When being subjective is not subjective at all

I was watching one of these new, hip investigative cop shows called The Mentalist, in which the main character who has an uncanny gift for reading people is thrown into prison & quickly confronted by the meanest & nastiest of all the inmates.  He catches tough guy off guard with this observation:

"If you stopped looking at the world in terms of what you like & don't like, & instead saw things for what they are in themselves, you would find a lot of peace, my friend."

Before too long, the inmate is pouring out his heart & soul to his new buddy.

When I told my mom I was studying philosophy, she replied, "Everyone has a philosophy."  Well, that's true.  Maybe not everyone has thought it through explicitly, but everyone approaches life with a certain set of assumptions, presuppositions, goals, & methods.  We all do it.

Something the nineteenth century brought us besides the industrial revolution & the first modern war was a crap load of really, really bad philosophy.  Much of this has not only become popular, but imbued into Western culture at large. It's been so successful that it's hard to recognize it because it's already so close to us.

One such example is subjectivism, which perhaps we can trace back to Protagoras, who famously quipped, "Man is the measure of all things, of things that are that they are, of the things that are not that they are not."  In other words, believing it so makes it so.  Subjectivism is a kind of indulgence into one's own viewpoint.  It's not a very happy place; it doesn't let in any light or air from the outside - you know, the place where, like, real stuff comes from.  It also both excludes others & also concedes them their own subjectivistic territory all at the same time.  If you can make your own reality, can't everyone else?  And aren't all these 'realities' all equally valid?  If someone hits you up with, "Well, maybe that's true for you, but not for me," then you've just been subjectivism'd on.

Now, the thing is, Subjectivity is a very good thing, so don't confuse them.  Subjectivity means being who you really are, being the subject of your actions, anchored in your own being, not easily swayed & manipulated by the myriad of other things that come your way.  Subjectivity allows you to see other things as they really are, too, & to approach (or avoid) them in a healthy way.  It is a state of giving yourself & others their proper due.  It is when you are Subjective that you are really Objective.  Conversely, when you are incarcerated in subjectivism, you only get a distorted view of things, not really understanding them at all.  So, from a Subjective standpoint, one could reply, "No, some things really are good in themselves regardless of how dismissive one feels about them, & other things really are horrible no matter how much one indulges in them."

Many of the 'new' philosophical schools had as their expressed aim to turn the old order upside-down.  Well, it's very nearly succeeded, wouldn't you say!  Subjectivism, especially, is dangerous because it says that everybody's truth is equally true, which really means "There is no Truth."  It is a logical fallacy to say that 2+2 is both 4 & 7 at the same time.  Only one of these propositions is true.  Chesterton wisely noted that when one stops believing in something, he doesn't believe in nothing; rather he'll believe in anything.  "Maybe it's 4 for you, but not for me."

In Chesterton's time, these new philosophies were radical.  The Czar & his family had been executed by Communist.  The Spanish civil war raged.  National Socialism & fascism were on the rise in Germany & Italy.  Margaret Sanger was doing her diabolical work here in the U.S.  These ideas were audacious & gaudy & dangerous.  Today, they've soaked into the societal fabric.  We often grant others their own reality as way of being polite & maintaining order.  People are scared to speak up, even when something rings through as a universal truth - like the idea of owning another human being as property, for example. 

Just keeping your eyes & ears open is enough to develop a BS-detector for subjectivism.  It will help root out a lot of bad philosophy - & unhappiness.  The Truth of every situation may not be clear, but not up for grabs or for a vote, either.  Chesterton also reminded us that the Truth is the Truth even if no one believes it, & lies are still lies even if everyone believes them.  We have to be vigilant.  As another popular TV show proposed,  The Truth is out there...