On the Objective and Subjective
We live in an age when subjectivity is adored as an idol.
Sadly, this adoration is merely a logical error, simple enough to rectify, but one which will rarely if ever be rectified, because subjectivity makes every man’s own, personal willpower into a god.
If truth is subjective, then you and you alone can define what is your truth, and all attempts to instruct or correct your errors can be dismissed and dodged as insidious forms of oppression.
Likewise, if virtue is subjective, then God is a tyrant, and all things are permitted.
Likewise, if beauty is subjective, God is ugly, no dignity need be granted the works of our ancestors, and no tastes need be cultivated: whatever produces momentary pleasure is called beautiful, or virtuous, or true, and any sort of logic or consistency need not be regarded.
In such a world, Gollum who cannot eat the elfin waybread, or see the glorious sunlight, without tasting ashed or weeping tears of pain, is a gourmet and aesthete equal to any other.
This doctrine cloaks itself in the concept of equality so near and dear to Enlightenment thinkers, but it feeds the satanic arrogance of the Nietzschean realm that lies beyond good and evil, in the dry and pathless wasteland of mental and moral anarchy.
Anarchy, true enough, makes every man a king equal to every other. But the drawback is that anarchy is anarchic, and all crimes are allowed.
Subjectivism creeps into three portals: truth, virtue, and beauty.
Since beauty is a thing that touches the soul directly, and is grasped by the reason only indirectly, awkwardly, or not at all — for what is sublime is inexpressible — it is the most vulnerable to the attack, and the first to go.
That beauty is in the eye of the beholder is so commonplace an idea that we have a simple slogan to say so.
It is, however, a false idea, for if it were true there could be no such thing as every man as he ages will experience, namely, a growth or evolution in his tastes and in his ability to appreciate beauty in nature or in art.
There would be no such thing as primitive or developed standards of art in history, no such thing as perspective in drawing, proportion in architecture, polyphony in music.
Subjectivism requires that all these developments, a change for the better, lower to higher on a ladder, be merely changes, right to left on a flat plane. The Venus de Milo, by this logic, is not better nor worse than Venus of Willendorf.
As for an argument about that, pictures are more persuasive than words:
Now, I have nothing personal against the Venus of Willendorf, but if nothing else, the craftsmanship is inferior to that of the Venus de Milo.
Of course, the image is also less beautiful, and an honest eye would see that, even if one’s personal preferences and disposition inclined one to prefer the more primitive, is it, in fact, more primitive. It does not convey the sublime beauty of the female form as well.
The distinction must be made between the beauty in the object of art or nature and the subjective reaction or taste which may or may not be able or willing or in the mood to appreciate that beauty at any given time.
If the slogan “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” has any meaning at all, it means that one’s personal preferences and dispositions are unaccountable.
It does not mean dance hall music is no worse than symphony music, nor that some symphonies are not better or worse than others.
It is usually taken to mean this, but that, obviously, is illogical, because it implies that the matter admits of no standards at all. If it means anything, it means that some men, or some men at a given hour, are in the mood for dance music, not for a symphony, or have never cultivated a taste for it.
This means taste is subjective. It does not mean beauty is subjective.
A Christian, for better or worse, does not have the latitude to dismiss all talk of beauty as subjective, because he believes in God, who is the source of all truth, virtue, and beauty, and who forms the absolute standard against which all such things are measured, each in its own way.
It is noteworthy that those who speak of subjectivity in beauty, if asked about any work of art or popular entertainment liked or disliked will give objective reasons for the preferences. Rarely will one be heard to say, “I like this movie because and only because the main character reminds me of my father, whom I love” — which is a subjective reason to like a movie. More often he will say, “I like this movie because the main character is manly, bold, courageous, and protects the weak, and these virtues are admirable.”
The confusion arises because between the subjective and the objective is a region of consensus, things that are true because and only because a community of people have agreed and decreed it to be so. For example, everyone of any race or generation whose childhood memories of his father including a manly, bold, and protective figure, will most likely admire the heroic and tragic portrayals of Adam in Milton’s PARADISE LOST, or Hector in Homer’s ILIAD, to say nothing of Superman from DC comics.
In the realm of virtue, for example, there are principles embodied in the Golden Rule (of which all civilized societies, Christian or pagan, have some variant) which apply to all situations, but there are also laws that admit of exceptions when principles conflict, and there are courtesies and customs of right behavior which apply only by consensus.
Now, in the same way that beauty can be conflated with one’s personal preference and dispositions, so, too, can virtue be conflated with either the customary cultural expressions of those virtues, or with one’s personal preference and disposition.
An obvious example is modesty, which is a virtue in all civilized nations and generations, but the modest European maiden will cover her breasts if surprised in the nude by the gaze of a stranger, whereas the Mohammedan will cover her face.
This does not mean that modesty is subjective, nor that modesty is not a virtue. It means only the priorities placed on its expression, or the specific symbolic acts or modes of dress used to express it, differ from culture to culture and religion to religion.
And, again, it is noteworthy that those who speak as if some cultures were not more primitive nor civilized than others, as if all cultural advancements in virtue were merely expressions of taste, no one better nor worse than another, will immediately drop this pretense if asked about vices such as racism, slavery, conquest, or irresponsible mishandling of the environment.
Even the act of saying virtue is subjective logically presupposes that virtue is objective. The thing would not be discussed except in an honest discussion, one where both speaker and listener act with integrity, exchanging words both take on credit will be true, that is, honestly spoken and honestly believed. But if virtue is a matter of personal taste, then it is no vice to be dishonest, because there is no vice at all.
By the same token, acting virtuously whether or not it is enjoyable or rewarding to do so, is what makes an act objectively virtuous rather than merely an act of hedonism or self interest. Those who say that virtue is merely pleasure seeking rightly understood or self interest rightly understood render the matter subjective to one’s own pleasure or interest, but, as we have already shown, this is illogical, because, as above, speaking a statement because it serves the speaker’s pleasure or interest rather than because it is honest and true offers the listener no sound reason to heed it. The conversation cannot take place at all, unless speaker and audience tacitly concur that the virtue of honesty, if nothing else, is objective and has imperative moral force.
Again, the faithful Christian has no latitude for a difference of opinion on this point: virtue is established from eternity by the will and nature of God, and is not a human invention.
Finally, truth is often dismissed as subjective in the modern day, by an argument so much more obviously illogical than arguments about virtue and beauty that a single sentence sums all that need be said on the matter: a statement that there is no truth, if true, is false.
If one has a personal preference that a truth is inconvenient, annoying, or exasperating, this does not mean that truth is untrue, nor that it varies from man to man, or from generation to generation. It means one is a Son of Adam or Daughter of Eve. Welcome to the human race: we dwell in a valley of tears.
Why, then, if no logical argument can be made for the subjectivity of beauty, virtue, or truth, is the matter everywhere noised abroad, and all sermons and stories in our modern generation carry this message?
Most of this is mere wickedness in high places. Read the biographies of the philosophers and leaders who have led the modern generation into the dry and pathless wastelands of aesthetic, moral and intellectual anarchy. I suggest the book INTELLECTUALS by Paul Johnson as a good place to start.
The short version is that the typical modern intellectual dismisses the idea of objectivity in order to dismiss God in order to quiet the pangs of consciences, to allow them the excuse to sleep with whores and die of syphilis.
While their degenerate moral character does not prove their protestations of atheism or subjectivism are untrue or illogical necessarily, its should prompt a judicious eye toward and clear minded skepticism when it comes to the modern freethinkers arguments and rhetoric.
As for the positive case for objectivism in truth, virtue and beauty, the matter is self evident, if given clear definitions.
I humbly propose the following:
If the things said of the object depend on the will or disposition of the observer regardless of the object, it is subjective, that is, it is subject to him.
If the things said of the object are the same regardless of observer, it is objective.
Now, by this definition, if two observers disagree because of a flaw in the perception or a lapse in judgment or lack of knowledge in one of them, then these things depend on the lapse in the observer, not on the object, and hence are subjective.
Hence a man who prefers pie to cake, since this is a matter of taste where there is no right or wrong, is uttering a subjective statement over which there can be no discussion. Likewise for a man who prefers nursery rhyme music to Schiller’s Ode to Joy. A man’s preferences are his own. But a man who says that Schiller’s Ode to Joy is inferior to nursery rhyme music is objectively mistaken due to his tastes being untrained.
Such a man says “because and only because it is not to my taste, it is inferior” is making a logical error, for he is saying “It is objectively inferior to me, according to my subjective preferences and disposition.”
He might as well say, “”because and only because the conclusion of your line of reasoning is not to my taste, it is untrue” is making a logical error, for he is saying “It is not ‘true’ to me, according to my subjective opinion and disposition.”
Which, if true, is not true.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
