Objective Reality

“There must be some kind of way outta here” said the joker to the thief

“There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief”

             I never thought I’d see the day where the very existence of an objective reality needed a defense, but apparently, the day is nigh, or long past nigh. It’s a tricky problem, trying to prove the existence of a true “reality.” Not as tricky as proving the existence of God, but curiously a related question.

            Objective reality implies the existence of things that are universal and fixed; independent and unconditional. Take gravity (disclaimer: I am not a physicist). According to modern physics, gravity is a law. It varies according to certain criteria, and while all the mechanisms may not yet be understood, it IS. You don’t get to fly off the Earth just because you don’t believe in it. Moreover, there’s just one gravity for everybody. Gravity operates on you and me in precisely the same manner, to the extent that we occupy the same gravitational space. It doesn’t differ according to our personal characteristics or beliefs or preferences.

            We don’t argue much about gravity, because it’s too esoteric and irrelevant to our daily lives. It’s background stuff. Another kind of reality we tend to accept is order based upon generally agreed rules. Poker, for example. In all the forms of poker of which I am aware, four of a kind beat a full house. That’s one of many rules regarding the game. The rules are absolutes. Games are pointless without rules, and when we join in, we adopt the conventions, however opaque their origins.

             This is where we’ve gotten into trouble. Imagine if someone sat down at your poker game and said, “I’m a disciple of poker guru Baba Rum Raisin. According to the holy Raisin, a flush is a pure form of beauty, and therefore is the best hand in the game.” Normally, we’d all put our guns on the table and ask the stranger to relinquish his seat. But what if, at a table of nine players, four Baba Rum disciples showed up, and of the remaining five players, one was open to considering the alternative (because there are good people on both sides, no?). And that’s the road to Hell we’re skipping down today. 

  Change the reality, change the rules.

            As is so often the case with rules, that hierarchy of poker hands is based on an underlying objective reality – the law of true probability. That is, if you deal an infinite number of random poker hands over infinite time, the weaker hands will appear more frequently than the stronger hands, exactly in the order of their ranking. Many rule systems in life follow a similar sort of order. For its flaws and imperfections, the rule of law is (historically) similarly arranged. Crimes of greater damage and injury carry more severe restrictions and penalties. This system has held up admirably in civilized society, albeit brought low from time to time by fear mongers and fractious politicians and racists of various sorts.

            To repeat, he who would mess with the rules must first rewrite reality.

            It has been ever thus. To accommodate slavery, the founders of our country created the legal fiction that a shanghaied and enslaved African was 3/5s of a human being, and to be counted accordingly in the decennial census. It boggles the mind to wonder how they arrived at that precise fraction, but we need not wonder why. Slavery cannot be justified if all humans are equal in their worth. Deny the reality; change the rules.

            One mechanism by which this is accomplished is false equivalency – the artificial backbone of spineless journalists everywhere. Back a few dozen years ago when I was a journalism major (the wellspring of all my troubles) we were hammered with the idea that you need to present both sides of the story. No one ever said that they must be presented as if they are equally true. When you wrote a story about a person shooting his spouse, you were expected to present it as an allegation, and if you had access to the shooter, you might say that the offender denied shooting anyone. You were not obliged to present an alibi, or discuss the character of the victim, or trace the long and treacly mess of their relationship. That stuff was for the National Enquirer. The journalist’s responsibility is to the facts, in proportion to the evidence for their support.

            Evidence.

            Evidence. What is the evidence? Does the evidence fit with reality, or do we need to alter reality to suit our version of events?

 

See https://climate.nasa.gov

           Which brings us to global climate change. We’ve been warned about it for a long time. Climate change based on carbon dioxide creating a greenhouse effect was first proposed in . . . 2012? No. 1996? No. 1945? No. 18 goddamned 96 – and that was based on even earlier research. We’ve known about this danger for at least 122 years. Just six days ago, NASA cited the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, saying “Scientific evidence for warming of the climate system is unequivocal.” So (wipes his hands), that settles that, eh?

            Hahahahaha. Global climate change just doesn’t work with a business model that deeply depends on the production of greenhouse gases. Ergo, attack the reality. The evidence is unreliable (look at how cold it is today), scientists disagree (false equivalency between 97% of climate scientists and 3% who have no vested reason whatsoever to dissent), it’s a conspiracy by scientists to bring down the capitalist system (because all scientists are libtard snowflakes), maybesobut it’s not manmade (oh well then, bring on the Apocalypse).

            I understand as well as anyone that none are so blind as those who will not see. (I checked and that’s not a religious quote, but it comes close. See Matthew 13:13, Jeremiah 5:21, Isaiah 6:9-10). I’d amend the expression to read, “none are so blind as those who deeply believe.” Because (back to that proof of God question) “belief,” in the final analysis, is the suspension of evidence. And yes, we all have things we believe, and who cares if they are real? Belief is a comfort, after all.

            In 1951, a longshoreman named Eric Hoffer wrote a book titled “The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements.” Hoffer understood all too well the power of belief and its ability to transcend rational thought. “The True Believer” is a roadmap for our current chaos – the discontent of the “new poor” (e.g., former middle class), the tribal and identity politics, the glorification of the past and future and depreciation of the present, the unifying power of hatred. “(T)he ideal devil is a foreigner,” Hoffer says (p. 93). You may think that guy in the White House is a madman, and perhaps he is, but someone close to him has read Hoffer’s book.

            Blind allegiance to a belief system is fine when the faith expressed is of a positive New Testament sort, the goodness of man, the kindness of strangers, love for the poor and dispossessed, etc. It helps if there’s a certain consistency in the system, for example, IF people don’t believe in murdering fertilized human eggs THEN maybe they should also draw the line at abusing children and executing convicts. Herein lies the failure of American Evangelicals. As Michael Gerson (himself an Evangelical) explains, the movement lacks an organizing theory of social action, or any of those “if-then” kind of rules. They fill the vacuum by subscribing to the sources who are “currently defending, and exploiting, them. . . . Fox News and conservative talk radio.” (See Gerson, here).

Fox News, their talk radio allies and enablers in D.C. politics are trying to rewrite reality on a broad scale. Legitimate journalism is “fake news,” traitorous criminals are the victims of “witch hunts,” despotic leaders are deified. The new rules likely to follow are a reason to despair. 

            In North Carolina today, the alt-right legislature has proposed six constitutional amendments. Two of these are designed to realign the three branches of state government: to sap power from the executive branch and hand it over to the legislature. The first of these deprives the Governor of appointment power to replace judges (thus further politicizing the judiciary). The second shifts appointments for 400 boards and commissions to the right wing super-majority in our House and Senate. A third proposal caps income tax at 7%. This has two effects: It permanently deprives our public schools of adequate funding, and it transfers the tax burden to the poor, students, retirees, etc. in the form of sales tax. The fourth is a darkly veiled attack on Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose, masquerading as a poisonous “victim’s rights” pastry, complete with a name in the icing: “Marsy’s Law.” Among other features, it would allow a rapist to challenge his victim’s decision to abort. Another “guarantees” hunting and fishing rights, that is, it sweeps aside environmental and game management regulations. The final amendment would require voters to produce ID – a proven system for suppressing Black (likely Democrat) voters. There’s a frantic effort underway by Carolina lawmakers to shield voters from knowing anything more about these amendments other than their titles. Five previous governors (including the legislature’s former personal puppet, Pat McCrory) have come out in opposition to these “reforms.”

Kevin Siers, Charlotte Observer

            I have no prediction about how things are going to go, near or far term. I do know that I fell for the “it will all be better after the election” nonsense in 2016, and I’m not on board with the optimists today. I think I’m going to stick with reality. It’s gotten me this far (so far so good), and rarely disappoints.

Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth

None of them along the line know what any of it is worth

“All Along the Watchtower,” Bob Dylan, 1967