Re: BHA: Santa, God, kneeling

[Louis Irwin <lirwin1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Michael,

>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).

Why be troubled over Thatcher's statement that society does not exist?  Why
not just say that the statement is false?  Is there really a need to claim
it has a different status than the true claim that Santa does not exist?  Is
convincing someone of the difference in status between "Society does not
exist" and "Santa does not exist" any easier than convincing someone of the
falsity of the first and the truth of the second?  Why not say that both
claims mean that there is no independent causal role for their subjects
("society" and "Santa"), although the criteria by which we judge the
existence of a referent diverge?  Those who believe that society does not
exist think that our talk about society can be reduced to the indivdual
activities of agents, or something like that; they see no independent
causal role for something called "society".  The criteria for the
non-existence of Santa is quite different.  Thatcherites are not going to
accept our criteria for the existence of society, and they won't accept the
existence of society no matter how we talk about the existence of Santa, etc.

Louis Irwin




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