Objectivity Gone Bad
We live in a day when its popular for people to be overly subjective. Many value making their own reality. They ignore objective reality to the point of denying it, claiming that even if there is such a thing, there is no way for us to be certain as to its reality. These people believe that reality is known only in how we perceive it – a reality that is different for each person. This is called relativism.
We will come back to this some other time, but for now I want to look at another extreme. Regardless of the popularity of relativism, there are still great numbers of people all over the world who claim to possess objective truth. Their view of the world, according to these people, is the correct one. They would not admit that their view is based on their perspective, but rather that their perspective is based on objective reality. According to them, they see the world as it really is. They claim to be absolutely objective. But are they?
Logically we know that all these people cannot be right. They may be sincere, but since their viewpoints in some cases are diametrically opposed to each other, how can they all possess objective truth?
It is this lack of logic that has led others to come to the conclusion that objective truth cannot be known. Others resolve this dilemma in a different way by claiming that all these viewpoints are actually all the same. Both of these conclusion are forms or relativism, but I don't want to get sidetracked by getting into that now.
Back to the extreme objective view. This viewpoint is very comfortable for those who are convinced of it. There is something in each of us that takes comfort in having a sense that we do, in fact, see the world as it really is. This helps gives sense to the world. It gives meaning both to the past and to the future, which in turn helps us to understand what is expected of us in the here and now.
Millions of people fall into this category as they have been born into a community that embraces a particular way of looking at the world. This is actually true for all of us, whether we are born into a religion, a strong political ideology, or western consumerism. Every culture has its way of looking at life and few people take the time to question the culture into which they are born.
What is interesting about how most of think about life is that while we claim to see the world as it really is, our perspective is actually based upon someone else's subjectivity. Most of us, whether we realize it or not, possess viewpoints and values that someone else has worked out. While most of us might believe that we see life as it really is, we are actually seeing life through the eyes of a religious, political, or philosophical leader.
At some point reality had to be experienced subjectively by someone. As these people communicated their subjective version of reality, they influenced others, most of whom never took the time to make this reality their own. Instead they blindly followed this viewpoint.
This unwillingness to personally engage these various viewpoints is perhaps then main reason why many of these viewpoints have endured.
In order for us to discover objective reality we need to be willing to engage it. We need to be willing to make what we think is objective reality subjective. Otherwise in the name of objectivity, we may eventually discover that we have been believing nonsense all along.
To be continued (following the next TorahBytes message)...
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