Monday, December 11, 2006

a rose is a rose

Over the past couple of years I have come to witness a lot of people creating what I have come to call "subjective reality."

The author Derrick Jensen writes quite a bit on the subject.

One can deny the material facts and literally convince themselves of a subjective "reality" that makes them more comfortable and/or upholds their preconceived social constructs.

Someone can adopt the conventional language of a counter-culture or a progressive ideology without living according to either and believe themselves to be taking part.

Someone can subscribe in theory to oppose certain social codes (usually those of normality)yet pay no heed to that opposition in actual desires/beliefs/actions.

Someone can so convince themselves that others' actions have hidden/ulterior motives so that it is convincing that those actions fulfill a preconceived fear or assumption.

Oftentimes, someone will enter into a relationship that they want (on a surface level) to be atypical. Without applying a critical analysis of the relationship, they instead adhere to a delusional subjective language that confirms the objectives in language only.

Usually, someone uses subjective reality to define themself. One's notion of ideal or positive is affected by their social environment. Someone wants to be defined (both internally and externally) as a person that lives up to their social environment's positive attributes. Without paying anymore than lip service to these social atrtributes, someone usually just applies them to themself.
Someone might even defend their position by using the (now empty) language of their social ideals.

Chances are all of us reading this notice these atrributes. We probably can think of individuals that fit into some/all of these descriptions. None of us probably think it includes ourselves. Afterall, according to our (subjective?) realities, it doesn't apply to us.

epilogue:
None of this is to say that it is impossible to live in and apply objective ideas/"reality".
Quite the opposite; I firmly believe that we are capable of criticizing ourselves and others based on the honest application of ideas we believe to be true and based in material reality.

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