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Please note that the text below was written by the feeling-being ‘Peter’ while ‘he’ lived in a pragmatic
(methodological), still-in-control/same-way-of-being Virtual Freedom before becoming actually free. |
Relativism / Subjectivism
Relativism – the doctrine or theory that
knowledge, truth, morality, etc., are relative and not absolute’. Oxford Dictionary
Subjectivism – The doctrine that knowledge, perception, morality, etc., is
merely subjective and relative and that there is no objective truth; a theory or method based exclusively on subjective facts; the quality or
condition of being subjective. Oxford Dictionary
Peter: Recently I happened to have a conversation with a man of similar age
as I am about the generational changes that have occurred in the things that were once regarded as facts and ‘givens’ as opposed to what is
being taught to the current generations. What we both observed was that there had been a marked swing from an empirical, pragmatic view of the
world of people, things and events towards what has been termed a post-modern view of the world – a view that includes such notions as
relativism, subjectivism, reductionism, anti-foundationalism, existentialism, deconstructionism, scepticism, nihilism and so on.
Broadly speaking, postmodernism thinking has it that knowledge can only be
subjective in that an individual can only construct their own view of knowledge relative to their own particular time, place, social position,
etc., or to put succinctly that there is no such thing as objective knowledge and universally-verifiable facts because knowledge can only ever
be subjective.
With the majority of the people in the world being taught this view by their
parents, peers and teachers, it is little wonder that people have such difficulty in understanding something as objective, simple,
straightforward, pragmatic and down-to-earth as actualism is.
Richard: Being bereft of any subjective/ objective
dichotomy has its distinct advantages. It is indeed stunning to discover that more than a little of the wisdom of the real world is not worth
the parchment/ papyrus/ palm leaves/ rice paper/ clay panels/ stone tablets it is inscribed upon.
What I have found, more often than not, in any area of research I have ever looked
into is that not only are facts rather few and far between but it is mainly the proposition which gets most of the attention ... so much so
that I have oft-times figuratively likened such theses to an inverted pyramid (one standing on its apex) where a judicious pulling-out of its
intuited/ imagined capstone results in the teetering edifice painstakingly constructed thereupon ignominiously tumbling down.
It is all so glaringly obvious when one twigs to what to look for – the factual basis of the
hypothesis or theory/ the basic premise of the argument or proposition – and it saves wading through a lot of quite often well-written but
fatally-flawed articles trying to make sense of something which can never make sense. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 110, 14 April 2006).
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