Season of Giving Week 2023

Dec 17th, 2023

A week-long focus on the values underpinning the holiday season, and the role they play in a free society.

A closeup of a wrapped present being given with a christmas tree in the background.

This week we are featuring content to highlight the best of the holiday period. For Christians, the birth of Christ represents God’s incarnation in human form, and the possibility of hope, benevolence, and redemption in an imperfect world. For Jews, the winter holiday is a time to celebrate the return of Jerusalem and the dedication of the Second Temple—a reaffirmation of faith and history. For the secular and others of different faiths, the December holidays surely mean many things: year end reports, Santa, mulled wine, walks in the snow, barbecues on the beach (for the Australians), and extended time with family and friends (good and bad). More often than not, it is a time of gift-giving and philanthropy.

In the Northern Hemisphere, where these traditions have their origins, Christmas and Hannukah come at the darkest time of the year. The lighting of the advent calendar and the menorah, in addition to the many festive decorations on trees and elsewhere, remind us of the possibility of light and goodness in the face of darkness and depravity. And so we want to honor the best and brightest aspects of humanity, and hope that our collection of content inspires reflections on benevolence, sympathy, community, generosity, and forgiveness, among other virtues.

Some of our content this week pushes against contemporary libertarian conceits, and asks us to revisit the role of religion, the sacred, the spiritual, or simply the “higher things” and how they relate to free societies. What role did early Protestantism have in developing understandings of liberty in the nascent American Republic? How is the history of liberty tied up with the emergence of Christian belief and the sanctity of the individual? Does a society committed to maximum individual liberty require a robust moral framework, perhaps something like a common religious language? Can political and social theory avoid “the higher things,” or do they inevitably find expression in one form or another?

Our featured video reflects on the theme of charity and explores the peculiar world of YouTube sensation Jimmy Donaldson (“MrBeast”). Why do people object to Donaldson’s grand acts of gift-giving? What are we to make of private charity relative to the attempts of governments to solve social and economic problems? Throughout the week we will release three podcasts and seven articles. Each provides a particular perspective on a challenging set of ideas that intersect with questions about free societies.