Why you might want to rethink celebrating Halloween

Sergiy Galyonkin

Every October, America celebrates what might be its strangest tradition, a holiday that glorifies fear, darkness, and moral decay under the excuse of just having fun. For most children, Halloween is an innocent enough chance to dress up, eat candy and roam the neighborhood. But somewhere around age 12 that spectacle changes. The childlike wonder fades, and the celebration becomes another outlet for adult degeneracy, a day where people can indulge in whatever persona they want without consequence or depth.

Brief history: Halloween originated in the Celtic festival of Samhain, a border harvest evening when people marked the end of summer and believed the veil between worlds became thin. It was later Christianized as All Hallows’ Eve, which led up to All Saints’ Day, bringing together prayers, candles, and costuming to mock or keep away evil. Over time especially in America these traditions consumerized and shifted towards the party and night life, so the holiday became less of a remembrance than a revelry.

Halloween can be full of creativity but I view it as imitation when young adults do it. Halloween pretends to be about creativity, but in truth, it’s about imitation. Most people dress up as something they aspire to be: a hero, a doctor, a soldier, a character from science fiction but almost none of them embody the principles those costumes represent. They wear armor without honor, uniforms without discipline, titles without training. Its surface imitates virtuous fantasy without depth. It’s a shallow mimicry of virtue fantasy without foundation.

Even worse, Halloween encourages the public to praise horror, gore, and demonic imagery. People decorate their homes with skeletons, ghosts, and blood while laughing it off as just for fun. But if evil is a theme-park attraction, what does that indicate about our moral compass? Decades of research on repeated exposure to violent/graphic imagery point to effects of emotional numbing, altered responses to violence, and, for some, increased aggressive cognitions over time.

Halloween exposes something deeper about modern culture and our obsession with escaping reality. Behind every mask is a society uncomfortable with itself. Adults dress like children, children dress like monsters and the entire nation pretends this is normal. When people need a costume to feel alive, it shows how spiritually numb the culture has become.

I don’t partake in Halloween because I won’t celebrate what’s hollow. Fun is fine, but there’s a difference between joy and excess. A day that elevates fear, flatters vanity, and commercializes death isn’t fun; it’s a gauge of how far we’ve drifted from meaning, morality, and adulthood. As our culture and especially younger generations grow distant from God or religions, the anticipation around Halloween feels less like play and more like a celebration of the opposite of life and virtue. My views on Halloween could shift a little when I one day have kids of my own that will indulge in the holiday, but for now, this is my view.

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