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.
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