi has been transformed from a symbol of the worldly acknowledgment of the legitimacy of a god of love to massive schizoid wish-fulfilment – a depiction of the world laying its treasures at the feet of a child's raging id.
Of course, we should be grateful. If the obsessive-compulsives had got their hands on Christmas, our homes would be visited each year by government inspectors delegated to ensure that our Christmas stars were set at the right angle on our trees, Santa Claus would be detained at the border because of irregularities in his visa, and mistletoe could not be hung without a building permit.
At least schizoids know how to have fun.
The Christmas Complex © Coolth, 1999
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