Armchair Philosophy, July 11th, 2020

Topic: Fact is Fact, but Perception is All That Matters When Determining Truth

I had an interaction today that left me utterly riled to my core. I was repulsed by what someone said to me about myself. Not because it was a truth that hurt, but because he claimed something of me that violated my principles to their very core. I was told that I do not listen to others to learn, and that I simply await my opportunity to speak. Of course, considering the founding purpose and pursuit of this website, you may be able to understand why I would consider this both a ridiculous and slanderous claim against me. Yet, once I had calmed down, I gave it some thought. Why would a friend make such a claim about me? I reflected back to what I had read about different personality types, as well as my own actions and words, and I realized I can completely understand how someone could get that impression of me, and why the third party in the dialogue would immediately agree with him.

My friends, largely, do not know about this website. They do not know about commutationconstruct.com. They do not know about the time I spend with my community and others discussing and debating ideas, philosophies, and educating myself as to the beliefs and positions of others. Throughout my MBA program I had probably spent more time studying civic and philosophical matters than I had spent on my program itself, as though it were my full time job. I even had jobs where I would listen to podcasts on such topics for entire work days before going to school and then continuing my studies more when I was home from class. It was a personal pursuit that I would hardly even reference in situations where debate would spur among friends and relatives. This left my friends feeling that I was strongly opinionated and not willing to listen because I had already heard their arguments prior and had a solidified response, be it in agreement or disagreement. But because of their imperfect information about me, their perceptions were locked in place.

I also had to consider why I had such a strong emotional reaction to what they said. This had to do with my own perception. I have a personality where I tend to play my cards close to the chest. I don't open up to many people about what I do, I will hide when things hurt me, and I will celebrate momentous events on my own. At the same time, I'm incredibly analytical and will break down every specific use of language by the people around me and consider that in my response or use it as a marker to determine the perception of the people I am with. I naturally pick up on the perception of others fairly well, though I tend to end up in 50/50 scenarios unable to determine which of the viable paths I see as being the correct one. For me, this leaves many possibilities for the perception of others open, and I consider almost nothing in absolutes, so, from my perspective, it is difficult to imagine anyone close to me not being able to recognize the same series of possibilities in me when I speak with them.

I took offense because I had an expectation that they would consider my perspective in the same way I would consider theirs, and they didn't. I also gave them no real reason to question my understanding as coming from anywhere more than a remedial level of experience. This got me thinking about perspective, and what it means for society. I've heard Jonathan Haidt discuss how people with different political opinions can watch the same movie and both would give completely different summaries of what happened if asked about the movie. With media and politics growing increasingly partisan, I believe societal scale perceptions about reality are going through massive shifts.

Primarily, the left and right are losing the ability to communicate. Perception for both sides have labelled the other as unabashedly inept, hateful, and wanting to destroy the security of the other side. The right fears cancel culture, the left fears Trump becoming a dictator and removing all of their rights. Both sides see the other as racist, the left seeing the right as hate filled white supremacists, and the right seeing the left as racists of low expectations and an almost self-hating form of white supremacy. The ineptitude of our leaders may be the one thing agreed upon by both sides, yet both sides also likely embrace the primary leaders from their side, whom the other hates the most, as the devil that is on their side and the only figure currently giving them a fighting chance (see Pelosi & McConnell).

That is roughly where I currently see politics standing, and those views persist on both sides regardless of whatever facts may be brought to the defense of the other. Looking at social order, many digital and social media sites block content they do not approve of. Twitter banning people who say a man is not a woman, or YouTube blocking all Covid information that isn't WHO approved or from a major news outlet are both things that affect how people see the world. If the only world kids grow up in is one where the very questioning of what a transperson is is considered bigoted and hateful, then that is all that the generation will know. That will be the truth to them. This is what propaganda does. It creates a perception, and when that perception reaches a societal level, it might as well be truth, because it will be treated as truth. The manipulation of a cult of ideas.

Ben Shapiro is known for his quote "Facts don't care about your feelings". That is accurate. However, truth, as defined in society and treated throughout culture, does care about perception. Many history books carry false information due to school boards getting to decide what material they will teach and allow to be taught in their schools. Historians simply receive checks for letting the publishers of said books put their names on them. This gives validity to the content within, while allowing the content to reflect only the desired perspective of our leaders in education.

In the end, the main point of this discussion, for me, is that we must care about the perception of those around us and those who we interact with. It is incredibly dangerous for society to have such divisive perspectives that disallow the dialogue between the two primary perspectives of said society, as all alternatives to ones own are seen as evil. Therefore, it is our responsibility, as open minds seeking the betterment of our society, that we work together to consider the perspective of our counterparts so that we may communicate with them, and break through this division.

Alright everyone, this has been a long one from me and I am very curious what you all think. Do you think perception matters more than facts when dealing with other people, or do facts not caring about feelings give us the high ground in confrontation with others? What suggestions do you have for dealing with divided perceptions, or do you believe that my suggestion in this article is complete hogwash? I look forward to any and all responses. Thank you for taking the time to join the discussion today.