On Santa Claus

I don't know if I covered this before. I get confused by writing things I don't publish. I could easily check by reading my previous posts but I'm not in the mood.

I got on the topic of consensual fiction in the last post about Wall Street and the financial system. I want to plump the topic a little more. Perhaps the best example of consensual fictions I have heard was from the always entertaining Slavoj Zizek.

In Zizek's example, you ask a parent if he or she believes in Santa Claus. They say, "Of course not! I'm not crazy." But they write "From Santa" on the presents they bought themselves. You ask a kid if he or she believes in Santa. They say, "Of course not! I'm not an idiot." But they pretend to believe because the parents are pretending to believe. This isn't just an interesting illustration of family dynamics, it is an example of belief as a agent - independent of those who claim to believe (or not).

Zizek's other example is the scientist Niels Bohr. He hung a horse shoe over the door of his cottage. When a friend asked how he, as a scientist, could actually believe in the efficacy of a lucky charm Bohr replied, "I don't. But I'm told it works even if you don't believe."

Again, belief is an independent agent.  I should explain what I mean by agent. An agent is someone or something capable of action. It changes events and / or creates change in the world. You are an agent. The limits of your agency are the limits of your ability to create change - or resist it. Agency also works in the negative. If the world was about to change and you stopped it, that's agency too. If we evaluate belief as an agent, the most illustrative example is religion. Easy to see the changes religion has caused. 

Belief is one of the factors of our daily lives so present, so constant it is very hard for us to see clearly. We behave how we believe others expect us to behave. We don't have to believe that is the right way to behave, or how we want to behave. It is enough for us to believe that is what is expected. But we don't know, do we? We only believe. And we are behaving in what we think is an expected way while the others we are around are behaving in the we they believe we believe they should behave. And everyone is judging everyone else based on beliefs no one might actually believe. It makes as much sense as Santa Claus but it is what we do.

I consider the financial system with all its intricate and archaic religiosity the most pernicious aspect of this kind of belief. There are many others. Every aspect of your life is filled with things that, to reuse Bohr's words "work even if you don't believe."