Altweiberfastnacht & Moral Relativism, or: Who Are We Kidding?

Last night was Altweiberfastnacht, loosely translated as "Old Hags' Carnival", traditionally the true start of the carnival season in the catholic parts of Germany. The tradition (I'm sure I'll screw at least part of this up) calls for the ladies to dress up and go a little crazy that day, carrying around a pair of scissors, cutting off (literally) every male tie they can find. The men have wisened up over the years, and if they remember, they'll wear old & ugly Christmas present ties, if at all. At night fall (in some cases much earlier) the "real" fun begins, alcohol starts flowing, the Halloween-type costumes come out, and all men are fair game....and "game" is indeed the operative word.

Contrary to some perceptions though, this is not a night of gratuitous sex, or whatever, although some of that has been known to occur. To the contrary (and I'll get some flak for this), I'd be willing to bet that the number of coital encounters in the Rhineland (center of German carnival activity) actually falls on Altweiberfastnacht. Why? Because the women are in charge, and it's time for revenge.... What does that mean? It means that Altweiberfastnacht is a rare opportunity for the ladies to get back at the guys, tease them, boss them around, and generally show them who's really in charge. :-) Does that occasionally result in sex? Sure it does. Is that the point? Not at all.
Altweiberfastnacht is an opportunity to throw all convention out the window, for the ladies to act unlady-like, for the men to submit to female craziness (and occasionally hormones), in short, to behave strangely and have fun....in this case at the expense of males. The rest of German carnival is not much different, since the rules deliberately go out the window for all participants, but this Altweiberfastnacht night puts the emphasis on the female right to rebellion and self-determination, and damn the consequences....at least until morning.

So why the title of this rant? The fundamentals of historical & traditional morality are deliberaty suspended during German carnival, and particularly during Altweiberfastnacht. Practically speaking, carnival is not a grand Roman-style bacchanalia, some great orgy in the bars, streets and clubs of the Rhineland, although it could be perceived that way by the less-than-open-minded. But more often than not, the very moral standards (however those are understood) that are the target of the rebellion are mostly maintained and upheld by carnival's licence to be licentious. The freedom of action that carnival apparently conveys often serves as a reminder of human fallibility and vulnerability to temptation. More often than not, carnival allows its celebrants to go to the brink of the morally acceptable....only to pull back ( only sometimes literally) :-) from the morass of deeply immoral behavior. The true beauty of the carnival and Altweiberfastnacht traditions lies in the fact that (in a very Christian way), sins, translated as transgressions against a generally accepted standard of morality, however that morality is framed (religion, enlightened humanism, whatever), committed during carnival are intended to be forgiven (at least by our fellow humans)....to help the forgiving along a little bit, revelers wear masks :-)

It seems to me that the principle of time-framed (the core is a couple of weeks) sanctioned carnival licentiousness does nothing more than acknowledge and frame our humanity, acknowledge our moral fallibility, and acknowledge the fact that no matter what our personal moral (or religious, or ideological) compass may be, our internals are hard-wired to rebel against artificial, so-called rational rules, to do what pleases the instinct, and to throw the cultural, doctrinal, societal or religious rulebook out the window. The barriers are still there (indoctrination does work), but the carnevalistic tradition allows us mortals to simply "live the body" for a few days, with a license to temporarily forget our moral inhibitions, our cultural musts and do-nots. The urge to do so, the will to rebel against convention, is always there, deep down. Self-righteous attitudes and puritanical resistance against this instinctual fact, based on whatever kind of rulebook, are nothing more than a poor attempt to deny the reality of our humanity.

Altweiberfastnacht may be reserved for the pleasure of the ladies, but all of carnival is based on the same principle: let's not delude ourselves into thinking that we're immune to the a-moral imperatives of our individuality and instincts. Temptation, an occasional and universal urge to give into it & maybe the subsequent guilty conscience (which is relative) are the mainstays of our collective humanity. Nobody is immune. Everybody is free to make their choices. But let's not kid our individual selves about the fact that these choices exist, or that the choices are always rational or clear-cut. That's what makes the beauty of life. Helau!!!