This definition of content has the effect of consolidating the two aspects of privacy that we discussed earlier. Specifically, we viewed privacy as either freedom of action or control of information. If we now view content as the object of interactions, then control over the interaction can refer to control over both procedure and information; in essence, procedure and information are two facets of the same thing; a concept we’ll refer to as context, matching the context establishment that mirror neurons provide. This, in turn suggests an intriguing basis for metaphorical understanding; in itself, perhaps a noble goal of content in general. It’s certainly not lost on us that this also matches the conceptualization of object-oriented mechanisms in the computer world. So, let’s consider a bit about how appetites and content are collectively brought together at the same general table of interactions.

Content Rituals - Pagans Recapture Their Holiday

Early social groups derived much of their effective policy infrastructure directly from the physical ecosystem. Many of the most productive group activities involved the gathering or creation of food when the time was right to do so, such that the food was made to be available when the time wasn’t so right. Particularly for agrarian social groups, this meant that much of the recurring activities such as planting, tending and harvesting crops, or raising animals for consumption as food or provision of other materials, revolved around the annual cycle of the seasons. Solar, lunar and celestial calendars dating back millennia illustrate humans’ correlation of observable events with the processes of agriculture and animal husbandry. Try as one might, it really doesn’t work to plant crops in what we now know as the fall and reasonably expect to be able to harvest them in the spring. The intervening period of growth and maturation that plants require just doesn’t work in the dead of winter, at least not without very significant control over the physical ecosystem. Consequently, it was very useful for early societies, who could not exert this level of control, to know when to anticipate spring and how close was the approaching winter. In the parlance of our social ecosystem model, trust derived from this knowledge; trust grounded in the causality of the seasons and their applicability to the provision of sustenance.

In the dead of winter, it was probably something of an article of significant faith among the people that warm weather was ever going to return. This faith gave assurance that the remaining foodstuffs could be continually consumed in the expectation that a time would come for their replenishment before their ultimate total dissipation. Repeated observation showed that the length of the days got shorter in the fall and early winter. But then, at a specific time in mid-winter, the days began to get longer; a certain predictor of the coming spring. Over the ages, this turning point became an object of celebration, giving rise to a variety of mid-winter festivals. Other such celebrations emerged to mark significant events throughout the climatological year; spring festivals of planting and renewal, summer festivals of rest and enjoyment during the peak of the work season and harvest festivals in the fall to mark the gathering of crops. Many such festivals predated the emergence of what we now think of as the major religions of the world, but they formed the precursors of religious beliefs. Western secular and religious historians have referred to such events as pagan festivals.

When Christianity emerged as a significant religious force, as we observed in the last chapter it made significant use of ritual to establish a common bonding to a shared trust among its adherents. One such ritual was the celebration of the birth of Jesus; the holy day that came to be known as Christmas. While still in its emergent phase, it was certainly useful to the fledgling religion to piggy-back on top of existing celebration events; and particularly on such events that were popular with the common peoples of the time. One class of such celebrations was the mid-winter

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