• JasSmith@sh.itjust.works
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    3 days ago

    The operative word there is “entirely.” We have philosophy going back thousands of years playing with the subjective nature of reality. There is some truth to this. However most of human history has been an exercise in “might makes right,” and truth was whatever the person with the biggest club said it was. Then the Enlightenment happened and it was suddenly considered virtuous to observe, document, and publish objective reality. See the early days of the conflicts with the Church to understand how uncomfortable it can make those who enjoy subjective reality suddenly being confronted with the concept of objective reality.

    It’s only relatively recently (post Enlightenment) that large portions of society decided it was a good idea to disregard objective reality in journalism, science, and politics, in favour of subjective or “lived” realities. We can in part thank postmodernism for escaping academic containment, but I think that’s only part of the slide. Whatever the cause, I think it behooves all of us to attempt to steer into objectivism as frequently and clearly as possible. Depending on the metric, Western society has arguably never been this polarised. If we can’t agree on the definition of words, we aren’t even speaking the same language anymore. Our North Star needs to be shared language so at the very least we can have valid arguments with each other. That is how we progress.