Thanksgiving is a holiday almost entirely devoted in spirit to the virtue of gratitude and it is the most distinctively American of all our holiday traditions. Whether or not Thanksgiving is ultimately of Protestant or Catholic origins, it is certainly the case that it has become not only an annual occasion for frenetic shopping, but also a peculiar expression of the unique American consciousness. Americans take seriously giving thanks, and, given the typically modern demotion of gratitude to second class status among the virtues, our yearly homage to it seems to be evidence of our resistance to a wholesale acceptance of modern principles.

Read more over at The New Atlantis. And Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!