The Unoriginal Muse

Wherever you look, today, you will see something that is “post modern”, (or PoMo as certain people like to call it). People express a willingness to proclaim everything as post-modern, without really understanding what they’re saying and what post-modernism actually is. In essence, post-modernism is a rejection of everything prior to itself. Where the past is accepted, it is in an ironic way, a way that wists the original meaning of whatever is being accepted so that it becomes the opposite of what it originally was. Ultimately it s a rejection of the idea of objective truth, and all the problems of cultural and moral relativism, contemporary political laziness, rejection of knowledge from authority and an embracing of ideas that were seen as bigoted in the 19th century, let alone the 20th.

The contemporary rejection of the absolute in favour of the purely relative is possibly an attempt to cope with Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity, or apply it to situations where it has no business being applied. The short, short version of SR is that there is no absolute frame of reference (based on Gallilean, or Newtonian relativity) but, also, that each observer measures the speed of light as a constant no matter what frame of reference they’re using. This creates all sorts of unintuitive results that, nevertheless, make a certain amount of sense if you think about them. The result is that each person’s view of the universe is entirely dependent on their frame of reference.

The problem comes in attempting to apply the “frame of reference” idea to morality. The result is post-modern subjectivism, in which each person’s viewpoint is equally valid. This subjectivism would be anathaema to people like Einstein who, though postulating his idea, nevertheless based it on objective and immutable physical laws. Post-modernism rejects the idea that there is any sort of objective truth; truth therefore must be reached by a consensus, or an agreement of the majority. There are two examples through which I can demonstrate that this is A Bad Thing: Wikipedia and The United Nations. Both organisations suffer from the same fundamental problem, in that they make no differentiation between obviously different groups and individuals.

First, to deal with wikipedia. In his article, “Why I Quit Wikipedia, Mike Harris makes the point:

The problem is: Wikipedia believes truth derives from consensus. It doesn’t. Pablum derives from consensus; popular belief derives from consensus. And if you’re lucky, the least offensive common denominator of the truth derives from consensus. And the contributions of people who devote their careers to a subject are treated with no more weight than the average anonymous editor — and if that career expert’s commentary isn’t part of the popular belief, then he or she’s going to have to devote time (and, moreover, want to devote that time) playing internal politics to get consensus to swing their way.

Now, judging by the rest of his sayings, it’s doubtful Mike and I would agree on a lot of things (at least politically), but on this I believe we do: consensus cannot bring about truth.

The American Heritage dictionary defines Pablum as “Trite, insipid, or simplistic writing, speech, or conceptualization: ‘We have to settle for the pablum that passes for the inside dope’”, and other dictionaries define it similary as “worthless or oversimplified ideas”. Pablum is the least offensive version of an idea, not necessarily truth, that the most people are able to accept for as long as it takes to get everyone else to agree with it. In other words, a compromise between opposing groups. Where the groups largely agree, and where obhjective truth remains, compromise is useful and, indeed, often essential if people are to get on with each other. In teh face of objective truth one group or individual has to be largely wrong, and the other largely right. The negotiation comes in the details, but the objective truth remains unsullied by it.

Unfortunately, due to the complete embrace of post-modern thought, objective truth no longer reigns and the validity of everything is open to negotiation. The media in particular is littered with this attitude, especially organisations such as the BBC, who promote the idea of “balance” by giving all ideas, no matter how invalid, an equal footing. Allegedly. The truth is evn worse, but Biased BBC can deal with that one more effectively than I.

This “balance”, this “equal footing” of all ideas is a direct consequence of subjectivism and moral relativism. It springs from the idea that each man’s view of the world is its own truth, with equal validity. The most recent expression of this has been the drive to “understand” why a large proprtion of Muslims want us dead, int he hopes of negotiating with them. After all, their morality is as equally valid as ours when you see the world through the subjective gaze. The fact that their morality is completely opposed to our own, superficial similarities notwithstanding, doesn’t seem to figure. Red cannot become green no matter how much you mix them together. This is already happening. Of course, you might argue that this idea has been around for a long time, and I agree; it has. But it has, until now, always been seen as something distasteful, as a sort of prostitution of the moral centre, or the psyche. With the advent of the idea that morality has no objective basis, the moral centre is thrown out of the window and the mind is open to everything. An open mind is one thing, but if your brain falls out then the result is wikipedia.

Under the new post-modernist subjective ethic, authority is automatically questioned as it claims to have an objective knowedge denied to others. Authority is seen, by the subjectivists, as a sort of gnostic heresey against the prevailing consensus which, in an ironic twist, is something of a reversal of the true conflict of gnostic ideas vs religion, in that the christian faith holds that it is an objective truth, whilst the gnostics claimed that they had “hidden knowledge” passed down from various scribes, as equally valid as that held by the church. The truth was that much of their hidden knowledge was complete rubbish but that didn’t stop them.

This automatic questioning of authority has lead to an erosion of that same authority, greatly bewailed by Number Watch and other similar sites. In particular the realm of science is quickly reverting to a pre-rational mode of thought, rejecting empiricism and adopting the axiom “post hoc ergo proctor hoc”; roughly “after the fact, therefore because of the fact”… as long as that’s what the consensus says. Science should have no consensus. Science is based on objectively attempting to disprove a theorem by testing it. The very place where post-modernists have apparently sourced their idea is also the place where their ideas cannot and should not have any sway. Nevertheless, we have the consensus that claims anthropogenic global warming is a reality when the truth is that there’s no proof for, and a lot of proof against. So we also have the “hidden knowledge” in the form of climate models, which are not empirical in the slightest.

This malaise isn’t merely limited to the internet or the media. It affects the entire world to some degree or another. The second example I posited, the United Nations, is simply the most visible manifestation of this subjectiveism. The UN was started to bring about world peace, but few would argue that’s what it achieves these days. The UN was one of the first manifestations of the idea that all viewpoints are equal,w ith the general assembly consisting mostly of loons and dictatorships who were, nevertheless, given the same voice as free democracies. This was largely a sop to the soviet union, who refused to take part unless they were given an equal footing with the western allies. This was diplomacy at its soggy end but, ultimately, the soviets still had something approaching a rational reason for their views and operated in approximately the same frame of reference as everyone else.

The problem has arisen in the last 20 or so years, with the treatment of Israel. The UN’s consensus is that Israel is a bad country. Bear in mind that the Israelis are the ones who have suffered constant attacks for nearly the entire existence of their country… the UN’s consensus, further, is that Israli retaliation is as bad as, if not worse than, the aggressive war waged against it by “armies” that breach nearly every single one of the geneva conventions on purpose. This reversal of the reality of the situation in the middle east would not be possible without the post-modernist idea of moral relativism. In the subjective world, the arab nations attacking Israel without cause have as much right to do this as Israel does to defend itself against them.

However, subjectivism, being what it is, allows people to take sides without breaking the rules. After all, it’s “their view” of things. Therefore it’s perfectly logical, within the subjective world view, to see Israel and the west are seen as monsters for perform acts that are, in the grand scheme of things, very mild.

The Post-modernism rejects the idea that reality can be seen in an objective fashion. It ridicules experts in a field, merely because they are experts, as authority is oppressive to alternative viewpoints. It ignores everything that doesn’t fit in to its view of the world - a subjective reality is bound only by the imagination of those taking part - and so reality becomes meaningless as a concept. This is what people are o being taught from birth in most western countries. They are taught that there is no reason for moral objctivity, and no reason to assume that one viewpoint has any more merit than another. Without these guiding principles the west is starting to lose touch with reality, and in doing so it is losing touch with itself. Worse, the individual becomes subsumed, as no individual’s reality can be seen as objective. An individual therefore must accept a consensus of reality, and align themselves with the group, be that a class, a race or a religion of some sort; in doing so the individual becomes less, and the politics of the group begins to take over. Individuality is therefore seen as a threat to the consensus of reality and is squashed as far as possible.

As mike Quotes at the end of his essay:

He’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets its hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it tells tales
Told by idiots, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

The problem we face is that we, as a culture, may soon be heard no more. Our media and our government no longer have any guidance, and strut about in a vain attempt to look like they’re doing something when, in reality, there’s nothing they are capable of doing without challenging the idea that there is no objective truth and morality, because to do so would be “oppressive” to some poor minority group.

When individuals lose their sense of identity in the group, and their sense of reality disappears in to the consensus, is it any wonder that we’re sliding back in to a pre-enlightenment view of the world? The question that needs to be asked, too, is who benefits from this? Who really benefits from a world where the majority are feckless idiots unable to conceive of a objective truth, and unable to function when faced with the risk of going against the consensus?

Answers on a postcard…