Krampas and Accountability

The world is in a dearth of accountability.

Corporate CEOs abscond with entire economies, but we don't punish them.  We refuse to even control them.  We protect their freedom to siphon funds from the entire world like pampered giant ticks.

Rapists and domestic abusers are excused and their victims blamed for their crimes.

Terrorists change the way we fly, watch the news and shop; their movements spin our lives.

We love our bullies and sociopaths and celebrity offenders.  We love our "baddies".  But the human moral soul can't exist in this mire of victimization forever.  We require something that resembles an authentic human code.

I think this is why we also love revenge movies.  Most of our action movies and many of our drama stories are about revenge.  In a culture where serial killers sell paintings and their victims and victims' families get no justice, there's a deep stirring, a need for the real, the true, and the just.

For decades our winter saint has been the jolly businessman in Coke can colors.  But this was willfully ignoring the other half of the paradigm.  We shut our eyes and forgot about Krampas.  We left him back in Europe, came to America and told ourselves everything would be perfect now.  Everything is jolly and sparkly and technology will fix everything eventually.  We don't allow people to die when they want to because that would be sad and we don't talk about it because it's icky.  Our celebrities are all starting to look alike in an eerie, Barbie-doll way.  We've cleaned up the fairy tales.  We've fallen into a worship of physical and philosophical safety, and that has made cowards of us. We are so cowardly that we allow human predators to dominate our culture.

But wait...still in the dark, northerly countries of old Europe, here comes good old Krampas, his horns swaying as he thumps past in parades, his fur flopping in the snow as he rushes children with threatening roars.  Krampas comes to punish you if you're bad, if you act wrong, if you refuse to be kind or close the door to keep the heat in the house.

You may get away with acting like a complete demon at home, but your parents have a helpmate at Christmas time.  They've got the scary punisher to remind you that being alive isn't enough.  You've got to act right.  You've got to participate in society to enjoy the benefits of society.

The Hopi have a similar kachina figure who goes out around the winter solstice and shows up at pueblos and other homes to scare the kids.  Kids with conscience have nothing to fear except owning up to mistakes.  But little sociopaths are food for the punisher.  

We need this force on planet earth right now.  We need internet trolls to be prosecuted.  Rapists need to serve real time at the very least.  Predators need to be taken out of the human context completely.  The vulnerable, the victims and the poor are the ones who need kindness and help.  Not the assholes.

That's why I love Krampas.

Krampas won't let you be an asshole.


Krampas card from Krampus.com.