An Infomofo Christmas: Rudolph, Reindeer, and Religion

The perennial Christmas classic "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" is a powerful commentary on the effect of external authority on the social customs of a small population. Though most versions have a lot of unnecessary material at the introduction (particularly the overdrawn Harry Connick Jr. version), the message of the song can be found in the last three stanzas:

All of the other reindeer used to laugh and call him names
They would never let poor rudolph join in any reindeer games.

Then one foggy Christmas Eve, Santa came to say:
"Rudolph with your nose so bright, won't you guide my sleigh tonight?

Then all the reindeer loved him, and they shouted out with glee
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, you'll go down in history.

Though wrapped in jingly bells and drenched in eggnog, this story is actually a grim condemnation of "reindeer games", or what Nietzsche would refer to as a "slave morality". Though the reindeer initially shun the mutated Rudolph in order to preserve their social order, a single nod of approval from Santa, their employer and presumably their owner, we are supposed to believe that these formerly vicious cliques suddenly not only accepted the former outcast, but "loved" him. The reindeer are not only content to drag that fat red bastard around like their Sysiphusian weight, they also allow him to dictate their social mores and, one can assume, their sexual selection. Like the horses who affectionately nuzzle the same riders who dig into their underbellies with spurs and whip them with crops, the reindeers have created a morality completely flexible and dependent on the approval of a force outside of their own society. Rudolph is no better than his fellow slaves to external influence; he is unable to defend himself or assert his sexual and social fitness upon his population without the help of an outside influence; even Santa is not swayed by any outstanding personality traits or qualities that might recommend Rudolph as a good reindeer other than the simple mutation that caused his nose to glow.

If the reader then extrapolates beyond the limited lyrics of the childrens' song, it will quickly become apparent that this kind of behavior describes a mechanism in which the traits exhibited in a limited population can be dramatically changed in response to a non-environmental vector. "Santa" so subtlely influences the impressionable reindeer that Rudolph will necessarily be the prime stud in the next reindeer mating season, and in two or three generations, the mutated red-nose phenotype will be widespread in the limited gene pool. While Santa will no doubt tire of this night-light trick, it will have unforeseen repurcussions on the reindeer population when the clumsy beasts are now easier targets for predators such as polar bears and raptors. As the population of reindeer dwindles in the coming decades, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer will certainly "go down in history" along with the rest of his soon-to-be-extinct race, murdered by their own folly. In this manner Santa poses the problematic role of the malicious or indifferent intelligent designer, who has shaped the formation of a certain culture not to be better adapted for survival, but for his own arbitrary whims.