Is Halloween Ethical?

By Rob Elder

Ghosts dance, witches fly, skeletons dangle. Soon packs of costumed children will be ringing doorbells, crying "Trick or treat!" Now's the time for parents to ask themselves whether their kids are going to celebrate Halloween in an ethical way.

This is not the same thing as arguing about Halloween's history. Undoubtedly the origins are both pagan and Christian. If your faith causes you to disapprove of the pagan overtones, that's a matter of religion. My concern is with the ethics of how we celebrate America's second most commercialized date, on which we spend $6.9 billion a year, at least some of it promoting greed and vandalism.

Obviously this enriches manufacturers of decorations, costumes and candy, as well, I suspect, as dentists. At its best, Halloween gives small children the spooky thrill of prowling their neighborhoods on a chilly night, dressed as everything from goblins to fairy princesses, ideally accompanied by their parents.

But it's not always so safe or sanitized. Some parents don't go along. Some trick-or-treaters are not small children. Some "tricks" are outright vandalism. Some kids end the evening with bad dreams and stomach aches.

We should think about what we teach our children with the trick-or-treat equation. As always is the case with ethics, we need to think about proportionality - in this case, whether the threatened trick is in proportion to the demanded treat.

Usually the treat is no more than a handful of candy. Therefore the potential trick should be equally minimal. I like the idea of drawing a ghost on the sidewalk in front of a non-treater's house - with chalk that easily washes off.

The raw eggs smeared on my home one year were way out of proportion, as was the garden hose poked through a window of my neighbor's car and left running. That's outright vandalism. If we're teaching young people that vandalism's okay, even one night a year, that is the wrong lesson.

Ethics is also about responsibilities. Parents are responsible for the spirit in which their children celebrate Halloween. Is it all in good fun? Or an excuse to do something mean or greedy?

As sure as skeletons have bones, our kids are learning lessons that will last for years, their memories made all the more keen by the delicious spookiness of the event. Do you really want them to believe that doing a nasty prank or collecting a huge amount of candy is what this is all about?

Another undesirable lesson is that Halloween or any other occasion can be celebrated only in an expensive costume. I know one mother who easily could have afforded any outfit at any store, but always made her daughter's costumes by hand, at home, out of simple materials. It was the principle she was teaching.

Another useful lesson we could teach at Halloween is that holidays have histories. The Internet makes it easy. The History Channel website has a detailed an objective history at
http://www.historychannel.com/exhibits/halloween/hallowmas.html. If you are interested in the historical relationship between Halloween and religion - especially the question of whether Halloween is or ever has been Satanic - an excellent site is http://www.illusions.com/halloween/hallows.htm which presents views from all sides.

These and other Halloween websites are elaborately illustrated. Some even have eerie music. In fact, such riches are available on the Internet that if it rains on Oct. 31, you can provide your children a fun and spooky evening without even going out in the weather.

Rob Elder is senior fellow at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University.

This article was printed in the Santa Barbara News Press.

October 2002

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