Do you think objectivity really exists?
I mean, really exists. Is it possible to be truly objective in any given situation? Especially when asked to be objective, it seems nearly impossible to be so.
Here's why I think this is true. My Shakespeare class got me thinking about this. We did response writings last week and I was writing about how Shakespeare is almost never read and/or viewed objectively--there is always a context surrounding our experience of Shakespeare which then affects every experience we have with Shakespeare from that point on. Maybe you saw Leonardo DiCaprio in Romeo & Juliet, and you loved him, so therefore you loved the film. Or maybe you didn't love him, so you didn't love the film. The point is that you didn't really experience Romeo & Juliet. You carried a lot into the viewing of that particular motion picture having to do with things other than the actual script. (And I'm not singling you out--this is the collective you to which I refer...)
The point is this: I doubt whether at this stage in my life I will ever be able to experience anything from an objective viewpoint. In the last 25 years I've had enough experiences that lie in deep recesses of my brain that can be triggered by any number of outside influences. Take Shakespeare again--I can't read Romeo & Juliet without thinking of my freshman English teacher since that's whose class in which I read the play for the first time. All of it--everything--has associations that may not be in our consciousness at any given moment, but can be triggered, which is why I am playing with this idea that we truly live life in context. I don't know if in our own personal lives we can ever take something "out of context", for we don't forget circumstances or experiences that easily.
Maybe the amnesiac can be objective. Or Jason Bourne. But the rest of us? Are we capable of making objective decisions? I don't know for sure.
I, personally, seem incapable of objectivity. Subjectivity, on the other hand, makes every experience interconnected with another...so that my life's context becomes as intricate as a spider web.
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4 comments:
Really good blog! Without context, how would we mature or know we have matured? I don't think we would ever want to be truly objective in our life. It takes the beauty and complexity out of everything.
-rachel
Life is a spider web, we often get entangled in it's self. It's better than it being a un-cola to drink up! Old commercial, sorry.
Good to read something that is thought provoking as your blog. It brings up an old argument on how a person is created is it their environment, experiences, or genetics. But that's a whole other web we weave!
I am capable of being objective but more often than not I choose not to be.
If I have a decision or choice to make often times looking at things objectively, or 'from both sides,' would lead me to make choices or decisions I would prefer not to.
I might actually have to admit someone else is right - or even worse that I am wrong - how scary is that?
Your post was really long and I saw some big words. So I didn't read it. But I'm glad other people did.
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