Sobjectivity

The notion of "objectivity" carries with it an impressive number of positive evaluative connotations.  From newspaper articles to informal conversations among friends, one notices very quickly that this claim functions almost as a "prefix" to one's point.

I find it very curious, especially when one's confronted with two opposing arguments whose proponents claim to be objective. 

What does it mean to be "objective"?

Well, the obvious, first, meaning, is easy. One states facts which aren't up for debate.  "I have a blog."  This is an objective fact, and even if I am a person -- with all that that entails, i.e. fallibility, bias, and, hypothetically speaking, the possibility I could simply lie or omit something I know to be true -- this is an easily verifiable fact.

From what I have observed & studied, facts seldom come with an announcement or reinforcement of their existence (unless the speaker knows they might be challenged, in which case s/he might say "the fact is... blah").  They tend to be simply stated and/or assumed, especially in conversation, though this also happens a lot in academic texts.  A certain number of facts are "a given", don't need to be stated openly, when one reads a text of any type, and I'd say especially those whose field is specialized (scientific, historical, etc).  Details can be and often are disputed, but there are large quantities of facts which no one disputes, they've been integrated in our collective consciousness/body of knowledge.

This brings me to the question: why, then, do people assert their objectivity?  Surely if it is a question or contention about which objectivity can exist, there wouldn't even be the need to draw attention to it.  

So an "objective view" is something with which I have a very difficult time.  

Let me construct an example.

Person A (PA): "There is a red apple on the table, it smells good."

Person B (PB): "Yes, there is an apple on the table, but it is not red and it doesn't smell of anything."

Objective fact: There is an apple on the table.

Subjective view: Its qualities.

Possibilities that may account for the discrepancy in opinion: PA's positioned against the wind, thus can smell an apple-scented breeze; PB cannot.  PA sees a side of the apple which is red, but PB's perspective may only allow him/her to see a "faded" side, yellowish green or whatever.

So far, so obvious.  But what happens if either PA or PB claims objectivity?

According to me, the only entity in this hypothesis which would be right to claim objectivity (i.e. an external view, a view as a non-subject) is the apple.  It is the object being observed by two subjects, PA and PB.

*****

This topic is not a short, simple one though.  It cannot be "solved" in 500 words, it can't be solved merely with grammatical points, though these help a lot.  There are bigger implications when the claim of objectivity is made.

Objectivity as an approach to everything entails a lot of problems, as far as I can see.  Despite the noble, laudable aims underlying the desire to be objective, my take on it is rather pessimistic, I have to admit.

The main reason is my suspicion that whenever an idea or opinion is thought to be objective, the implication is that it no longer needs to be examined, prodded, reevaluated, and it makes it very difficult to get rid of a notion once it has established itself as the truth.  

Perverting the scientific method even as one claims to apply it (in an erroneous way) is a very naughty intellectual crime.  This is in effect what happens every time a person or company or an institution that claims to be objective, "fair & balanced", "neutral", etc, does.  Treating things like the news, politics, the economy, etc, as if they were an "object" under a microscope, whose truth & inner core would be discovered and scientifically mapped, is an intellectual crime.  Serious scientists know that the scientific method requires vigilance on the part of the observer, the scientist.  Everything, in principle, has to be constantly disputed, reviewed, studied, rethought. 

But this is not the worst element in "objectivity" as a "way of life".

It gets much worse.

The result of what I briefly mentioned in the paragraph above is: now, armed with "the truth", these agents of objectivity can comfortably devise theories which must be applied, since they, too, will be objective, based on cold, hard, facts, as Flann O'Brien would have loved to read.

Objectivity, by virtue of its very construction, results in absolutist theories.   If PA above claimed to have an objective view of the apple, s/he would go on to formulate the Apple Theory:

Apples are red and smell good.

Whoever disagreed, whoever "deviated" from this doxa would then be called that infamous epithet used mainly to discredit people, almost Objectivity's ugly twin: Subjective.  And do we or don't we know how negative its evaluative connotation is?  

But there's a further catch:  subjective views (as views necessarily are, otherwise they're facts, not views/opinions at all) and those who admit to this pseudo-'High Crime', paradoxically, give one a much better chance at neutrality, at least.  (I think neutrality is v different from objectivity, but I won't go into it now).

How?  Well, this part's simple.  Someone who admits to being subjective, biased, prejudiced, allows for other people's biases and prejudices, too, integrating them into whatever argument's being made.  

Subjective people do not see others - or themselves - as machines who can't fail.  We -- I think you guessed it by now, I'm one of these monstrous subjective ppl -- know we're subjective, therefore the necessary implication is we're willing to reevaluate our position regularly, because something more intelligent, interesting, reasonable, etc etc may come our way at any given moment.

When one claims to be objective, though, it is much harder to do this precisely because one's previous position is labelled with the "objective truth" seal, so to suddenly abandon it negates the entire previous ratiocination.

Last and most ironic implication:  Objective stances are incompatible with relativism. (Yes, because if something is objectively true, how can its opposite be objectively true, too? Only in a kind of intellectual sleight-of-illogic.)   Yet, a number who claim to be the former, love the latter.  "Everything is relative, so let's be objective" is, to me, almost the perfect joke, were it not so tragic.    

One short example:  In contemporary Western societies, liberals have an odd mix of "general-purpose atheism" and "respect for other cultures."   While on the one hand, in this political persuasion/affinity one's (tacitly) expected to reject one's culture's own religious traditions (oh, that liberal guilt, the new version of the WhiteMan's-Burden, is never-ending), on the other hand, other cultures and their religious traditions are bizarrely, schizophrenically elevated.   

In this way, we get a crazy mix of rejecting rather standard, traditional Judeo-Christian views (or, for that matter, early scientific Enlightenment views!) as reactionary, while arguing for the protection of other cultures' idiosyncratic and, frankly, stupendously obscene practices (excision, slavery-- er, sorry, "serfdom" in Tibet, etc).

If this isn't pure doublethink, I don't know what pure is.