BHA: Santa, God, kneeling

[MSPRINKER@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

               State University of New York at Stony Brook
                       Stony Brook, NY 11794-3355

                                            Michael Sprinker
                                            Professor of English & Comp Lit
                                            Comparative Studies
                                            516 632-9634
                                            06-Jun-1998 02:09pm EDT
FROM:  MSPRINKER
TO:    Remote Addressee                     ( _bhaskar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx )

Subject: Santa, God, kneeling

Colin et alia,

The difficulty here is over the descriptor "exists."  Neither
Santa nor God "exists" (in my view) in the same way that,
say, neutrinos exist (at least I think they exist; the
physicists seem bent on demonstrating the properties of
their existence in detail--at the cost of who knows how
many zillion dollars), or, less controversially, plasma
cells with a tendency to reproduce uncontrollably exist.

What troubles me, though, is that saying Santa doesn't exist
flirts with the infamous Laclau-Mouffe claim (parroted by
Margaret Thatcher) that "society does not exist."  I think
that the existence of Santa (and, you'll pardon me, of God)
might be something like that of society:  a structure that
is visible only in its effects.  Both God and Santa are the
loci of ideolgies, things that exist in virtue of relations
(in the last instance, relations of production).

Now, Colin, that you kneel down and still don't believe only
means that you have not been interpellated by religious
ideology, you have resisted its call, have refused to
recognize yourself in it when hailed by it.  You are, in
that sense, a "bad" religious subject.  But of course you
are that in virtue of having been successfully interpellated
by another ideology, let's call it materialism (or atheism,
if you prefer).  Your belief in non-belief (in God) is, again,
embodied in certain material practices (perhaps in that sly
smile you assume when you kneel down, knowing that the whole
thing is farcical).

I just want to make, once more, the following fundamental
point, which I think can be squared with critical realism
and historical materialism:  the predicate of "existence"
is complex and does not refer only to a single type of
thing with determinate properties fixed for all time.
Modes of production exist, but they exist in a different
way from carbon atoms and, well, yes, "God."

Fraternally,

Michael

p.s. I first learned about the non-barking concept of "dog"
in Althusser, but he was, I believe, quoting (or at least
referring to) Spinoza.


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