Assassinating Santa to develop resilient kids — and save the world?

Planned by a neuroscientist not a psychopath…

This might sound radical and offend some people straight away but bear with me: The not-so-old but now firmly established (even cultish?) cultural norm of the “Santa Claus” story MUST be eradicated. All aspects from TV movies, films, cards, bedtime stories starting in November relaying his myth and mirth, and especially the leaving of cookies and hot chocolate on the night of December 24th must stopped. Immediately. Completely. No question about it.

This must be calculated, premeditated, strategized and committed to by everyone. No leaving it to chance or luck.

Thus, Santa can’t be slowly evolved or even taken out ‘by accident.’ Nope.

He must be assassinated.

[No disrespect to the wonderful humor that can be found in lying to our children at Christmas — see https://medium.com/@tommycm/lies-i-tell-my-children-at-christmas-7f9d6109f78b]

WHY you might ask? How can I be so heartless and cruel to even suggest such an idea? Have I been so traumatized as to want to inflict such harm on millions of innocent children worldwide?

It’s actually because of the trauma of innocents once you think about it. And, yes, I was one. And likely so were you. (And if it wasn’t the ‘story of Santa’ that traumatized you, it was the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy or some other mythical creature you were led to believe as true. Please don’t try and depend on your memory here — you likely don’t remember accurately and neither do your parents.)

Oh, and I’m a neuroscientist and positive psychology trained coach who studies trauma, chronic illness (especially chronic pain) and resiliency; I’m not a hokey arm-chair self-appointed psychoanalyst, but a scientist. Hopefully this will encourage you to keep reading and to grab your gun.

Why… oh why?!

Before continuing the assassination plan, a few critical themes must be understood to show the plan’s necessity. While others have written on the wider implications of this (like https://www.thoughtco.com/should-parents-perpetuate-the-santa-claus-myth-249579 ), my comments will focus on the neurodevelopmental/neuroscientific parts.

First, the human brain is as wonderfully designed as it is fundamentally flawed, especially during early developmental periods — and events that perturb normal development can irreversibly change the system.

Next, aside from certain genetic abnormalities, the brain’s main function is to create meaning of information (sensory and ‘intellectual’) for it to work as a statistical probability calculator (SPC). Serving the SPC role, it can most quickly predict what future circumstances might put it into harm’s way. It is not designed to ‘interpret first, react second,’ but exactly the opposite. In my own field of study, we know our pain systems work primarily to avoid painful/harmful events, most of the reactions we have happen well before our conscious awareness. Moreover, the same systems adapt on dozens of different levels to predict future circumstances that might cause harm once a pain is experienced.

Finally, and extending the last point, most of our survival instincts, as well as the mundane daily biological systems keeping us alive, happen almost completely isolated from our conscious awareness, and the subconscious systems have their own memory capabilities that operate separately from what many of us call our ‘divine’ capabilities of logic, reason and objectivity. When our awareness pops above the autopilot level and we sense what is truly happening around us, we tend to bend the reality to make it match what we believe is happening, and to maximize our ‘fuzzy good feelings’ around our role in it.

[Note: The more you’re convinced at this point that I’m wrong about you and that you’re fully in control of your life might indicate the more entrenched you are in this. If this is you I’d recommend you, specifically, keep reading.]

Where does Santa Claus and our kids come in?

Let’s look at the first point: Perturbations during normal development can irreversibly alter the system.

Looking at most children and their “I can conquer the world” optimistic approach to life you’d think childhood would be a time of pure wonder and bliss. Yet we know developmentally this is one of the most turbulent and stress-filled times of life: internally every mind-body system is rapidly evolving, a connected but disjointed amalgamation of nature and nurture, punctuated by periods of physiological, emotional and relational traumas. The misstarts and pains of growth are ‘natural,’ but have been made more difficult by very non-natural technological and societal ‘advances’ (TV, computers, smart phones, gaming devices, pathologically driven parents wanting the child to live the childhood they didn’t, etc.).

The laissez-faire, ‘forced-egalitarian’ and tribalistic, but extremely supportive lifestyle in which the human brain evolved (for example, see “Sex at Dawn” by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá) has been shattered and replaced by a largely fear-driven, emotionally and resource-deprived, competitive milieu. This mixture wreaks havoc on how the fetal brain is sculpted and reshaped into adolescence, young adulthood and then adulthood. The support systems that existed when our human genes cut their teeth (10–20,000 years ago) have only recently (evolution-wise) been replaced by the fragmented, authoritarian, paternalistic ones most common across the globe right now.

According to some research (and an interest of mine), the average number of ‘Adverse Childhood Experiences’ (ACEs) experienced in developed countries numbers in the handfuls to higher (http://www.acestudy.org/index.html ). Importantly, the more the ACEs encountered the greater the likelihood of psychological and physiological diseases later — but even a SINGLE ACE might disrupt the normal development irreversibly.

ACEs can take many forms and can include seemingly innocuous but nevertheless traumatic lapses of healthy parental support. Each ACE adds to the child’s overall allostatic load (see below) which continue to cumulate over their lifetime, leading, eventually, to diminished functioning.

Shifting onto the second point: The statistical probability accuracy of the brain, which is OK when it works but nearly fatal when it doesn’t, is severely compromised when developmental processes are disrupted. This means that the ability for NORMAL daily living, let alone the crucial times of true danger, are hobbled. This does not imply that every life will be negatively impacted to the point of being unlivable; for sure, most of our subconscious systems have enough redundant or degeneracy mechanisms to help insure it (life) will continue — somehow.

The key point is that the brain that already operates at way less than 100% fidelity is fundamentally changed and works less well… oftentimes, significantly less well… when the system is unnaturally pressured. Pushing an underdeveloped brain to work around nuanced intellectual landmines before it understands what is happening is one such unnatural pressure. The brain, by the way, begins ‘probabilistic inference’ as early as 12 months old (http://science.sciencemag.org/content/332/6033/1054) clearly before most language acquisition and verbalization (to many parent’s chagrin). In other words, they’ve figured out you’re lying to them way before they can tell you back that they love you, too.

Finally, the last point: When the brain does seem to ‘work,’ it might not be, or it may be working in ways that appear different than what is really happening. To a large extent, the human psyche and ego are wired to help us ‘feel good about ourselves’ and ‘fit in’ because our evolutionary survival depended on the graces of others. When we fell out of line we risked the real possibility of dying. To pacify ourselves and help forgive others of their potential transgressions, we evolved the ability to ignore the disconnects and bring us back into harmony (‘congruence’). We are, thus, primed to blend in or risk potentially dire consequences, real or imagined.

Enter in Lies

Adequately debating the ‘naturalness’ of lies is well beyond the purview of this writing, so focusing on just a few of the known impacts of lies might serve us better in this moment.

Defining what lying is and is not is not going to be an easy thing but we must try. I’ve found that Sam Harris, in his short but extremely insightful book, “Lying,” provides a nice summary. First, what lying is not:

“What is a lie? Deception can take many forms but not all acts of deceptions are lies.”

For example, the use of cosmetics by women and men — lies or not? Painting oneself ‘up’ with the explicit desire to appear younger than one really is might be ‘deceptive’ but is one lying? How about social greetings? They are just that, right? Nothing implying the chance to openly discuss our personal health or the conditions of our bowels… They are not necessarily ‘lies’ though.

Dressing up in a red suit with a fake white beard, donning the best ‘deep voice’ and merry demeanor, and asking explicitly what someone wants with the implied assumption that it might be delivered when they’re asleep — but not if they’ve been naughty?

Because our intentions in telling the Santa story and having certain retirees sit while the (sometimes) eager children openly disclose their heart’s desires are noble not nefarious we might be inclined to sway toward the ‘deception’ definition. Good intentions trump the potential downsides, right? No real harm done, right?

Continuing, Harris clarifies what might help us remove any doubt:

“To lie is to intentionally mislead others when they expect honest communication.”

Here is where the true impact of well-intended, but intentional, lies collide with developmental processes, with consequences that reach farther than most parents may want to hear. To intentionally mislead a child might be considered by some parents to be a necessary part of parenting (and having raised my own I know the temptation), but is it? Really?

Especially when dealing with non-life-threatening issues? (Santa is all too threatening to many a child when they’re forced to sit on a very intimidating person’s lap who is clearly NOT a normal looking person let alone a familiar family member.)

I’m not a child psychologist but I research the brain, am a father and my experiences match exactly what experts say: Children hold their parents as deities, or close to them, because the parents are the child’s absolute source of existence. While the physical, emotional and intellectual needs change over time, contrary to what most of us experience with tantrum-happy, potentially biting and scratching 2-year olds (or teenagers?), the child still holds the parents as the de facto sources of what they need. Oh, and the children love, respect and trust them (even when they appear to be voraciously and vehemently fighting every word and action of the parent).

When a parent tells a child something about the world the child may ‘balk’ at first because anything new is to be cautiously accepted, and only after challenging it (and making sure it won’t hurt them).

Parent: “Here honey, eat this haggis. It tastes yummy! And will help you become big and strong.”

Kid: (Picking up on the 90%+ nonverbal communication cues from the parent, who is nearly unaware their face and body and tone belie the few words they use) “Really?”

Parent: “Yes, honey.”

Eventually (or not), the child may come to believe that whatever haggis is and the myriad of tastes that flood their mouth and nose is not harmful and, perhaps, their parent was right because they appear to be getting bigger and stronger. Their parents wouldn’t deceive them, right?

The same process occurs when the parent discloses something new about the world intellectually. Even something as simple as naming a person ‘momma’ or a blue object ‘blue’ is questioned. Nonverbally, normally, but questioned. Then the process of assimilating the sounds with the concept, with further connecting it to the other novel and potentially disruptive bits of information flooding the continuous rewiring of synaptic clefts, neuronal nuclei, anatomical and functional brain regions, and, ultimately, as a system, begins. This, by the way, is a grossly inefficient, labor-intensive, process that is riddled with glitches and ‘bugs,’ almost to the point of it being a miracle it works as well as it does.

The child’s brain is not a tabula rasa or ‘blank slate’ in the fact that there are many ‘operating programs’ pre-programmed into the very fibers of the nervous system. ‘Depending on others during the formative years’ is included in these pre-programed programs — so kids can’t not turn towards caregivers. Children also know either innately or through early learning how to tell when a parent (or other adult) is lying to them (for example, see Dr. Laura Schultz and her phenomenal work at http://eccl.mit.edu/publications.htm ).

When those caregivers blatantly lie to them, they know it although they might not have the ability to put it into words or understand the experience on an intellectual level. They DO on a visceral level, though. Not necessarily in the gut but subconsciously.

They then experience a quandary (which they don’t know of but feel) and try to process conflicting information: Is it OK for my provider to lie to me? Obviously so… so there must be a reason. I don’t know it, but I’ll learn it because I love them and want to help them, too. Lies are OK if they are meant to help, right? But I feel guilty especially when I’m punished for ‘not telling the truth’ — which is hard to know because sometimes I really don’t do something that they are convinced I did so I end up confessing to their version of the story…

These problems only get worse as the child ages and the process is repeated. Eventually the truth will be told — culminating in massive trauma for many. As bad as this is, it’s not where it ends. Once the child is white-lied to (the parent coming up with some lame excuse that this is tradition or something like that) they are then asked or told to not divulge the truth to OTHER children. “Don’t spoil the ‘magic’ for little Sammy… isn’t is cute that he still believes? This’ll be our little secret…”

Welcome to the Royal Road

“Lying is the royal road to chaos” according to Harris. I couldn’t agree more because lies continue to propagate mistrust, fear and uncertainty — key factors that are known to correlate with poor outcomes of trauma.

For example, as Harris points out:

“The moment we consider our dishonesty from the perspective of those we lied to, we recognize that we would feel betrayed if the roles were reversed.”

This begins a downward spiral and lens of mistrust: After we’ve deceived others, consciously or not, and we don’t want to think of ourselves as ‘bad,’ so we bend our memories in whatever ways possible to bring us back into self-concordance. When someone we like says something, we believe is a lie, we will mentally manipulate the memory to put them back into our chosen self-concordant stance, because we need them to be in alignment with what we think is true. The converse happens when the person is someone we don’t particularly like: we’ll mentally manipulate the memory to serve our desire to keep reality tidy for us (even more so if there are hints that they’re not as bad as we’d like them to be).

Either way a lens of deceit and threat is reinforced that cripples the ability to learn from the past. We also lose objectivity of ourselves and those in our life, creating incorrect images of our world that lock us into limiting beliefs.

The tumultuous times of early brain development only get more interesting when hormones start to fluctuate and the adolescent’s “allostatic load” of mental and physiological stress (for example, see some of Bruce McEwen’s research like https://www.nature.com/articles/1395453 ) begins to reach critical levels. Throwing hardships into the mix by voluntarily introducing stresses (lies) is certainly not going to help them — or us. [For a nice review of how we misunderstand adolescents in general, see https://medium.com/world-economic-forum/5-ways-we-misunderstand-adolescents-according-to-brain-science-6c922dba5809 .]

Lying doesn’t stop with just the child, their development and the individual deceiver.

“Lying, even on the smallest matters, needlessly damages personal relationships and public trust.” Sam Harris

The link to saving the world?

This is really where the assassination necessity comes in because we KNOW that ‘hurt people hurt people’ even when they don’t realize it and when they don’t mean or want to. The more we care about a cause or belief the more we become entrenched in our own version of the ‘truth.’

“People lie so that others will form beliefs that are not true. The more consequential the belief… the more consequential the lie.”

We begin deceiving ourselves and others with the truth we hold, the semi-truths, incomplete truths and smaller bits contained within a larger story, that we feel are worth voicing. Usually we tell our truths to others in the pursuit of peace and harmony (because we really don’t like discord), yet the polar opposite outcome happens. The fact that some truth is part of the equation doesn’t make the equation whole and complete — or worthwhile sharing.

A critical part here, too, is that consequentiality is determined not by the speaker/liar but the recipient.

Candor and the level of ‘feeling one is right’ offer no assurance that one’s beliefs about the world are true. Robert Burton in his humbling book, “On Being Certain,” elegantly shows that the level of conviction offers nothing of substance about validity/truth. For sure as we become more impassioned and invested in a topic, the more we become blinded to the reality of the situation as well as blinded to our own biases.

Candor, conviction, the belief of being ‘right’ and other self-assuring mindsets create people who ooze energies that less convicted people crave in a world that has hurt them. The energetically deficient people join the cause/belief to regain the tribal feeling and apparent security being offered. We must not lie to ourselves here: we remain tribilistic in nature — we crave being part of a clan. We thrive when we’re part of a collective, yet in ways that allow our individuality to be seen, too. [This innate need for inclusion has not evolved out of us, by the way. It continues but in ways that are unnatural to our heritage, but important nonetheless. See https://blog.startuppulse.net/designing-to-reward-our-tribal-sides-59d2f3943b7f for a nice perspective.]

We have evolved elaborate cultural norms, traditions and myths to help keep the clan strong and help the development, living and dying of the members. The positive power and necessity of myth cannot be underscored and herein is how the assassination is also an opportunity for a resurrection.

“It has always been the prime function of mythology and rite to supply the symbols that carry the human spirit forward, in counteraction to those constant human fantasies that tend to tie it back.” Joseph Campbell, “The Hero with A Thousand Faces”

Here is where the Santa story must be destroyed as a fantasy that tends to tie us down, perhaps being arisen again as what it was originally: myth, clearly distinguished from a fantasy-reality as all myths should be. Not clearly demarcating the two (myth versus fantasy) echoes Campbell’s mention of more modern practices that tend to focus on maintaining our childhood at the expense of natural rites of passage (beginning with the exodus from infancy and childhood to higher levels of understanding the world). Santa’s precursors including Odin (https://medium.com/@joshuashawnmichaelhehe/odin-3092d730cb1f ), Saint Nicholas of Myra and many others were held in different regards and, importantly, in cultures that had close ties to each other and whose celebrations were more directly tied to nature (and the seasonal aspects of the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere).

Cutting off the ties between nature-based, close-knit communities that use myths and rites as a part of the psychic/psychological development of its members prompted Campbell to suggest that “…the very high incidence of neuroticism among ourselves follows from the decline among us of such effective spiritual aid.” Such was the case in 1949 when “The Hero with A Thousand Faces” was published — 10 years after “Rudolph” arrived on the scene in print format, the same year the song burst onto the scene. (Correlation doesn’t equal causation, I know, but I thought this amusing at a minimum.)

Extremely self-assured and overly confident people can rise through their individual ‘ranks’, reinforcing their beliefs and conviction that they are, indeed, right (people don’t follow ‘wrong’ leaders) and serving others by standing strong behind their convictions. It is likely that these same people represent some of Campbell’s neurotics and self-aggrandizing ‘leaders’ that we hear about in the news and need to deal with on a global level. Leonard Mlodinow’s “Subliminal: How your unconscious mind rules your behavior” beautifully describes how we commonly elect leaders has more to do with how they look (charismatic) and sound (confident, resonant, uplifting) far more than the substance of their political views, all without our conscious awareness.

This creates a one-two punch for our world: the same people who are hurt who do not succumb to self-imposed silence become the ones who become most entrenched in various survival modes, using a similar ‘if a lie doesn’t kill you it’ll make you stronger’ mentality to stand even stronger in their convictions, sweeping along the ones who were hurt and opted for the self-imposed silence. Helping to supposedly ‘help’ both sets of people but in an illusionary and destructive way. Leaders and followers, if you will, heading toward disaster. Both parties, however, absolutely not admitting any wrongdoing because “…our ego fights fiercely to defend its honor” (Mlodinow, p200) regardless of rightness or wrongness.

Saving our kids and our world: Resiliency through supportive relationships

We need to be completely honest with ourselves in this moment: It is not just ‘very difficult,’ it is impossible for a young brain to parse out what is what. Developing brains do NOT distinguish facts, opinions, nuances, intentions (no matter how noble), jokes, good-meaning but factually incorrect statements or observations.

Circling back to Burton:

“…the most basic development of language will be influenced by the biases of those who are teaching us. What we are told is correct will shape all subsequent language-based thought.”

Thus, the lies that parents tell their children irrevocable and irreversibly alter how we think (metaphorically) because they alter how we think (neurophysiologically).

One saving grace for us is that the opposite occurs when supportive, truth-based developmental support is provided: the more realistic yet humanistic modeling of love. Among the top factors that determine resiliency in all stages of life are caring and supportive relationships (for example see Luthar & Eisenberg http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cdev.12737/full ). The more children feel cared for and are shown sincere care the more they develop the same capability, developing resilience in the process.

An alternative saving grace might revolve around the fact that our memories are not just malleable (i.e., we can modify them over time), we can be utterly convinced that something happened that factually didn’t to us in the past. It is estimated that between 15 and 50 percent of people can have false memories introduced into their minds by simply describing a ‘past event’ and convincing the person they were there but might not remember the details. The same (duped) people may eventually “remember” the supposed incident but forget the source of the memory (i.e., the person introducing the fake event to them) (Mlodinow, p76). If we’ve lied to our children in the past, we could subsequently tell our children a different story like we didn’t actually ‘lie’ to them about Santa — they must’ve been remembering a story about someone else… we would not do that to them. This would be using a lie to cover up a lie, though?

The best approach is obviously to tell the truth, yet in ways that honor the power of myth, the mental capabilities of the children, and that help them to “…combine (their) belief in one’s own infallibility with the power to learn from past mistakes” (George Orwell). Don’t try to force their minds into realms they’re not ready for but don’t set them up for failure.

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —

Success in Circuit lies

Too bright for our infirm Delight

The Truth’s superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased

With explanation kind

The Truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind —

Emily Dickenson

Instead of a self-propagating future full of deception, hurt and fear, should we not do everything in our power to develop a self-propagating future full of truth, support and resiliency?

Is this not important enough to grab your gun and assassinate Santa?