Presidents Day

In a barbarous country they have elaborate speeches; in a civilized country they have elaborate conduct.
Confucius

I don’t believe in Presidents Day. If you want to know why you just need to look at the dictionary definition of “denature”:

1 : DEHUMANIZE
2 : to deprive of natural qualities : change the nature of: as a : to make (alcohol) unfit for drinking (as by adding an obnoxious substance) without impairing usefulness for other purposes b : to modify the molecular structure of (as a protein or DNA) especially by heat, acid, alkali, or ultraviolet radiation so as to destroy or diminish some of the original properties and especially the specific biological activity
intransitive senses : to become denatured

Presidents Day is a not just an artificial holiday; it’s a denatured holiday. What are the traditional practices, customs, and beliefs associated with Presidents Day? Are there Presidents Day dishes?

Not all of the federal holidays are such flaccid, ersatz things. The Fourth of July commemorates our nation’s birth. When we celebrate it we remember the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It’s not an accident that two of the architects of our nation (Jefferson and Adams) struggled with all of their might—literally on their death-beds—to reach the fiftieth anniversary of that day. And, having reached that anniversary and satisfied that the child of their minds and hands would survive, they allowed themselves to die. Can you imagine anyone striving with all of their mights to live to see Presidents Day? I mean Presidents Day per se?

And on the Fourth of July we gather with friends and fellow-citizens to watch fireworks and parades, picnic, and party. Because those are natural human responses.

Labor Day is an artificial holiday—it was just made up and doesn’t commemorate any particular event. But it, too, is a natural holiday with customs and traditions in which we gather with friends, family, and co-workers.

Since there have been human beings we have come together in groups formed by blood ties, custom, language, and ritual. We aren’t cats—solitary hunters who come together for play and sex. Much as anarchists and libertarians might like to pretend that we are. We aren’t ants or bees—creatures who by nature live in large groups with strict hierarchies and pre-ordained life roles, the bulk of us in uniform equality. Much as the collectivists among us might like to pretend we are. And we aren’t eagles—pairs mated for life who form a corporation against the rest of the world to hunt and raise our young.

Much as we resemble them we aren’t dogs, either. Our natural social structure is the pack but it’s a pack pushed beyond the extended blood ties of the wolf pack and united by bonds of custom and ritual. We need our rituals. They keep our societies together. And we need those societies for real human happiness.

If you believe that we actually commemorate anything on Presidents Day, let me ask you: do you believe that Andrew Johnson, Herbert Hoover, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Jimmy Carter are as worthy of remembering and celebrating as George Washington and Abraham Lincoln? Or Andrew Jackson, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Roosevelt? I thought not.

And on Presidents Day we’ll go our separate ways with no rituals to unite us. An aimless, pointless bookkeeping day.

So I’ll be remembering George Washington tomorrow, the anniversary of his birth. I’ll post my reflections on him then. And the myths and rituals that make us human.