Date: Fri, 12 May 2000 16:15:59 +1000
From: Gary MacLennan <g.maclennan-AT-qut.edu.au>
Subject: BHA: Lines written on receiving Alethia V 3


I have just received Alethia 3 from Comrade Hartwig (Love ya 
Mervyn!).  Unfortunately it is literally five minutes to my next class so I 
do not have time to say much.  But I do want for some reason to convey my 
first impressions especially on Critical Realism & Ethics.

I want to do this by allusion to one of my favourite films 'Ground Hog 
Day'. In that the (anti)hero is trapped in a time warp of the eternal 
return until he learns to become a decent human being.  When he emerges as 
human he once more bursts into time.  Of course this is a case of, to 
borrow Raymond Williams' phrase about the Leavisites, - 'The God That Dare 
Not Speak Its Name'.

I have long wondered whether there was a repressed moment like such at the 
heart of the Critical Realist project.  I wrote this out in my posting of 
'Murmurs, mutters and matters mystical' to the list about a year ago. (And 
if anyone has a copy of it I would be grateful if you could send it to me).

However with Alethia 3 I think it is fair to say that at least some 
Critical Realists are saying the name of God out loud.  Doug especially is 
upfront here.  He challenges us to think 'who we are'. I can approach this 
negatively.   I despise (organised) religion.  Christians especially strike 
me as remarkably like Labor Party politicians.  I have found that Laborites 
have very little interest in politics that is the question of the 
distribution of power in society. Similarly most Christians could not care 
less about transcendence or spirituality or the creation of a better world. 
Doug describes this as 'alienation from the sacred'.  I prefer to say 
simply and frankly that most( but not all) Christians in my experience are 
not good people. So I am not part of any religion.

What then about the God question?  Frankly I find the question of the 
belief in a god beyond me. So I am not a theist. I am in fact at the stage 
in my life characterised by Yeats as 'Now his wars on God begin!"     But I 
am all too aware of the last line of the poem. "At stroke of midnight God 
shall win'! So who knows?

But as to the positive element of whoI am, my reply here is that I have 
been part of the struggle for what I like to think of as freedom. That has 
at times meant that I have worked along side other groups and some of them 
have believed in a god and that did not bother me at all and that in itself 
is a wholly good thing.

regards

Gary




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