Ron’s Blog

The holiday of home and hearth

I’ve said this elsewhere, and before, but I suppose it doesn’t hurt to say it again:

Although lots of people take Turkey Day as the opportunity to give literal thanks to their own flavor of imaginary friend, the heart of the idea of thankfulness for the good things in your life seems pretty independent of whether you think that there’s anybody or thing to whom thanks are due. But this more generic notion of thankfulness or gratitude or something is hard to say in the language we have without expressions that imply some agent as the one you’re thanking. But the inclination to be reflectively appreciative of the good things in life — many of which are due to the random chaos of the world, like not being born into abject poverty, or having children who are by and large healthy, and so on — is an inclination that seems like a fine and healthy part of our human flourishing. I don’t think it should be cast aside just because some of the more obvious ways to state the impulse (”thankful”, “grateful”) are ones that seem to (misleadingly, for me) imply on the surface an agent who’s being thanked, or to whom gratitude is being given.

I’d be happy to have better ways to say it. But maybe “being thankful” isn’t so horrible. (After all, I can believe that Ponce de Leon sought the fountain of youth without thinking that there is a fountain of youth that he sought, can’t I? Just be careful with your “quantifying in”.)

Happy Thanksgiving.