I'm going to start a series on Cartesian Dualism, or subject-object duality. The idea is pretty straightforward: Reality isn't objective (quantitative) or subjective (qualitative) but objective/subjective simultaneously. In fact for every event that occurs there are objective and subjective correlates that are interdependently and inextricably intertwined.
For example, the words you're currently reading are objective information, they simply exist. You're interpretation of those words is subjective. The words themselves are set in stone (digital stone, if you will) but how those words are received is unique to the context of the receiver. Thus the interpretation of any set of facts or information is unique to she who is interpreting it because interpretation is subjective. And subjectivity is context bound: the perception of something is dependent on the context in which it is perceived. If you chose to read this again in one year, five years, ten years, you'd get a new interpretation of the same objective information because the context in which you're receiving the information changes each time.
Another example: I tell you you're beautiful (simply because you are). Whether your response is pure joy, outright rage, or "I don't give a shit" you'll have a response. The feeling that the response entails is interior, it has depth. Coinciding with that feeling is a fantastic fireworks display of brain chemistry that can be measurable, it has span.
So we see a relationship between depth and span. It is not a dependent relationship (the operations of the brain don't cause the internalized feeling). It is not an independent relationship. The relationship is interdependent. Span and depth, quantity and quality, subjectivity and objectivity correlate with one another without becoming one another at every instance of existence.
The reason I care so much about this is that because with Modernity and the Age of Reason came a hyper-objective agenda. We (in the West) decided that reality was only true if it could be measured and threw subjectivity out the window. In the sciences, in philosophy, in culture we eviscerated that which is interior, gutted out the depth, did away with interpretations and focused our myopic gaze on exteriors only.
Bigger is better, what get's measured gets managed, it's not how you feel but how you look. This flatland worldview, this hyper-objectivized scope dominates our way of thinking and how we see the world. How we see the world is subjective, it's an interpretation. And we've decided that that interpretation is only valid if looked at from the outside without considering what's really going on on the inside.
And here in America we see it every day, everywhere, in every person as: having palliative rather than preventative medicine; aesthetics rather than well-being as the goal of health; intelligence as test scores rather than creativity; funding for and focus on math and the sciences over the humanities in education; the judicial and penal systems operating to generate income and keep crime in place rather than eliminate it; pursuit of hedonism rather than happiness; occupational pursuit of income rather than passion; success defined as income rather than progress; success defined as quantity rather than quality of work done; our horrendous lack of sleep; chronic disease; the environmental crisis; political dichotomy... The list goes on, and its exhaustive.
These are all issues that stem from a presupposition that objectivity rules and subjectivity drools. This presupposition arose with the Age of Reason, with Industrialism, with Modernity and has dominated our thinking since. In other words, all of these things are connected. My goal is to elucidate exactly how they are connected and offer a more balanced worldview for us to consider so that we can work together to solve the problems of the postmodern world we live in.
The central point here is a balanced worldview. Objectivity and subjectivity, span and depth, quality and quantity are all simultaneously and interdependently related. I'm not putting down objectivity, quite the opposite. We need objectivity, but we can't have it at the expense of subjectivity, both are two necessary halves of the same ass. When we monopolize one ass cheek over the other, we quite literally go through life half-assed. I for one prefer a full ass, nothing less.
Further posts (in this series) will address each of the aforementioned points in turn and attempt to provide a balanced solution. Who knows, I might even write a book about it.
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