Re: BHA: Santa, God, kneeling

[Louis Irwin <lirwin1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hans,

You are saying, I surmise, something like this.  Santa is a real set of
social relations that structure our activities to some extent.  It is not
individual beliefs about Santa that are explanatory, because our individual
beliefs are derived in part from the social relations.  It is
methodological individualism to reduce these social relations to individual
beliefs about Santa.  There is a reality about Santa that is more than just
our individual concepts or beliefs about Santa.  Every person, existent or
not, can be regarded as an ensemble of social relations.

The typology I originally suggested could be modified by introducing a
category of historical reality.  Thus we would have

  Sally is real, historical, existing, present;
  Pierre is real, historical, existing, absent;
  Socrates is real, historical, non-existent, absent;
  Santa is real, non-historical, non-existent, absent.

Now, some of what you write sounds as if Santa is real because our concept of
Santa, as embodied in our stories, has real effects.  That makes it very
easy for someone to hold that what is operative here is not a real Santa,
but a real concept of Santa.  Why should we impute reality to Santa rather
than to the concept of Santa, where the latter is construed as an ensemble
of social relations?  Could we not explain everything you want by denying
reality to Santa but recognizing the social reality of the concept (or
ideology) of Santa?  The ideology of Santa, not Santa himself, would be
what would be real.

One minor point.  If "Santa" designates a non-historical social reality, by
parity should not "Socrates" and "Pierre" also designate social relations?
Normally we say that "Pierre" designates the person, not his social
relations.  Surely we can't just identify a person with her social
relations, otherwise we could see no difference at all between Santa and
Pierre, one of whom exists and the other not.  Or do you want to say that
"Pierre" designates the person and "Santa" designates social relations?

Louis Irwin

>If you reduce Santa to a person who some people think
>existed although he never existed, you display
>methodological individualism and an amazing and
>irresponsible blindness towards the social relations we all
>are entangled in.  Santa is real: not because children
>believe in him (although many do) but because the story of
>Santa is systematically promoted in our society -- I
>presume, not in order to satisfy the need of children to
>have magic and personalized relations, but mainly in order
>to discipline children with carrot and stick and to
>socialize them into passive consumers.  Santa has to be seen
>as part of our social relations which keep children in
>place.
>
>If you are saying Santa is not real but only
>children's belief in Santa is real, you are blaming the
>victims and you are setting up a framework in which the
>pernicious effects which Santa and other terror stories have
>on children cannot be seen.  In Germany, Santa is
>occasionally pictured carrying a bag with a children's leg
>sticking out -- of a child which has not been "good" and
>which is taken away by Santa.  If you think I am overstating
>here please read the memorable first chapter in Alice
>Miller's "Banished Knowledge", Doubleday 1990, the chapter
>is called "A St. Nicholas Celebration."  The precise
>function of the Santa story, and the precise way it is
>reproduced in our society, are subject to sociological
>research; but you philosophers here are doing a poor job of
>underlaboring since you are so thoroughly mis-identifying
>what the reality of Santa Claus consists in.





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