Wednesday, July 13, 2005
On Friday, I took the pathetically easy Regent's Exam. It was so easy that on the reading comprehension section, I already knew all of the words that I was supposed to have to try to figure out the definition of from context. When I looked at the essay topics to choose from, I really didn't care for any of them buy I ended up picking one that said basically "why do you or don't you vote?" Hoping that they wouldn't choose to give me a bad note on it for not directly answering the question, I chose instead to examine why I think people in general vote. The thesis to my treatise was that people vote to satisfy a psychological need for perceived control over their own lives. I distinguished between small group voting (pragmatic) and large group voting (ideological) as well as the hybrid forms that are generated in close races. I theorized that, even though in most cases a single vote in a large group election has no meaningful value, the voter was able to satisfy the need for control by making the symbolic gesture of placing the vote. There was more to it, but that should be enough explanation for what I really want this post to be about.
I was thinking about the need for accurate objective truth. I was thinking how lack of knowledge or understanding of occurrences or ideas often holds me and probably others back from progression. For the sake of argument, I'll leave a definition of progression as a subjective exercise for the reader since I'm about to propose a denial of objectivity which would render any general definition of progression invalid. I thought about all of my theories and wonderings about the cause and effect relationships that have led me to where I am now and my preoccupation with the historic chain. My initial thought was that since the past is gone and nobody really knows the answers of what I thought or did or had happen to me while younger, I will never really know the answers to the questions. I've had several theories of my own or proposed to me by others that seem to fit the equations well enough but I lack enough memory to substantiate or disprove any of them. So, the clincher: why not just accept one of them as "true" regardless of objective history so that I can move on? I seem to have some psychological need to satisfy that by objective means cannot be satisfied, yet if I could just get myself to accept as "true" one of the various theories then I could move on. Assuming that personal identity is at least in part a sum total of the past, my life would go in different directions based on these "incorrect" historical ideas, but at least it would move.
Now, suppose all questions that cannot and will not be answerable were just answered with lies. Suppose that somehow we as humans were able to achieve a numbness and detachment from objectivity in these cases. Not only a detachment from objectivity, but also a detachment from their answer. Suppose one could assume they had been abused or that a spouse had cheated on them or that their parents were murdered or any host of big or small things but just have peace from it because their question was "answered", yet somehow escape from having the emotional repercussions of that "realization" or desires for revenge. Just fill the need and float on.
In this strange universe, truth would be not necessarily what "objectively" happened in "reality" but based instead on the satisfaction of psychological needs which were seen as impeding on life.
One might worry that the sycophant or religious leaders would propose the "answers" for everything as they do now and spin our strange universe into oblivion, however, in my conception of it, the individual would choose or come up with an explanation which satisfied his or her needs.
I'm sure it is flawed and would need more hashing out to even make sense of it, but it caught my fascination because it suggests an alternate but equally valid "truth" depending on the goal of the individual. My worldview really focuses on the idea of the goal-oriented universe. What is right or wrong for a person seems entirely dependent on his or her individual goal. Although I have trouble accepting the idea that lying to oneself about a critical historical event in his or her life may be right, the idea is strangely appealing as a valid last-resort solution to impeding but unsolvable personal dilemmas.