THE
ALLEGORY OF
THE
RED SOCKS
Once
upon a time the many peoples of the world wore many different coloured
socks — white, grey, blue, green, violet, brown —
but not red ones. There was one tribe, though, which thought
itself very special and a cut above the rest. It wore pink socks.
Then
one day a man appeared wearing red socks. Some people were shocked,
others, mostly ordinary people, thought they were rather cool. The man
told the friends he had gathered how to make red socks and they were
amazed how much happier they were when they were wearing them. So much
so that they recommended red socks to everyone they met. The pink sock
people thought it was a passing fashion and used to poke fun at them
(the Everreddies, as they were quickly nicknamed, got their own back
in the centuries that followed).
Gradually
red socks became more numerous than pink socks and they appeared in
dribs and drabs all over the world, even in
England
! For many years the world and the politicians thought nowt
about it. By and large wearing red socks didn’t seem to make much
difference except that there~ was usually a family row if someone,
especially the women and girls, started sporting red socks. You
definitely had to know what you were about to wear red socks. There
were, from time to time, bans on red socks but it didn’t make much
difference. The number of Everreddies carried on increasing.
But
in time a great transformation occurred. In the beginning everyone bar
those wearing them thought red socks were stupid. But the Everreddies
gradually built up such an international network that one politician, Socksintime,
thought: Red socks are found everywhere — I want my empire to be
everywhere. I’ll pin a pair of red socks on my flag and see what
happens. It worked. With red socks on his flag he won all his battles
and murdered all his enemies.
But
by now the red socks were not the simple home-knitted things they had
been. The dyes had never been consistent from the beginning and there
was a wide range of reds. But over the years these different reds
began to be studied and whole groups of experts grew up, each of whom
was sure that he knew exactly the shade of red the first man had worn
Socksintime
got rather fed up with all this debate about redness. He couldn’t
see why it mattered and he didn’t want the international network he
wanted to take over and develop with government grants and tax
privileges to get all snarled up. So, he paid all expenses for a
special Everreddy conference and announced
he was settling for a plain red. This would provide a consistent logo
throughout his empire. But it took years to get plain red accepted;
lots of people were still wearing orangey-red socks and, indeed,
selling them to whole tribes of first time buyers. But
in the end plain red won the day. The emperor of the time, Therednoseius,
simply said: Plain red socks are compulsory for everybody; anybody
without plain red socks is a public enemy
By
this time the red sock international network was doing such good
business that, instead of hand knitting the socks as it had in the old
days and making sure they were a good fit for each particular pair of
feet, it started mass producing them. They also decided it would be
easier to make them smaller, having realised that if they made them
new born infant size, they would win out in two ways. It would be a
lot less effort and expense on materials and it would keep Therednosius
happy.
Stisgusting,
the North African, made the breakthrough for the mass manufacturers.
Instead of hand-knitting with its variety ofsizes
and natural dyes, he came up with what he called O.S. — Original
Specification. This comprised a sock of Standard Infant Norm, known in
the trade as Original Sin and, whereas the older dyes had been made
from slow drying natural materials (in many places Everreddies found a
three year drying period most effective), Stisgusting’s
plain red was a consistent chemical concoction that dried instantly
— known in the trade as PVC or Pre-Venient
Concoction.
So it
came about that the wearing of red socks which had originally been the
chosen eccentricity of a small group of people became compulsory from
birth for everybody.
In
the earlier days it was believed that in a family where one member
enjoyed wearing red socks, everyone else benefitted even if they never
got round to getting their own red socks organised. But under the new
deal, when it was compulsory to wear plain red socks, the by now
full-time professional state-subsidised manufacturers said: If you
leave this world without plain red socks, you’ve had it. You’re a
no-hoper.
Over
the centuries many people doubted the truth of this assertion.
Moreover, whenever they looked carefully at the four colour cards and
other specifications made by the early Everreddies of the original
pair of red socks, they discovered an amazing richness and variety.
Some people were better at doing this than others. Those who came up
with a description of the original red socks too far away from plain
red got into terrible trouble. There was always trouble too when
people suggested abandoning the mass produced PVC dyed tiny red socks
and going back to fully fashioned hand-knitted
socks dyed with natural substances.
In
later times still the red socked world was shocked to discover that
there were many people in many parts of the world who had never heard
of red socks and who seemed to be managing fairly well wearing blue,
brown and even yellow socks! Later still, the governments of Everreddy
countries said that the wearing of red socks from birth was no longer
compulsory and the red sock trade went into marked decline.
Nowadays
the promoters of the various shades of red socks are coming to realise
that the richness of the original socks does not allow any shade to
claim total authenticity at the expense of the rest. There is also a
growing suspicion that every pair of feet deserves respect, that O.S.
and PVC have had their day and that we would all have a marvellous
time if we got back to fully-fashioned hand-knitted using an ancient
dye that used to be nicknamed Pentecost. Amazing the variety of reds
you can find in one flame!
DAVID
PERRY 29th June 1991
Skirlaugh
Vicarage
If
you are not sure what all this is about, please click help
This
should open another window containing the glossary and analysis
Glossary:
Socks
= religion Pink
socks = Judaism
A man
wearing red socks = Jesus
Everreddies
= Christians
Socksintime
= the Emperor Constantine
Special
Everreddy Conference = Council of
Nicaea
Orangey-red
socks = e.g. Ulfilas an Arian who
converted many tribes in the Balkans
Therednoseius
– the Emperor Theodosius I who made re-baptism a criminal offence
Stisgusting
= Augustine
O.S.
= Original Sin
Three
year drying period = the catechumenate, i.e. programme of Christian
teaching and nurture leading up to baptism
PVC =
doctrine of irresistible grace to guarantee efficacy of baptising
infants
Content
analysis
Paragraph
1:
time before Christ
Paragraph
2:
Jesus and the infant church
Paragraph
3:
period of spontaneous expansion of the Church through
evangelism and catechumenate and the baptism of catechumens.
Paragraph
4:
Constantine
’s decision to try out the God of the Christians
Paragraph
5:
varieties of theological formulation, including Arianism
Paragraph
6:
Council of
Nicaea
and transition period from 325ad to 380ad by which time the Church
becomes the Establishment
Paragraph
7:
Infant baptism increases to provide political undergirding of a
Christian empire
Paragraph
8:
Augustine develops doctrine of Original Sin to provide
theological justification for making infant baptism the norm
Paragraph
9:
contrast between the voluntarism of the earlier centuries and
the compulsory set up now in place
Paragraph
10:
refers to variety of Anabaptists and others who from time to
time challenged the rightness of infant baptism
Paragraph
11:
effect on Europeans of discovering peoples in north and south
America who were not Christians
When
countries introduced civil registration of births in 19th
century, the urgency for infants to be baptised as soon as possible
decreased
Paragraph
12:
Expression of the hope that we might actually face up to the
new way the church must operate to be true to its nature
What
I have written is totally controversial and many would disagree
