 |
| This has little to do with the article. I'm just plugging Colbert. |
There's a lot I could write about with the primary process underway, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton locking horns, and the Republican field being culled. (I like how Stephen Colbert has called the process the "Hunger for Power Games.") For the record, I would be very disappointed if Bernie Sanders didn't get the Democratic nomination. I think we're about equally Left. However, I don't feel that there's much for me to discuss about the candidates that isn't covered quite well elsewhere, sans the real issues.
I prefer to look at the underpinning issues that determine how somebody will vote. I friend of mine has said that you could predict whether someone is conservative or liberal by their answer to one question: how complicated is life? If they say it's simple, they're conservative. If they say it's complicated, they're liberal. However, I haven't been able to find any research confirming that.
That's true of philosophical matters, like the truth, not just something you say that's true, or logically true, but the Higher Truth. I got into a discussion on Facebook that where a woman argued that the Higher Truth isn't relative. Higher Truth, like complete perfection, a myth, but those are two categories that believers, especially of the conservative stripe, think their religion answers. Simplistic? You betcha.
This was my answer:
Really? First, the term when applied to the entirety of existence is over-broad, like the number 42, if you get the reference. Second, the universe works by probabilistic laws at the quantum level. So, chance and luck are intrinsic to existence. Third, from the smallest scale to the largest, the universe is a chaotic system. Our minds function to find order, or truth, but outside of that niche, they are very poor. (Hit the enter button early. I hate that.) Fourth, even if there is something called "the truth" our senses and our minds are too limited to perceive it, in fact. We are adapted to survive, regardless of the truth. So, what you're saying is mostly false.
A caveat: "the truth" should not be conflated or confused with the word "true," which is always provisional. The former should not be given the inarguable, mathematically sound status of the latter.And her rebuttal was she didn't believe anything of what I said. Do you think she votes conservative, that she insists that her higher truth includes "knowing" a fetus is an unborn baby, and just sacrifice her and other women's reproductive rights without having to prove anything? You betcha. People who "know" there's a higher truth usually feel very entitled due to their knowledge. Even if that entitlement makes their life worse.
It isn't so much that some people believe that there's a higher truth. It's the entitlement it gives them, and the fact that this belief looks very much like plain ignorance compounded with error. That people even cast a argument as higher truth vs. relativism shows that they don't know what they're talking about. Evolutionists have run into this problem with Creationists: how do you argue against something when the premises buried beneath touch on reality only in the most distorted way? I suppose closing your eyes and groping is a simpler process than actually opening your eyes and looking. Aw, but I'm too parallel.
