At the heart of what is wrong with much of contemporary culture is a bifurcation of objectivity and subjectivity.
The worst variant of misconstruction I have encountered is the idea that what you experience is “merely” subjective, whereas what others think of you is actually objective and true. This is the fallacy that objectivity is determined by greater numbers. This is the quantitative notion of objectivity.
Then there is another variant: Everybody who is “anybody” knows that objectivity is the quality that males possess, by virtue of his anatomical structure — which leaves all women to wallow in the clay pits of their “subjectivity”.
The problem with this view is that it is the perfect recipe for destroying any possibility of communication. To separate objectivity from subjectivity, separates the unpredictable, spontaneous or contingent nature of experience –indeed, experience itself — from what is “objectivity” out there (that is, mechanistic facts).
This makes one who is “objective” perfectly expendable. I can look up those facts I need on my computer, or do other kinds of research for them. There is no need at all to have a person around who can furnish me with particular facts.
On the other hand, if women are entirely subjective — by which we mean, non-factual — then there is nothing to be communicated either. Mood without content may be subtly communicable, but it is generally boring, empty, and disappointing as it stands, without the addition of any further thoughts.
The purely objective person and the purely subjective person are both imaginary entities, which in practical terms would be entirely devoid of humanity.
Do not presume, then, to tell me that you know better about my experiences than I do. To take such a position is hardly objective, but rather involves a presumption to be in command of a mode of universalising subjectivity.
Simple logic should have told you that this is yet another impossibility.
The worst variant of misconstruction I have encountered is the idea that what you experience is “merely” subjective, whereas what others think of you is actually objective and true. This is the fallacy that objectivity is determined by greater numbers. This is the quantitative notion of objectivity.
Then there is another variant: Everybody who is “anybody” knows that objectivity is the quality that males possess, by virtue of his anatomical structure — which leaves all women to wallow in the clay pits of their “subjectivity”.
The problem with this view is that it is the perfect recipe for destroying any possibility of communication. To separate objectivity from subjectivity, separates the unpredictable, spontaneous or contingent nature of experience –indeed, experience itself — from what is “objectivity” out there (that is, mechanistic facts).
This makes one who is “objective” perfectly expendable. I can look up those facts I need on my computer, or do other kinds of research for them. There is no need at all to have a person around who can furnish me with particular facts.
On the other hand, if women are entirely subjective — by which we mean, non-factual — then there is nothing to be communicated either. Mood without content may be subtly communicable, but it is generally boring, empty, and disappointing as it stands, without the addition of any further thoughts.
The purely objective person and the purely subjective person are both imaginary entities, which in practical terms would be entirely devoid of humanity.
Do not presume, then, to tell me that you know better about my experiences than I do. To take such a position is hardly objective, but rather involves a presumption to be in command of a mode of universalising subjectivity.
Simple logic should have told you that this is yet another impossibility.
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