Older folk who've fallen into the cognitive trap of certainty, in many cases, have done so only recently.... since the lockdowns. These were people who beforehand showed some curiosity.
This has been on my thoughts for a while now... the Nonsense as a metaphysical inversion. Suddenly the Christians were the sceptics and those who professed to be buttressed against illusions proved immensely prone to reckless faith and superstition. For those of us who witnessed this horror story unfolding, it was a revelation. No doubt many will take their unwisely acquired new dogmas to their graves, but even so this was a turning point.
Always interesting to hear a generalization from a statistic of one about a large diverse population. In any case you wrote well about your personal life experiences.
The characterization of the US polity as a Red-Blue divide misses how dynamic are these coalitions and how they both change dramatically over time. A major driving force in US voter choices is Fear which often overwhelms self interest, whether Red or Blue. Of similar magnitude is Anger over something.
As long as the population is able to vote freely, there will always be hope.
From ChatGPT
"Fear and anger significantly influence voter behavior in the United States, often shaping political attitudes, decision-making, and turnout. Here's how these emotions can overwhelm voter behavior:
1. Heightened Partisanship
Fear: Fear of societal changes, economic downturns, or perceived threats (e.g., crime, immigration) can lead voters to align more strongly with political parties that promise protection or stability.
Anger: Anger towards opposing parties, political figures, or perceived injustices can drive voters to adopt more rigid partisan positions, reducing willingness to compromise or consider alternative viewpoints.
2. Increased Voter Turnout
Fear and anger both serve as powerful motivators. Fear can compel people to vote defensively, while anger can energize voters to participate in elections to express dissatisfaction. For example, voter turnout surged in the 2018 and 2020 U.S. elections, driven in part by polarized issues and strong emotional responses to political leadership.
3. Influence on Issue Salience
Fear: When political campaigns emphasize fear, such as concerns over national security or economic instability, voters tend to prioritize those issues over others.
Anger: Campaigns that invoke anger about corruption, inequality, or social injustice can shift focus toward reform-oriented policies and candidates.
4. Susceptibility to Political Messaging
Negative Campaigning: Fear and anger are often exploited through negative ads and rhetoric, reinforcing distrust of opponents and amplifying emotional responses. Research shows that negative ads tend to be more memorable and impactful than positive ones.
Echo Chambers: Social media and partisan news outlets can amplify fear and anger by reinforcing preexisting beliefs, leading voters to perceive opposing views as existential threats.
5. Polarization and Division
These emotions contribute to a more divided electorate, reducing common ground between different political ideologies. Fear of the "other side" winning often motivates defensive voting, where voters choose a candidate not out of support, but to prevent the opposing side from gaining power.
6. Cognitive Bias and Decision-Making
Fear: Can lead to risk-averse decision-making, causing voters to favor conservative or status quo policies.
Anger: Can lead to more impulsive decisions, with voters favoring candidates who promise bold, immediate change.
In summary, fear and anger can overwhelm rational decision-making processes, driving voters to react emotionally rather than critically, thereby influencing the overall direction of elections and political discourse."
Thinking that *either* team could pursue any individual citizen's self-interest might be deemed fairly naïve at this point! Here's a generalisation at least as bald as any I have made in this letter! 😁
But as you say, fear and anger are certainly two of the most powerful forces in electoral politics, and not just in the United States. Your decision to state this as 'fear overwhelming self-interest', however, might betray your interpretative preference in this regard.
Although I went with the red-blue divide in this letter, since it suited the theme, I personally prefer to view this as the urban-rural divide, which is much less dynamic than the political coalitions.
"As long as the population is able to vote freely, there will always be hope."
While ~80% of the U.S. population lives in urban areas, Rural areas make up about 97% of the total land area. For Census purposes an Urban area is 5,000 people or 2,000 housing units. 1,889 of 3144 Counties are Rural with a population of ~66 million.
With regard to Urban-Rural divide, the US system is skewed to give significant power to Rural Areas. 11 states have a population of less than 1.5million. The U.S. House of Representatives has 435 members, so each district has a population of about 770,000 but due to the Method of Equal Proportions, not all seats represent the same population. Each state has 2 Senators irrespective of population.
"Today, some 56% of the world’s population – 4.4 billion inhabitants – live in cities."
It's true, the population of the planet is concentrated in cities, which is hardly surprising since we've basically taken over every landmass, and population density is higher in cities. But of course, cities are not autonomous regions at all, but are dependent upon the countryside around them (or, increasingly, on distant farmlands and infrastructure to deliver). There is a symbiosis between the cities and the countryside that has persisted in one form or another for several millennia, although there are many times when the cities become parasitic on the countryside. To some extent, this is the theme of the Robin Hood tales.
"With regard to Urban-Rural divide, the US system is skewed to give significant power to Rural Areas."
As I understand the framers intentions, the US system is set up as a federalism of States, in the hope of avoiding a 'tyranny of the majority' that would result from a strictly numeric voting arrangement.
I personally like the US system (at least in broad strokes) more than the UK system of the House of Commons (Congress equivalent) and House of Lords (Senate equivalent, but seats are not voted upon), although I absolutely oppose plans to turn the UK into a Republic and have an elected President. We've all seen the risks of accumulating excessive executive power - it serves the British Isles better to have executive power 'on the side' of the electoral system. I feel improvements could be made, but nobody has yet made a suggestion I consider sensible.
Some solid points here, Chris. My focus on paradigms these past few years has led me to the conclusion that my trouble with the Libs is that I simply don't agree with their definition of oppression and equality. I find the focus on gender and intersectionality too narrow and ultimately divisive and harmful. As you point out, it has led to its own forms of hate, while it leverages the term "hate" for its own purposes. Recently, I have felt a lot of hatred coming from the Libs. At what point does one look at oneself and think, "Sheesh, how did I get here? Why do I say such awful things to people and about those who beg to differ? Why do I want to yell and shout all the time at folks I disagree with? Why do I not care what they think? Why am I not even curious?" Until folks start to question themselves along these lines, the present trend will just get worse. I think what we need to dismantle is the sense of certainty people have. And I've suggested that since "the medium is the message," we might help folks dislodge from this frankly barbaric notion of knowledge with a new way of presenting information.
The question I ask is "why would people start to question themselves along those lines?". What are the payoffs, the incentives, for such self-questioning? (I think we are all aware of many disincentives).
I have come to the conclusion that concepts like "neutral evaluation", "relative objectivity", "intellectual integrity" and even "agreeing to disagree" are subtle tastes, which are not easily acquired. That is, at first they can taste bitter compared to the sugar of moral superiority; one has to develop a taste for concepts like "conceding points which are not supportive of one's preferred narrative, but are nevertheless true", or "what's good for the goose is good for the gander - playing by the same rules". These do not come naturally or easily to the human mind.
They do have a payoff - one can feel good about oneself for having the honesty of accurately reporting the arguments of "the other side", even if one disagrees with them. But the payoff is subtle, often quietly internal rather than publicly praised. It's hard to compete with the strong hits of self-righteousness (or as you put it, the sense of certainty) being offered by other approaches.
At times it feels like preaching the virtues of calligraphy to the audience of a Roman Coliseum during one of the spectacles. Not very appealing to the tastes being reinforced in the crowd.
Frankly, I don't know how to recover, how to spread those old school liberal virtues more widely again, in today's world of immediate payoffs and social reinforcement (and short attention spans). But I don't see how to right the social problems without teaching appreciation for those tastes, for those payoffs.
Thanks for your thoughts here. The payoffs and incentives are social, I would say. Of course, there are the subtle, inner payoffs, but I think being able to have friendships or friendly acquaintanceships with a wide group of people has many benefits. The feeling of having a friend group or network in the real world has, however, been replaced by social media. So, I suppose that's where the incentive problem comes in. Too many are feeling they can abandon friends and not care to nurture a sense of true community since they have 1000 friends on socials.
If one's friends value and express appreciation of things like the virtues above, that could reinforce those behaviors.
However, I've noticed that my liberal friends are often far more supportive of strong polarization, than any attempt to, say, fairly & honestly present the rationales for actions of "the other side" (much less steelman their arguments) tends to be negatively reinforced socially.
For example, bring up that Trump (despite numerous flaws in other areas) has no history of being anti-gay, signed a declaration of support for Pride month, appointed the highest ranking out gay Cabinet member to date, and has held at least one gay wedding at Mar A Lago in recent times - and one is looked at as possibly becoming a toxic MAGA person to consider shunning, because "we all know" he hates all gays and they are in danger of being sent to the camps.
It may well be the same for people embedded in a circle of conservative friends, I cannot speak to that but it would not surprise me.
There is not much "taste" for objective analysis, most people I know prefer the heady rewards of castigation and reinforced narratives. It's not that they are terrible people - it's that they follow the cultural trends.
Anyway, in my experience, I'm seeing far more social payoff to keeping quiet and going along with the groupthink. Let's all bond over how stupid and immoral the other side is, everyone bring up this week's curated outrages, rinse and repeat. This supports the "sense of certainty" mentioned in the original article, not the willingness to reflect and consider.
This "social reinforcement of polarization above honesty" is one of the reasons I wonder how we can dig ourselves out of the hole as a society.
If your friends, neighbors, and coworkers respect objectivity and the search for truth whether or not it supports their favorite narratives, consider yourself very lucky.
Thank you both for this exchange, greatly appreciated! One small comment from me:
"There is not much 'taste' for objective analysis, most people I know prefer the heady rewards of castigation and reinforced narratives. It's not that they are terrible people - it's that they follow the cultural trends."
I broadly concur, although I'm philosophically resistant to the term 'objective', which I view as a corrupt offshoot of Kant's philosophy that has got us into a lot of trouble.
If I may evoke a metaphor: the truth is a sculpture, but we can only look at it from one position at a time. If you only ever take one such perspective, you can feel unnaturally certain about what you know while still knowing very little about the true shape of the sculpture. Only if you examine it from as many available angles as you can access do you get an authentic sense of its contours and potential meanings. And even then, who knows what you might discover if you were able to look straight down on top of it...?
Let me try to be more clear about how I view "objectivity". First, of course we humans are not capable of that in any absolute sense - but there are nevertheless relatively more objective descriptions and less objective descriptions - so "objectivity" is more of a direction, one end of a subjective / objective spectrum, rather than a binary trait.
As a hypothetical, several people might witness a given event, which is also recorded via multiple cameras from multiple angles. The cameras might objectively establish that person A never assaulted person B - that given the recordings, there was no possibility of even a visually obscured interaction. I think it's possible is some cases to accumulate sufficient evidence (without pre-filtering) to establish objective fact - granting that this is relative rather than absolute objectivity, since we can't absolutely prove that aliens did not remotely alter the camera recordings.
And some of the witnesses might have accounts which are much more aligned with that evidence, while others might color their accounts based on some political narrative (like wanting to protect or to blame some of the participants, based on personal friendship/enmity, or conscious or unconscious bias due to the ethnicity or sex or whatever of the participants. A relatively objective observer will also admit the limitations of their own accounts, like noting that somebody was not visible for a period of time while behind a car.
Obviously, the more you can assess some event from multiple angles (visually or metaphorically, like using independent lines of evidence), the closer we can get to objective truth, so I agree with your metaphor. As we approach closer with more evidence, the probability that some new evidence might change our conclusions becomes lower and lower, sometimes vanishingly low - but yes, we can say it's never absolutely zero.
As I understand it, the core point of the scientific method is a heuristic for incrementally approaching ever closer to objective truth by countering accidental and subjective biases. What you refer to as "feeling unnaturally certain" (which I take as going beyond the evidence), IS one of the subjective pitfalls to be guarded against.
We need to distinguish between objective reality, and our fallible understanding of it. Is there an objective reality which explains what differing scientific lines of research converges upon? I conclude yes. By contrast, if I ask a lot of people of different faiths (or even the same faith) about the attributes and values of "God", the answers do not converge to one value. One of these human endeavors is relatively more objective, even with mistakes and side tracks, than the other.
I will admit that I use the word "objective" as a shorthand for a more complex concept as explained above, but it's hard to cram all the above into every sentence seeking to make use of that concept. If one took my usage as referring to a binary state, where all statements can be absolutely known (by humans) to be objectively true or objectively false, they could well object to that oversimplification. But that binary sense is not what I mean by the word, I just don't have a better word which would be less understood, for that concept. I'm open to suggestion, tho.
That's my current take on all that. Could you explain your resistance to using the word "objective"? Is it based just on the difference between more or less fallible current understandings of objective reality versus claiming to know absolute objective reality? Or deeper, like the academics who deny that objective reality even exists and believe that all human knowledge is socially constructed and therefore reflects only the biases and required justifications of those in power, without connection to any underlying reality that exists independent of whether it is currently correctly understood by humans or not.
"Could you explain your resistance to using the word 'objective'?"
Sure, I'll have a go! 🙂 I have developed my own epistemology (theory of knowledge) that radically departs from the objective-subjective divide. This is the topic of my book Wikipedia Knows Nothing (which is available as a free PDF) - and which I'm delighted to report might be getting a second edition this year! It'd be my first philosophy book to get a second printing, so I'm pretty pleased by this.
However, since it would be rude to answer your question solely by pushing you onto a book (even a short one), let me give you some quick quotes from the book in this regard:
"...when we talk about what is 'objective', we are referring to the questions that can be answered reliably by a certain experimental apparatus, which then open up new questions. Understood this way, there is no need to invoke an 'objective world' to explain the work of the sciences: they are objective precisely because they are concerned with objects and the difficult challenges involved in
making them 'talk' reliably. "
This quote is riffing off Isabelle Stengers, who is riffing off Alfred North Whitehead. I really like this way of understanding the role of experiments, and it changes what we mean by 'objective', which is to say it becomes 'the knowledge of objects' that can be extracted experimentally in at least some cases.
"Objective knowledge necessarily tends towards this kind of partial quality, and would not by itself be a plausible way of being part of any world: someone who solely understood gravity, quantum mechanics, organic chemistry, and cell mitosis would be thoroughly ill-equipped for life. Such a narrow field of vision inevitably follows from the complex compositions of things that must be coaxed into developing an objectivity for those who are working with them."
Now comes my other issue with 'objective': if we think of objective knowledge in the post-Kantian way that is now popular (and for which Bertrand Russell is partly to blame) we are using it to mean at least in part as a shorthand for 'the God's eye view', what Kant would have called 'the thing in itself' as oppose to our experience of it. But we do not have access to this ever. Talking about 'objective' risks pretending otherwise.
Instead, I insist that objective knowledge is thin and actually not that interesting by itself. I prefer a completely different way of thinking about knowledge!
It's a short read, certainly for philosophy, and is perhaps my most original contribution to contemporary philosophy, which is not to say that it (like most philosophy) isn't completely ignored! 😂
However, apparently when Nietzsche scholar Babette Babich was in Manchester, she discussed my epistemology with philosophers there, which is funny because I was living in Manchester at the time and wasn't invited. 🤣
Hope these remarks are both clear and interesting! And thanks for for your thoughtful notes, which were greatly appreciated! I very much value everyone's thinking around such points.
Thanks for this thoughtful comment, Asa! I first started to point a finger at 'intolerant tolerance' in Chaos Ethics back in 2014, and the situation has not improved since then.
"I think what we need to dismantle is the sense of certainty people have."
Premature certainty is one of the great dangers of our time. And it can cause so much more harm, so much more swiftly, than ever before. The young, perhaps, have always been prone to this vice, but those who purport to possess the wisdom of age who recklessly opt to stir this pot ought to be ashamed.
I am optimistic that we can find ways to move into a more ambiguous world, or perhaps I should say into more ambiguous worlds. Some of the later letters this month may touch upon this theme (I haven't written them all yet).
Older folk who've fallen into the cognitive trap of certainty, in many cases, have done so only recently.... since the lockdowns. These were people who beforehand showed some curiosity.
This has been on my thoughts for a while now... the Nonsense as a metaphysical inversion. Suddenly the Christians were the sceptics and those who professed to be buttressed against illusions proved immensely prone to reckless faith and superstition. For those of us who witnessed this horror story unfolding, it was a revelation. No doubt many will take their unwisely acquired new dogmas to their graves, but even so this was a turning point.
Thanks for continuing our conversation,
Chris.
Always interesting to hear a generalization from a statistic of one about a large diverse population. In any case you wrote well about your personal life experiences.
The characterization of the US polity as a Red-Blue divide misses how dynamic are these coalitions and how they both change dramatically over time. A major driving force in US voter choices is Fear which often overwhelms self interest, whether Red or Blue. Of similar magnitude is Anger over something.
As long as the population is able to vote freely, there will always be hope.
From ChatGPT
"Fear and anger significantly influence voter behavior in the United States, often shaping political attitudes, decision-making, and turnout. Here's how these emotions can overwhelm voter behavior:
1. Heightened Partisanship
Fear: Fear of societal changes, economic downturns, or perceived threats (e.g., crime, immigration) can lead voters to align more strongly with political parties that promise protection or stability.
Anger: Anger towards opposing parties, political figures, or perceived injustices can drive voters to adopt more rigid partisan positions, reducing willingness to compromise or consider alternative viewpoints.
2. Increased Voter Turnout
Fear and anger both serve as powerful motivators. Fear can compel people to vote defensively, while anger can energize voters to participate in elections to express dissatisfaction. For example, voter turnout surged in the 2018 and 2020 U.S. elections, driven in part by polarized issues and strong emotional responses to political leadership.
3. Influence on Issue Salience
Fear: When political campaigns emphasize fear, such as concerns over national security or economic instability, voters tend to prioritize those issues over others.
Anger: Campaigns that invoke anger about corruption, inequality, or social injustice can shift focus toward reform-oriented policies and candidates.
4. Susceptibility to Political Messaging
Negative Campaigning: Fear and anger are often exploited through negative ads and rhetoric, reinforcing distrust of opponents and amplifying emotional responses. Research shows that negative ads tend to be more memorable and impactful than positive ones.
Echo Chambers: Social media and partisan news outlets can amplify fear and anger by reinforcing preexisting beliefs, leading voters to perceive opposing views as existential threats.
5. Polarization and Division
These emotions contribute to a more divided electorate, reducing common ground between different political ideologies. Fear of the "other side" winning often motivates defensive voting, where voters choose a candidate not out of support, but to prevent the opposing side from gaining power.
6. Cognitive Bias and Decision-Making
Fear: Can lead to risk-averse decision-making, causing voters to favor conservative or status quo policies.
Anger: Can lead to more impulsive decisions, with voters favoring candidates who promise bold, immediate change.
In summary, fear and anger can overwhelm rational decision-making processes, driving voters to react emotionally rather than critically, thereby influencing the overall direction of elections and political discourse."
Great to hear from you, Bob!
Thinking that *either* team could pursue any individual citizen's self-interest might be deemed fairly naïve at this point! Here's a generalisation at least as bald as any I have made in this letter! 😁
But as you say, fear and anger are certainly two of the most powerful forces in electoral politics, and not just in the United States. Your decision to state this as 'fear overwhelming self-interest', however, might betray your interpretative preference in this regard.
Although I went with the red-blue divide in this letter, since it suited the theme, I personally prefer to view this as the urban-rural divide, which is much less dynamic than the political coalitions.
"As long as the population is able to vote freely, there will always be hope."
Well said!
With unlimited love,
Chris.
With regard to urban-rural divide
"Today, some 56% of the world’s population – 4.4 billion inhabitants – live in cities.
from https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/urbandevelopment/overview
While ~80% of the U.S. population lives in urban areas, Rural areas make up about 97% of the total land area. For Census purposes an Urban area is 5,000 people or 2,000 housing units. 1,889 of 3144 Counties are Rural with a population of ~66 million.
With regard to Urban-Rural divide, the US system is skewed to give significant power to Rural Areas. 11 states have a population of less than 1.5million. The U.S. House of Representatives has 435 members, so each district has a population of about 770,000 but due to the Method of Equal Proportions, not all seats represent the same population. Each state has 2 Senators irrespective of population.
Thanks for continuing our conversation Bob!
"Today, some 56% of the world’s population – 4.4 billion inhabitants – live in cities."
It's true, the population of the planet is concentrated in cities, which is hardly surprising since we've basically taken over every landmass, and population density is higher in cities. But of course, cities are not autonomous regions at all, but are dependent upon the countryside around them (or, increasingly, on distant farmlands and infrastructure to deliver). There is a symbiosis between the cities and the countryside that has persisted in one form or another for several millennia, although there are many times when the cities become parasitic on the countryside. To some extent, this is the theme of the Robin Hood tales.
"With regard to Urban-Rural divide, the US system is skewed to give significant power to Rural Areas."
As I understand the framers intentions, the US system is set up as a federalism of States, in the hope of avoiding a 'tyranny of the majority' that would result from a strictly numeric voting arrangement.
I personally like the US system (at least in broad strokes) more than the UK system of the House of Commons (Congress equivalent) and House of Lords (Senate equivalent, but seats are not voted upon), although I absolutely oppose plans to turn the UK into a Republic and have an elected President. We've all seen the risks of accumulating excessive executive power - it serves the British Isles better to have executive power 'on the side' of the electoral system. I feel improvements could be made, but nobody has yet made a suggestion I consider sensible.
All the best,
Chris.
Some solid points here, Chris. My focus on paradigms these past few years has led me to the conclusion that my trouble with the Libs is that I simply don't agree with their definition of oppression and equality. I find the focus on gender and intersectionality too narrow and ultimately divisive and harmful. As you point out, it has led to its own forms of hate, while it leverages the term "hate" for its own purposes. Recently, I have felt a lot of hatred coming from the Libs. At what point does one look at oneself and think, "Sheesh, how did I get here? Why do I say such awful things to people and about those who beg to differ? Why do I want to yell and shout all the time at folks I disagree with? Why do I not care what they think? Why am I not even curious?" Until folks start to question themselves along these lines, the present trend will just get worse. I think what we need to dismantle is the sense of certainty people have. And I've suggested that since "the medium is the message," we might help folks dislodge from this frankly barbaric notion of knowledge with a new way of presenting information.
The question I ask is "why would people start to question themselves along those lines?". What are the payoffs, the incentives, for such self-questioning? (I think we are all aware of many disincentives).
I have come to the conclusion that concepts like "neutral evaluation", "relative objectivity", "intellectual integrity" and even "agreeing to disagree" are subtle tastes, which are not easily acquired. That is, at first they can taste bitter compared to the sugar of moral superiority; one has to develop a taste for concepts like "conceding points which are not supportive of one's preferred narrative, but are nevertheless true", or "what's good for the goose is good for the gander - playing by the same rules". These do not come naturally or easily to the human mind.
They do have a payoff - one can feel good about oneself for having the honesty of accurately reporting the arguments of "the other side", even if one disagrees with them. But the payoff is subtle, often quietly internal rather than publicly praised. It's hard to compete with the strong hits of self-righteousness (or as you put it, the sense of certainty) being offered by other approaches.
At times it feels like preaching the virtues of calligraphy to the audience of a Roman Coliseum during one of the spectacles. Not very appealing to the tastes being reinforced in the crowd.
Frankly, I don't know how to recover, how to spread those old school liberal virtues more widely again, in today's world of immediate payoffs and social reinforcement (and short attention spans). But I don't see how to right the social problems without teaching appreciation for those tastes, for those payoffs.
Thanks for your thoughts here. The payoffs and incentives are social, I would say. Of course, there are the subtle, inner payoffs, but I think being able to have friendships or friendly acquaintanceships with a wide group of people has many benefits. The feeling of having a friend group or network in the real world has, however, been replaced by social media. So, I suppose that's where the incentive problem comes in. Too many are feeling they can abandon friends and not care to nurture a sense of true community since they have 1000 friends on socials.
If one's friends value and express appreciation of things like the virtues above, that could reinforce those behaviors.
However, I've noticed that my liberal friends are often far more supportive of strong polarization, than any attempt to, say, fairly & honestly present the rationales for actions of "the other side" (much less steelman their arguments) tends to be negatively reinforced socially.
For example, bring up that Trump (despite numerous flaws in other areas) has no history of being anti-gay, signed a declaration of support for Pride month, appointed the highest ranking out gay Cabinet member to date, and has held at least one gay wedding at Mar A Lago in recent times - and one is looked at as possibly becoming a toxic MAGA person to consider shunning, because "we all know" he hates all gays and they are in danger of being sent to the camps.
It may well be the same for people embedded in a circle of conservative friends, I cannot speak to that but it would not surprise me.
There is not much "taste" for objective analysis, most people I know prefer the heady rewards of castigation and reinforced narratives. It's not that they are terrible people - it's that they follow the cultural trends.
Anyway, in my experience, I'm seeing far more social payoff to keeping quiet and going along with the groupthink. Let's all bond over how stupid and immoral the other side is, everyone bring up this week's curated outrages, rinse and repeat. This supports the "sense of certainty" mentioned in the original article, not the willingness to reflect and consider.
This "social reinforcement of polarization above honesty" is one of the reasons I wonder how we can dig ourselves out of the hole as a society.
If your friends, neighbors, and coworkers respect objectivity and the search for truth whether or not it supports their favorite narratives, consider yourself very lucky.
Thank you both for this exchange, greatly appreciated! One small comment from me:
"There is not much 'taste' for objective analysis, most people I know prefer the heady rewards of castigation and reinforced narratives. It's not that they are terrible people - it's that they follow the cultural trends."
I broadly concur, although I'm philosophically resistant to the term 'objective', which I view as a corrupt offshoot of Kant's philosophy that has got us into a lot of trouble.
If I may evoke a metaphor: the truth is a sculpture, but we can only look at it from one position at a time. If you only ever take one such perspective, you can feel unnaturally certain about what you know while still knowing very little about the true shape of the sculpture. Only if you examine it from as many available angles as you can access do you get an authentic sense of its contours and potential meanings. And even then, who knows what you might discover if you were able to look straight down on top of it...?
Many thanks for your comments!
Chris.
Let me try to be more clear about how I view "objectivity". First, of course we humans are not capable of that in any absolute sense - but there are nevertheless relatively more objective descriptions and less objective descriptions - so "objectivity" is more of a direction, one end of a subjective / objective spectrum, rather than a binary trait.
As a hypothetical, several people might witness a given event, which is also recorded via multiple cameras from multiple angles. The cameras might objectively establish that person A never assaulted person B - that given the recordings, there was no possibility of even a visually obscured interaction. I think it's possible is some cases to accumulate sufficient evidence (without pre-filtering) to establish objective fact - granting that this is relative rather than absolute objectivity, since we can't absolutely prove that aliens did not remotely alter the camera recordings.
And some of the witnesses might have accounts which are much more aligned with that evidence, while others might color their accounts based on some political narrative (like wanting to protect or to blame some of the participants, based on personal friendship/enmity, or conscious or unconscious bias due to the ethnicity or sex or whatever of the participants. A relatively objective observer will also admit the limitations of their own accounts, like noting that somebody was not visible for a period of time while behind a car.
Obviously, the more you can assess some event from multiple angles (visually or metaphorically, like using independent lines of evidence), the closer we can get to objective truth, so I agree with your metaphor. As we approach closer with more evidence, the probability that some new evidence might change our conclusions becomes lower and lower, sometimes vanishingly low - but yes, we can say it's never absolutely zero.
As I understand it, the core point of the scientific method is a heuristic for incrementally approaching ever closer to objective truth by countering accidental and subjective biases. What you refer to as "feeling unnaturally certain" (which I take as going beyond the evidence), IS one of the subjective pitfalls to be guarded against.
We need to distinguish between objective reality, and our fallible understanding of it. Is there an objective reality which explains what differing scientific lines of research converges upon? I conclude yes. By contrast, if I ask a lot of people of different faiths (or even the same faith) about the attributes and values of "God", the answers do not converge to one value. One of these human endeavors is relatively more objective, even with mistakes and side tracks, than the other.
I will admit that I use the word "objective" as a shorthand for a more complex concept as explained above, but it's hard to cram all the above into every sentence seeking to make use of that concept. If one took my usage as referring to a binary state, where all statements can be absolutely known (by humans) to be objectively true or objectively false, they could well object to that oversimplification. But that binary sense is not what I mean by the word, I just don't have a better word which would be less understood, for that concept. I'm open to suggestion, tho.
That's my current take on all that. Could you explain your resistance to using the word "objective"? Is it based just on the difference between more or less fallible current understandings of objective reality versus claiming to know absolute objective reality? Or deeper, like the academics who deny that objective reality even exists and believe that all human knowledge is socially constructed and therefore reflects only the biases and required justifications of those in power, without connection to any underlying reality that exists independent of whether it is currently correctly understood by humans or not.
"Could you explain your resistance to using the word 'objective'?"
Sure, I'll have a go! 🙂 I have developed my own epistemology (theory of knowledge) that radically departs from the objective-subjective divide. This is the topic of my book Wikipedia Knows Nothing (which is available as a free PDF) - and which I'm delighted to report might be getting a second edition this year! It'd be my first philosophy book to get a second printing, so I'm pretty pleased by this.
However, since it would be rude to answer your question solely by pushing you onto a book (even a short one), let me give you some quick quotes from the book in this regard:
"...when we talk about what is 'objective', we are referring to the questions that can be answered reliably by a certain experimental apparatus, which then open up new questions. Understood this way, there is no need to invoke an 'objective world' to explain the work of the sciences: they are objective precisely because they are concerned with objects and the difficult challenges involved in
making them 'talk' reliably. "
This quote is riffing off Isabelle Stengers, who is riffing off Alfred North Whitehead. I really like this way of understanding the role of experiments, and it changes what we mean by 'objective', which is to say it becomes 'the knowledge of objects' that can be extracted experimentally in at least some cases.
"Objective knowledge necessarily tends towards this kind of partial quality, and would not by itself be a plausible way of being part of any world: someone who solely understood gravity, quantum mechanics, organic chemistry, and cell mitosis would be thoroughly ill-equipped for life. Such a narrow field of vision inevitably follows from the complex compositions of things that must be coaxed into developing an objectivity for those who are working with them."
Now comes my other issue with 'objective': if we think of objective knowledge in the post-Kantian way that is now popular (and for which Bertrand Russell is partly to blame) we are using it to mean at least in part as a shorthand for 'the God's eye view', what Kant would have called 'the thing in itself' as oppose to our experience of it. But we do not have access to this ever. Talking about 'objective' risks pretending otherwise.
Instead, I insist that objective knowledge is thin and actually not that interesting by itself. I prefer a completely different way of thinking about knowledge!
If this interests you, you can get the book here:
https://press.etc.cmu.edu/singles/wikipedia-knows-nothing
It's a short read, certainly for philosophy, and is perhaps my most original contribution to contemporary philosophy, which is not to say that it (like most philosophy) isn't completely ignored! 😂
However, apparently when Nietzsche scholar Babette Babich was in Manchester, she discussed my epistemology with philosophers there, which is funny because I was living in Manchester at the time and wasn't invited. 🤣
Hope these remarks are both clear and interesting! And thanks for for your thoughtful notes, which were greatly appreciated! I very much value everyone's thinking around such points.
Chris.
Thanks for this thoughtful comment, Asa! I first started to point a finger at 'intolerant tolerance' in Chaos Ethics back in 2014, and the situation has not improved since then.
"I think what we need to dismantle is the sense of certainty people have."
Premature certainty is one of the great dangers of our time. And it can cause so much more harm, so much more swiftly, than ever before. The young, perhaps, have always been prone to this vice, but those who purport to possess the wisdom of age who recklessly opt to stir this pot ought to be ashamed.
I am optimistic that we can find ways to move into a more ambiguous world, or perhaps I should say into more ambiguous worlds. Some of the later letters this month may touch upon this theme (I haven't written them all yet).
With unlimited love,
Chris.