Perceiving Lines1
by Derick Varn
Watching business reports on the evening news and drinking heavily has taught me one thing: perception is the key to everything. This is nothing particularly original about this sentiment nor does it justify the bullshit statement: “the only thing that is true is that nothing is true.”2 This “paradox”3 that is often spread by layman philosophers and liberal arts students4 really bugs me to no end. Still, it does not lead me to accept that “truth” and “fact” are related in the way we deal with “reality.”5 “Reality” is shaped by our reactions to it–on both a subjective and an objective level.
Another example of this can be seen in the stability of banks.8 If there is a rumor that a bank is unstable, the public will start to withdraw in mass amounts, thus causing the bank to pay stuff out faster than it can collect loan payments to payout. This will eventually cause a bank to be unstable and fold. The perception of the “truth” making a rumor become a reality.9
If you really need more examples: just think of any romantic or sexual relationship. Within a relationship, there are all kinds of perceived “realities” that one party sees one ways and the other sees completely differently.10 The “reality” of the relationship is rarely seen the same way by the two in it. Think about it for a second and I am sure, you will remember at least one time with you and your significant other both have conflicting ideas that you held as “truth.”11
The whole battle of subjectivism verses objectivism12 seems rooted in two things: a rare extreme hiding behind adjectives in order to protect our precious egos13 and how we, as a culture, will perceive the universe. It’s a battle over control of the way our culture will view reality. In that way it is can get as dogmatic and irrational as the crusades for the holy land.14 Variations of this argument sprawl out into things as varied the battle of cyberspace relations–“perceived” relations opposed to “real” or “person to person” relationships15–to whole creationism vs. evolutionism/big bang spiel.16
The span of this argument does not say anything of its validity, which is why I wrote this article in the first place.17 The battle seems either completely asinine or really stupid. All it seems to do is separate the intellectuals into more camps that distract from any understanding of the way humans respond and react to the world, while encouraging further separation between the arts and the sciences.
I may be on a moralistic kick,18 but my point is simple. Allow others the perceive the world as they will, because we are stronger through our collective perception than looking from through one colored lens.19 So lets all just try to give up on this “reality” thing: there is an objective universe, but I doubt we’re ever going to completely understand it.20 Until then, we only have a few “facts” and our various visions to hold this hold mess.21
Footnotes
1. A minor opus with those annoying David Foster Wallace/Mark Danielewski style footnotes. I know this is a pretentious choice that will probably irk a good number of my readers to no end; however, the benefit of being a writer is that those who would normally lynch do not know your exact location. Since your possible dislike of me is merely perceived and not acted (or attacked) upon, I don’t fear death at the hands of the annoyed.2. The fact I even included that line of sophist crap nauseates me. There is a story I have about a girlfriend that used to quote that all the time. Needless to say, I deemed myself an objectivist until we broke up. I somehow forced down a few Ayn Rand philosophy books just to upset her. In retrospect, she’s a sweet girl, but I couldn’t take that damned saying. I once told her not to eat and just believe she was not hungry just before dinner. It cost me some sex and possibly a relationship, but it was damn funny at the time.
3. A paradox is defined as:
Thus, it can be safely implied that the statement: “the only thing that is true is that nothing is true” is not a paradox unless you ignore the meaning of truth. Truth defined as
Since something cannot be itself and not be itself without a lot of abstraction on the perceiver’s part, it’s a statement that is more a misunderstanding of words than a true “paradox.”
4. You know the type, Derrida amateurs who barely put anyway their video games to pick up books on pomo french philosophy and drank expensive coffee. I know them, because I was one of them. It’s embarrassing really.
5. I choose to use quotes around these abstract terms because they are abstracts. I tend to find these sort of assertions of “truth” and “reality” as arbitrary due to the lack of a common definition that does not also use similar abstracts. Leads me to think that there is a conspiracy to keep abstract words completely out of the realm of practically understandable.
6. Fait being used here as an economists’ term for money that does not exist outside the promise of it’s worth by the government and the paper it is printed on. There is nothing backing the paper that physically exists and has social or practical value outside of the government, such as gold or salt or land which would still be valuable if our economic system failed or our Federal Reserve mysteriously blew up . Since the mid-1970's, all money in America has been fait money, because the government quit backing the money with gold. This has led the theories of Tyler Durden in Fight Club–“no credit, no wealth, no society” or something akin to it.
7. Nothing aside from fire fuel or toilet paper.
8. This simplistic argument I stole from the villain, Cosmo, in the movie, Sneakers. Please forgive both it’s clichéd understanding of the world orders and its rather banal, pop culture origins. I mean, it came from a villain named Cosmo, what do you expect?
9. The stock market and highschool popularity both work on the same system which leads me to wonder why we even bother. It seems that antipathy would protect our resources from crumbling under the weight of perception, thus making our current social antipathy economically sound.
10. This includes every thing from lying about previous lovers to faking an orgasm to lying about the way lover looks when going on a date.
11. It’s absolutely horrifying how many times this has happened to me. When you put that factor into consideration, your ex’s don’t seem so evil. Well, at least, it was that way for me.
12. Okay, here are those evil abstracts and adjectives again. I never really understood the whole objectivist vs. subjectivist battle. It makes no more sense than the science vs. religion vs. art thing. I suppose academics have to the lines in the sand even though there is really no beach in the first place.
13. We are all guilty of identity politics. Over a pizza, when I was panning over rather or not I was an intellectual or an “street” artist–a friend reminded me to “fuck that shit. Adjectives don’t make a person.” I am also reminded of good advice my creative writing professor gave me “don’t trust adjectives when a noun or a verb would be more honest.” Black/white, rich/poor, academic/blue collar, subjectivist/objectivist are essentially poor attempts to make adjectives equal noun-level identity.
14. Pardon the clichéd comparison. I know this is along the same vein as comparing the USA to the Roman Empire. It may be accurate, but it’s tired. Still, I think the hyperbole of this comparison helps us realize that this argument definitely has a religious nature to it. You could beat me for my pseudo-scholarship, if you knew were I was (see footnote 1).
15. I once read an article in a web-based ‘zine where someone predicted that online infidelity would do everything from increase the divorce to (when coupled with virtual reality) do anyway with the need for “traditional” (i.e. physical) sex. I couldn’t stop laughing as I read this.
16. Despite all the arguments to the contrary, since even the big bang theory does not explain the beginning of everything (just the beginning of this phase of the universe), and cannot be proven completely. Although the evidence that does exist is overwhelmingly in favor of science here, true origins are not established because the origin of the infinitely dense mass at the beginning of time can not be explained. However, neither can the origins of “god” within most religious theology. So this is not a battle over fact, but a battle over perception.
17. This is an admittedly trite article inspired over my frustration dealing a creationism vs evolution debate after some friend of mine asked me how I ignored facts since I actively choose art (writing and painting) over science (I had once planned to be an anthropologist). He then preceded to call me a Luddite because I was siding with protestors at the G8 summit. I told him to read “Is it okay to be a Luddite?” by Thomas Pynchon in The New York Times Book Review, 28 October 1984.
18. I give you this definition as I step up on my soapbox. Moralistic can be defined as
19. Sorry, another cliché. I probably should be shot by this point.
20. However, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.
21. The end, now you perceive me . . . now you don’t.
Derick Varn is a poet and longstanding contributor to Unlikely Stories. Check out his literary works at this site.