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According to post-structuralist theory, nothing in the universe can be self-present: that is, its existence relies solely on itself and not on the presence of other things to validate it. For example, Hegel theorizes a model known as Herrschaft und Knechtschaft - Lordship and Bondage, commonly known as the Master-Slave Dialectic. The issue problematized by the M-SD is of the discovery of absolute knowledge; Hegel mythologizes a story of a being, solitary and therefore unconscious of its own existence. When another being is introduced, the primary being and the secondary being are astounded at the presence of another being in their world. They must struggle with one another in order to define themselves and understand absolute knowledge - a struggle to the death. However, in death the discovery fails, so one must take on the role of 'lord' or 'master' and the other the role of 'bondage' or 'slave.' Thematically, the story explains the requisition of 'other' in order to define 'being;' that is, the metaphysics of presence requires other things in the universe which a thing cannot be.
Poststructuralist cultural theorist and philosopher Michel Foucault (as well as his mentor Louis Althusser) designed cultural theory based upon this idea of Master and Slave. Althusser wrote on Ideological State Apparatuses and the methods by which they propagate through and exert control over the culture from which they emerge; Foucault wrote regarding the Power struggle in a society, which ultimately leads to ISAs and the exertion of control over the proletariat by the ruling class.
According to Althusserian logic, a ruling group creates Apparatuses that naturally spawn Institutions, which outline, exemplify, and reify their belief systems, moral codes, and cultural expectations. Examples of Apparatuses are Family Ideologies, Moral Ideologies, Social Ideologies, and Educational Ideologies. Institutions spawned via Apparatuses include ideological norms such as Marriage and Family, Schools and Churches, Political Parties and Military, and Cultural Artifacts like paintings, books, and music. These institutions interpellate - subjectify - residents of a culture from birth, creating an always-already interpellated proletariat: they are always interpellated because they learn and act in response to Institutions, and already interpellated because they are born into the system and hardwired to propagate the system. Let us follow an example, Horace.
Horace is born into a family unit, in this society comprised on a male and female adult, legally married, who have children after marriage. Horace is already exposed to a normative 'normal' family life with a mother, father, and the necessity of the family for survival. From birth, Horace will value the Family unit if he wishes to have children. Of course, the question must arise: why should he want that?
Horace will go to school, meet with peers, attend church, and read cultural artifacts which will make statements regarding the cultural norms of his society. In school, he will be taught that normal people make families of one man, one woman, a marriage, and child(ren). Church will push the concept of marriage further, perhaps explaining that not marrying and having children is in some way sinful because it opposes the natural order of an unseen, unfelt, yet somehow omnipotent and omnipresent god. Books he reads will, by nature of being created in this society, react to marriage and the family: if they fight against it, they will surely be seen as radical, but if they validate it - even subtly, perchance because characters in the story are parts of loving families, or maybe psychologically wounded because they do not have a normal family - then the book will gain praise in the culture and be embraced, furthered, copied, and taught to future generations for later regurgitation.
When Horace becomes an adult, he will side with the Political Party which represents his ideologies well. However, political parties tend to be carefully developed to work on the level of more or less arbitrary points of political dissent. No matter what party becomes the one in power, it will still propagate the existence of the ruling Ideology, though in slightly different ways - none significant enough to change anything. He will support the military via patriotism, some kind of xenocentric farce of caring about one's country as the superior and heroic one among others, and he will view enemies as lesser groups, cannon fodder, or at the very least the Other, which must be subjugated in order to preserve his country's mastership. Should Horace become a creator of cultural artifacts - let us say that he becomes a writer who crafts scathing political commentaries - then he will inadvertently (or purposefully) continue the cycle of ISAs. What he writes will be digested by others who will critically analyze it, finding parts which support the ruling ideology and those which question it. Its execution will yield some change in the system, should it find enough support: if it questions certain kinds of the Ideology of the State and the proletariat believes in it, then the Ideology will morph somewhat to accept this change - while remaining fundamentally the same. When Horace marries and has a child (or does not), he will pass on these very ideologies which he may question (or will have no one to pass them to, losing his legacy). Thus, a State can easily and nearly effortlessly control its people.
But what of those few who dissent enough to constitute massive changes in the system which jeopardize the integrity of the State Ideology? Foucault explains in the theory of power struggles how the State plans for this contingency.
In a system, such as Law, Psychology, or any other system, there is a distinct in-group of those who follow the ideology, a power-group of those who create the ideology, and an out-group of those who dissent against the ideology. The power-group is comprised of knowledgeable experts (read 'PhD's) in the field; their expertise in unquestionable by those outside the group of knowledgeable experts.
Let us use the example of Law. One who is in alignment with the Law is considered lawful, and never comes into question - they follow the laws to the letter. Those who are out of alignment with the Law are labeled criminal - they do not follow the laws. Lawmakers must complete a rigorous training in education - an ISA which replicates the State's Ideology - in order to make changes in Law. If anyone who is criminal tries to change a law, the idea is dismissed with little to no thought given; obviously, a lawless criminal such as that would only want to change the laws in order to allow him to continue his unlawful ways with no repercussions. One who is lawful would never need to question the system, as they are not outside of it; one who is unlawful cannot change it because they are dismissed from the discussion. A criminal cannot become an expert in the field, and even if they manage to do so, hegemony will annihilate any chance of changing anything.
Another example is in Psychology: if a person is insane, they don't follow the ideology of 'sanity' as set forth by State-Trained Psychologists. They can never change this system.
We look now to Simone de Beauvoir, a writer who essayed on the woman as 'Other' in the dance between Man and Woman. In Foucault's essay, those on the outside of the power struggle, the 'criminal' or 'insane' become the necessary 'Other;' they take on a peripheral, secondary role in the culture. According to de Beauvoir, the Other cannot adequately explain their situation in the world because culture is written and understood in the language of the Primary - the male, the lawful, the sane. Beauvoir, as a feminist-existentialist, believes that essence does not precede existence - that there is no ultimate 'reality' which confines a being to a single existence, that we as humans create our essence via our existence - posits that woman becomes the Other - not because she chooses to do so, but because man, patriarchal society, and patriarchal language, forces her to do so. She must lose herself in a sea of words which she cannot use to properly explain her situation because as men, the creators of the language could not fathom the feminine experience; that which they cannot fathom, they mythologize, label as the other, and subjugate, forcing it to assimilate or be destroyed.
Following this long but necessary digression, we can return to post-structuralist linguistics and the problem of self-presence. As has been demonstrated across varying platforms - sociopolitical theory, cultural behavioral theory, feminist theory, literary and linguistic theory, and, yes, even scientific theory - a motif of subjective meaning can be cleanly delineated. In all systems which seek truth or absolute meaning, there resides a difficulty of differance (deliberate misspelling of the French word difference, chosen because it sounds the same but is written differently), or the constant deferral of meaning to other sources outside of a single entity, with meaning created by the differences between every single entity and every other entity in all of existence. For example, what is 'bread?' What in the word 'bread,' the mixture of symbols which for us native speakers of English equal a 'word,' yields the idea of 'bread?' Could we not call bread 'forf?' Is there a quality in 'bread' which requires it to be called 'bread' - a necessary breadiness? If so, why does no other society see it? Why are there so many words for 'bread' if it is absolutely bread-like and must therefore be called bread? I think you can see where this is going. We define 'bread' because it's nothing like 'soup,' somewhat like 'muffin,' comes from but is not 'dough,' feeds 'people. . .'. The list is utterly infinite, to the exhaustion of all words, ad infinitum.
Now, how in the hell does this relate back to God, holy wars, and why any religious argument boils down to a pissing match between imaginary best friends?
Western rationale has these stupid things called 'Transcendental Signifieds.' Supposedly, a trans. signified has self-presence: that is, the word which describes the concept is a name for the concept, not a word arbitrarily related to it. We can point to the trans. sig. and say 'this has the quality of ____. It must be ____, and can be nothing else. We can define it by its existence - its essence precedes its existence, and its being is self-evident,' or so Western Rationale believes. We have a few of these words in our rationale, which might look familiar:
Fact
Truth
Reality
Actuality
Knowledge
God.
Seems interesting that our interjection in sentences when we want to remove all doubt uses these: in truth, in reality, in all actuality, according to fact. . . . The Transcendental Signified is created to stop the constant deferral of meaning to the differences between all infinity. It offers a bracketing system by which we may begin to see concepts as absolute, rather than relative. Simply put, it's horsepuckey. Everything is relative - there can be no absolute, and there can be no Transcendental Signified. A Transcendental Signified (by virtue of being 'transcendental') would exist outside of the system in which it is utilized to stop differance. It cannot be influenced by the relationships between signifiers because it is self-present - thus, it must exist on a higher plane.
The problem with this assumption about the existence of such a Trans. Sig. is that it defies linguistic structure and logic. It flies in the face of the very thing it tries to create: Absolute Truth! Reality, Truth, Knowledge, Fact, Actuality, and God are fluctuating, evolving, mutable signifiers, just like bread, cat, or house. If they were transcendental - truly capable of bridging the gap between signifier and signified, marrying logos and sign, then the world would have but one definition, one word, one concept of all these things, and would be united by them. The fact that there is much discussion and disagreement about a single one of these (god), proves that they cannot exist, and that all things are relative.
To come full-circle after a long rant: religious debates always equal 'my-imaginary-friend-is-better-than-yours-because-my-book-says-so' vs. 'your-book-isn't-real-my-imaginary-friend-is-better-because-my-book-says-so.' When a religion cannot even agree on an interpretation of its holy scripture WITHIN THE RELIGION, then how can it expect to provide a solid argument against any other religion based off of a DIFFERENT book? It is akin to me saying that no matter what anyone thinks, the truth is (wink) that 'Robin Hood: Men in Tights* is the best movie of all time simply because I say so and I'm fucking awesome. Suck it.' I could easily discuss the merits of the movie, but think of it this way: it does not matter how good of an argument I make about the qualities of the film, because someone who feels differently than me and has a different backup opinion will not yield, just as I will not.
This is, in a roundabout way, why arguments regarding religion are stupid, pointless, and a waste of breath and metabolic processes. We are better off doing something more constructive and meaningful with our time - like making up new punctuation marks.
*Please note that while RH:MiT is a fantastic film, it is by no stretch of the imagination the best ever.+
+Fargo is.
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