Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Subjectivism

Jesus said 'where two or more are gathered, there too shall I be." God is truth. The mystery is truth. This is the basis of 'objectivism'. That is, the community decides the 'truth'. Truth is not what I think it is but what "we" think it is. The very basis of reality as we know it is that it is an 'agreed' hypothesis.
Subjectivism has moved the truth out of the community and into my own 'head'. The result is 'my' truth and 'your' truth.
Further truth according to this equation becomes a 'commodity'. In the corporation versus the 'individual' the corporation is legally a person so has every reason to want you to be a person alone as well. The corporate individual is always more powerful in the world of commodity than the human individual.
As education became more about selling class room seats and popularity entertainment rather than insight and skill or reality based performance or quality creative interaction the appeal of subjectivism was instantly recognised. In subjectivism there is really no immediate need to listen or learn or even hear because the whole of subjectivism is about 'you' understanding 'me'. You must 'respect' me. And everything that is 'me' is important to 'me'.
Philosophically, subjectivism is the tenet that accords primacy to subjective experience as fundamental of all measure and law.
natural to me my experience is primary. It is clearly primary to the baby. It's equally primary to the bully and the tyrant. But where do we meet when you do not accord me any but secondary consideration. In the community the limits of subjectivism are glaring. The community the subjectivist is usually simply called arrogant and/or immature. So much of subjectivism in this sense is primary narcissism.
Subjectivism in community gives rise to moral relativism. If if feels good to me it is right for me and good for me so you must respect me for my views and feelings. Indeed I can hate, reject, leave, have you beaten and killed, brutalized, ostracized and con temporized if you don't respect 'me'.
In Subjectivism one's belief as opposed to another's belief is merely a measure of probability or a bet. And this of course has validity but practically it doesn't square well with the idea of psychosis. Reality is a 'safe bet' but what if I want to take a chance. In the casino world of the subjectivism I want to shoot this gun at you and find out if you die. It's my subjective moral right to 'experience' my life.
The further attraction of subjectivism is that it fits the illusion of the gamer world where individuals are the supreme players until they move into the interactive gamer world and find themselves actually doing all the 'normal' things like competing and sharing and interacting with other subjective people in the consequent objective reality.
The difficulty that an adult has talking to a student who has encountered 'subjectivism' at the college level and suddenly needs to go no further is that there is an uncanny experience of talking again to a two year old but one with all manner of objective power. I feel like I'm talking to a psychotic.
Talking to a 'subjectivist' psychotic is difficult because they use language but in a very idiosyncratic way often changing it's meaning to their own 'subjective' sense. This is often part of a minority group think where the words represent what a few adherents think they do and you are not using the words in that sense so the psychologically insecure get that immense sense of satisfaction from 'insider' status. It's the same with other 'cults' and fundamentally the experience lacks any sense of 'exchange' but instead feels like being raped or bludgeoned.
That said, I am my own experience and collection of events that make of what is me but that in community there is complexity of relationships in which I am faced with separating 'rights' from 'priviledges' and learn what is 'yours' and what is 'mine' and what is 'ours'.
Truth has been public 'common' and when you tell me 'my' truth don't be surprised that I lassos you like any cowboy would. You are offensive and clearly and completely a threat to 'free range'. Subjectivism is too often an 'infant terrible'.


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