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Bridging the Abyss
It’s been difficult at times to post on Ricochet, and nearly impossible to discuss politics with anyone who isn’t a conservative outside of Ricochet. With some of these conversations erupting into conflict, I decided to shed some light on the topic of conflict. It doesn’t matter which “side” you’re on: I’m talking to you. After all, if you experience serious conflict, it’s your own fault.
Let me explain a few things before I delve further into this topic. First, I use the term “serious conflict,” because every living human being experiences conflict several times a day, every day, whether or not you visit Ricochet. So I’m not talking about minor skirmishes, choices of whether to start your diet today or tomorrow, or whether to go out for Chinese or Italian. I’m talking about the heavy duty stuff. There is no permanent elimination of conflict—at least, not until you die.
The first reality to acknowledge is there’s no objective reality. Yes, I see the conflict already in my statement. Unfortunately each of us thinks we have the clearest vision of the world, of Truth, and everyone else can and should see the world as we do, right? Wrong. No one else sees your reality or your world, or whatever you choose to call it. You may argue that there are universal truths, though. Well, good luck when you try to identify the list: all of us can state universal truths—based on our own world views. What about the objective realities of mathematics or science? One only needs to study Einstein or climate change to know there is no fixed or objective science there, either. Even with the simple experience of sitting right next to a person in a closet: you may generally describe the closet in the same way, but you’ll likely have a different experience of that closet which influences your perceptions of the closet. It gets very interesting when you try to describe what seems to be a clear-cut experience and you both describe it quite differently: who’s right? Who’s wrong? Both of you and neither of you.
Describing a closet that you occupy with another person is a relatively harmless activity. But when we begin to share our values, beliefs, preferences, biases and politics—which, by the way are precisely what form reality for all of us—we run into trouble. And that trouble is laid out in full, living color, because it isn’t enough for us to hold to the belief of our own realities. Everyone has to share our perceptions and agree with them. Our egos demand it. There is honor only when we are right, and everyone else can see that. When you are passionate about your beliefs, there is no room to allow for differences in perceptions. You have to trumpet your “rightness” and condemn the other’s wrongness.
Now I’m not saying that I am the example of even-handedness and equanimity. Hardly. I have my moments when I want to make myself right and make everyone else who disagrees with me to be foolish, self-centered, nasty, hateful—well, I trust you to identify your own predicate adjectives for your adversaries. But I’m tired of the finger-pointing, accusations, denigrations—aren’t you? I know some people thrive on conflict, stirring things up, making angry comments; it makes them feel powerful and in control. (I won’t even pursue my lecture about our having almost no control over anything.)
One of the biggest reasons people get into political arguments is because they assume that they know what the other person thinks or believes. Unless you are clairvoyant, or unless people tell you what they think or why they think that way, you don’t know. I just want to tear out my hair when someone says, “Well if you did this or you said that, then you meant or intended this.” That’s a lazy approach, and a dangerous one to follow in political discussions, unless you’re looking for an argument. Instead, how about actually asking them the reasons behind their positions? You might be surprised.
So at this point I’m just saying, “Stop it.” Know that your reaction to others is your fault, not theirs, and you are the only person who can stop it. You can’t change others—their ideas or their behaviors (and that includes my ability to influence you). And insulting them won’t change their minds. Allow people to have ideas different than your own; a person with integrity accepts that the world is filled with differences, and we can learn from our differences, if we make the effort.
If there is a huge abyss of differences that we are peering into, we are the ones—all of us—who have created it. And we are the only ones who can bridge it. You know that word that the Left thinks it owns but abuses all the time? Tolerance. I realize that tolerance is only a start: for many of us, it means barely holding it together when we want to bash the other person. But if we would only change, each of us, our own behavior instead of waiting for the other person to change, we might just have a chance for civil conversation. Isn’t it worth trying?
Published in Culture
Well, She, maybe they are reading it but they don’t like what I have to say. That is kind of awkward–if you disagree with me, you might feel like you can’t “argue” with me because I’ll just say it’s all your fault that you’re upset. But that would mean that I was creating the conflict because of my reaction. Oh, this is getting way too complicated–I hope people will write whatever they wish: agree, disagree, question, speechify. I’ve loved it so far, so don’t anyone read anything into this. Good thing I’ll be heading for bed soon; I’m sounding more incoherent than usual. I expect all the angry people to blast me overnight!
I did not get the idea that you would do that from reading your post, not at all.
Well, tomorrow will be interesting then!
Saying “Hey, it’s not MY fault!” would be sort of, well, argumentative, wouldn’t it?
But I grew up hearing that it only takes one to stop an argument. For all the good it does me.
Sorry, I was typing while you were typing I suppose. But still its a very good post.
I really appreciated this post. I certainly sympathize with the frustration in talking about politics and values more generally.
This may sound tangential, but have you ever encountered Roger Scruton’s little book Beauty: A Very Short Introduction? He wrestles with the same problem of subjectivity (and our desire that others should experience things the same way we do) in the context of art and aesthetics. One of the big points he makes is that our discussion of beauty and “taste” is part of an effort to develop consensus with others, in a way that is ultimately connected with our sense of morality. (Sorry, that’s a rough one-sentence summary of a very complex argument.) I read it recently, and I think Scruton has a lot to say about how to understand and deal with the kind “abyss” that we confront in a lot of our public discourse.
Sounds great! I’ll look it up.
I think it’s part of human nature to assume that most people think the way we do, or that at least we know how they think. When it comes to political topics, it’s all too easy to put people into boxes and then we are surprised when someone doesn’t fit neatly into the box we assumed them to be in. You might assume that because you know where your neighbor stands on gun control, gay marriage, and labor unions that you can predict where they stand on the estate tax, marijuana legalization, and immigration. It makes life intellectually easier to be able to categorize people this way, but it’s highly imprecise.
You have heard the one where the Philosophy professor hands out his final exam. Blank pages. He then puts his chair on his deck and tells his class to prove that the chair doesn’t exist. Everyone starts writing furiously except one person who writes just two words and hands his paper to the professor and walks out of class. He got an A. He wrote” what chair.” Maybe objectivity is determined by whom ever has the power to make the determination.
It is an objective reality that Michael Brown was not surrendering when he was shot by Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson. It is an objective reality, in fact, that he was attacking Wilson.
There are objectively realistic explanations for why he would have done this, but it is also objectively true that the media, #BLM and the president actively avoided discovering or discussing such explanations in favor of one that was objectively unrealistic (or, to put it less politely, a lie) namely that police officers are part of a “system” that is “racist,” and Darren Wilson is a murderer.
Moreover, it is an objective reality that twenty one police officers were ambushed and killed in 2016. (It’s hard to argue with the objective reality of a corpse.)
Many (probably most) of these murders happened in response to the rhetoric of #BLM amplified by the media and the Obama administration. For these actors to argue, as they did, that there was no connection between their words and the actions of the cop-killers is disingenuous and absurd. So was President Obama’s “we’ll never know for sure what happened on Canfield Avenue in Ferguson that day…” Yes, we will. We do.
Objective facts are available. They are also interpretable, but not everyone has a right to undertake interpretation. An investigator on-scene knows. An earnest, white trust fund hippie listening to NPR in her Beacon Hill apartment does not know. It doesn’t matter how strongly she feels; she lacks facts and she lacks expertise by which she might understand the facts.
I bought that book on Kindle a while back, it’s on my (very long) list of books I’d like to find the time to read. I may have to bump it up higher in the queue, sounds fascinating.
I have it… somewhere… I haven’t fully organized my library in years now.
I think that’s not quite as self-contradictory as it may seem at first blush. We need a moral code of some sort, to fit into society, and to have some way to structure our life and decisions. When people reject objective morality, most don’t fall into amorality or true nihilism, instead they default to subjective morality. Which I think fits perfectly into the summary @incertus gives of Scruton:
For many people today, morality is simply a matter of good taste, like taste in art, music, movies, or food. In the abstract they will agree that all taste is subjective, but try telling them McDonald’s is better than Shake Shack, or Garth Brooks is better than Radiohead, or Star Wars Episode I is better than Empire Strikes Back, and watch them pop a vein and yell at you. They feel the same way about climate change, transgender bathrooms, and Trump: all the smart and fashionable people hold opinion X, so if you disagree, you reveal yourself to be a person of poor taste, a rube, uncool, not part of the “in” crowd, and just generally out-of-touch with the latest fashions and trends.
That’s why I’ve switched to buying e-books whenever possible: they’re easy to find with search. Plus I’ve run out of space on my bookshelves — and out of space to put any new bookshelves.
I do still enjoy reading physical books though. I still have plenty of those that I haven’t read yet, either…
Well, that shows the advantage of using your sense of taste to cultivate morality! Evil is just evil, but if it contradicts your tastes, you pop a vein ;-P
If it strikes you as aesthetically ugly to fornicate in front of an icon of the Virgin Mary, hanging an icon by your bed seems a reasonable part of a fornication-avoidance strategy.
No.
I’m with @hypatia on this issue. We’re done bending over and asking for another, sir. These people are playing for keeps now, using violence, as is the hallmark of fascism. We’ll meet them head on and never ask for understanding. This is a societal and cultural war that we didn’t choose, but we will not back down, ever. Paris or Pittsburgh, indeed.
And yet the very parameters of the thought experiment entail that there is a closet, that it is a reality, and that our experiences and perceptions are constrained by it.
(William James is in my head, saying things. Videos 24 and 25 in this playlist, when they go live, will say more.)
Everybody has an uncle like that and many more….at some point, you have to tune them out or you start becoming like them.
Great message and needed – it’s just plain old fashioned good advice. The biggest words that comes to mind are communication and respect – it’s everything, and we could all do better. Yet, in some cases, you can communicate until you’re blue in the face, then forced to take action, like Britain is having to do.
I like this message because everyone is so on-edge. I live in an area where people vacation. I turned down a street and boys were playing ball and ignored me. I couldn’t get past. I tapped my horn – they finally moved. When I looked in my rear view mirror, one boy was screaming at me at the top of his lungs! Wow! Then I turned into the grocery store – one car turned, then it was my turn, but another car kept coming and we almost hit. The driver threw up his hands and gave me the finger! They’re on vacation! Too much anger.
I’m pretty sure that’s not what you meant to say, especially given your responses in the comments (the mountain exists, though our perception of it is flawed). As stated, it’s a premise I absolutely reject. I’m happy to agree that my imperfect and limited understanding of reality is filtered through my own perceptions, biases, mood, etc., but at the same time, I maintain that there is an objective reality which does, in fact, exist.
It’s interesting that people take scientific theories that address particular issues and situations, and then try to apply them to places where they don’t belong and don’t have anything useful to say. Einstein’s theory of relativity says that our perception is based on our frame of reference, but it doesn’t deny that an underlying reality of space-time actually exists. Climate / weather are complex systems, almost impossible to predict and model, and yet quite real in an objective sense. (Don’t get me started on Darwinism and how it has been applied to culture, eugenics, etc.)
As far as the OP is an argument against egoism and for tolerance, I am happy to agree. We need much more of the second, and much less of the first. Empathy and sympathy – the ability to put oneself in someone’s shoes and consider their viewpoint, is needed, yes. But the way the OP is written, there’s no hope in convincing anyone of anything because all of our understandings are flawed, so what’s the point? For example:
Indeed, you can’t force others to change. But the way that this is written, there’s no hope in even attempting to persuade others to consider our viewpoint, because persuasion doesn’t work – which runs counter to experience and common sense. Persuasion is a thing that we can and must engage in – all three prongs, Logos, Ethos, and Pathos.
As for us changing our own behavior, sure. We can respond to sneering contempt with warmheartedness, as encouraged by Arthur Brooks at AEI. We can give beauty for ashes. Or at least we can try. We can stop sneering at those who disagree.
But when one side is interested in peace, and the other is interested in war, what happens is war. And contempt deserves critical response.
C.S. Lewis – emphasis mine.
It would make more sense to say “there’s no objective knowledge of reality”. That said, our only point of contact with reality is our knowledge of it, and so it’s not surprising we humans are prone to the mind projection fallacy – mistaking our knowledge of reality for reality itself:
Saying “there is no objective reality” is a punchy exaggeration that conveys how humans actually behave – that all our knowledge is subjective (based on personal priors) and that we’re so good at the mind projection fallacy that
Thank you everyone for carrying on! This morning Ricochet would not allow me to make any comments, and I’ve been chomping at the bit. Thanks to @max , things are working again, but I will be in and out due to commitments. Let me just say for now that I’m revising my statement on objective reality, based on all your wonderful feedback. I hope this will be a satisfactory revision until later: As human beings, we are limited by our perceptions, biases and beliefs in understanding of objective reality, which does exist. If you think this isn’t quite right, let me know. I look forward to diving in later to address some of your other observations and comments.
It is imprecise and often not helpful, Randy. Most of us don’t like being pigeonholed, and rebel against it. It must us feel secure when we do it to others, but gets us into trouble as well!
Me, too! I usually buy hard back books when they are on religion. I find them easier to mark up, and just love the feel of the book in my hand.
Quick edit – I’m happy with the revision of the statement in the OP re: objective reality.
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
I’m with you as far as the mind projection fallacy goes. As I said above, I’m happy to accept that my perspective is flawed, my understanding limited, all of that. And while I maybe didn’t state it explicitly above, I’m also more than happy to accept that reasonable people can differ on their interpretation of facts, on the appropriate course of action, policy, so on and so forth. We give different weight to different things, and come to wildly different conclusions. I’m constantly reminded of Niven’s 14th law “The only universal message in science fiction: There exist minds that think as well as you do, but differently.” I keep wishing people would take that into account, but I think everyone here would agree that in the real world, that doesn’t happen a lot. On Facebook it almost never happens (and attempts at bringing it up are denounced as trollery). I’m not perfect at it, but I try.
My hackles go up (a subjective response, I’ll grant you) when people use a simplification like “objective reality doesn’t exist” because it looks like they’re saying “objective reality doesn’t exist”. Not “your perception of reality is fundamentally flawed” or “all perception is subjective and therefore subject to distortion, doubt and confusion” – those are things I agree with. But all I have to go on are the words being used. And as used, it seems to throw out references to things like logic, reason, mathematics, and the number 42. (See the references to Einstein and climatology) If there is NO objective reality, then there’s no reason to seek after it, and any attempt is foolhardy at best, and grotesquely misguided at worst. And that leads me straight to solipsism and nihilism, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria.
I grant wholeheartedly that we should be prudent and thoughtful, empathetic, and kind in our interactions with those who disagree with us. Be nice, said Patrick Swayze, and so we try to be.
Kate, I know that you have a lot of feelings about this topic, as do I. I could debate some of the things you listed as objectively factual, but I see no reason to do that. This particular part, though, is worth addressing:
Objective facts are available. They are also interpretable, but not everyone has a right to undertake interpretation. An investigator on-scene knows.
Everyone and anyone has the “right” to interpret information for anything. I think you’d agree with me on that statement. We may despise what a person says, be certain that he or she is wrong, but any person has the right. I would also add that in general, investigators on scene see what they see–meaning, it’s always possible to miss something for any number of reasons. I’d refer you to my re-defining objective reality in Comment #50. It is especially difficult to be objective when we are emotionally connected to the circumstances. I hope my post hasn’t raised too much pain for you.
What about your colleagues here on Ricochet, TW? Is it really necessary to war with them?
Indeed. You among others have persuaded me!
I agree, FSC. Fortunately we do have moments (at least I do) where people are kind and helpful. Those moments keep me going.
I don’t think that TW was discussing his colleagues here at Ricochet. I am aware of no violence that is linked to conversations on this site.
As you can see from my comment#50, madpoet, we are in agreement.
Agree again!!
I’m sorry that you took me so literally. Generally I will provide input to people if I think they are in danger, or ask their permission to make a suggestion, but otherwise I don’t ask people forcefully to consider my viewpoint–especially when I know they are dead-set against it. I don’t think I said we shouldn’t attempt to persuade others of our viewpoint–otherwise, why would we be on Ricochet!
Indeed. War is inevitable in those circumstances. I see you made an additional comment, but I will need to address it later. Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts!