#philosophy-ish

One of the arguements for subjective “Truth” that I often hear and hate is that of the solar system.  Many people have said that because some people viewed the solar system as geo-centric rather than helio-centric, Truth changed and therefore must be subjective and malleable.  However, the geo-centric model was never true, no matter how widely accepted it was (and historically, it just wasn’t).  Perception can change.  Perspective changes.  Truth does not.

Some people, such as Russell (who Sanderson calls on in Words of Radiance) questions the nature of truth because of the differences in perception between people.  Russell’s perhaps most famous example lies in a paper about a table, speaking of how when one says table, we all have an immediate mental image and understanding, but those don’t necessarily match with the image and understanding of another.  For example, I might think of a card table while another thinks of a 3-sectioned dinner table.  He then goes further to talk about how the shades of the table change based on the lighting and angle of the viewer.  He uses these to question the nature of the “Truth” of the table, what its true form is.

Sanderson does this a little more easily by calling into question the definitions in our use to define the table, such as the usage of “legs”.  However, in both of these examples, what the table is does not change.  Only the Perspective of the observer changes.

Another thing I often see is that stupid cartoon from a few years back, you know the one.  Two people standing on opposite signs of a 6 or 9 painted on the ground, each adamantly stating that only their answer was right.  Usually it was captioned with something along the lines of “Just because you’re right doesn’t mean that I’m wrong.”  The arguement for this one has actually also floated around on various media platforms, with the simple point that that number stands for something or serves some purpose.  Again, the Truth exists, and the Perspective is external to it.

Some may want to cite Descartes daemon, or Plato’s allegory of the cave, but even those accept Truth as separate than Perspective.  You can’t really use them to question the nature of Truth itself as they are written within the confines of that Truth already.  Descartes may have doubted his perception corresponded to an external world, but he did not doubt that he did to some extent exist.  He didn’t even really doubt the existence of an external world when you get down to it.

And here’s where I go from abstract to concrete.  Throughout history, we have gradually chipped away at the idea of a singular, absolute Truth.  While some cite the questioning as recent I think that history disagrees with that view.  An example I like to use is that of the Roman Empire after adopting Christianity.  It was the official position that there was only 1 true empire, just as there was only 1 God in Heaven.  This was obviously false, even just in the Mediterranean.  However, people put value in their Perspective, their own belief rather than in Truth.  However, individualism is perhaps the greatest aggressor on the doorstep of Truth.

Individualism leads to claims like that one that everyone’s seen: “if the crowd’s all going the same way, it’s the wrong way.”  Except that sometimes it just means there’s a fucking fire in the building.  It allows people in positions of relative power to place more stability in their own Perspective than Truth.  Conversely, the Perspective of those in positions of lower relative power is assumed to be further from the Truth, even in the presence of evidence.

Ultimately I believe that it is what lead to the current point of political discourse.  It has allowed people in positions of privilege and power to write over Truth with their own Perspective.  It’s what allowed Newt Gingrich to make that ridiculous claim that feelings are as valid as facts.  It’s what has allowed Trump to make accusations that are unfounded.  A person in power offers a Perspective, and people choose it over the Truth that doesn’t fit their narrative.  It’s something that has driven into every section of modern life in the US (in point of fact I believe it is far more wide spread, but I can only speak as to what I have observed).  It is what allows people to unite in foolish and damaging movements such as anti-vaxxers.

And just a quick comment.  I realize that some might read my critique of modern individualism as the all to familiar shouting of someone decrying moral degradation.  I do not mean to do so, and I believe that evidence is on my side in this.  Neither do I mean to make it seem that Truth has not had a rocky history at best.  But over the past few centuries, the distinction has gone from being focused on generalized oppression seen in the treatment of women and minorities throughout history into a political movement.  It has gone from being a tool of oppression to being a tool for manipulating a wide swath of the public to allow for oppression.