Kindness and Objectivity/Hostility and Opportunism

First of all, what I mean by objectivity is really the practice of committing to the attempt to discern what is real. Perhaps the noun ‘objectivity’ doesn’t quite mean that. Objectivity becomes an abstraction or even a word for something that cannot exist, and that when it is used, connotes a person who is arrogant and unable to reckon with the impossibility of absolute accuracy.

On the other hand, to me the word ‘objectivity’ simply suggests the process described above: clearly uncertainty always obtains, clearly probability is all we have. However, we are, in terms of math, of physics, of technology, able to be far more accurate than we ever were prior to, as a result of increased technology and knowledge, having been forced to concede that we cannot be absolutely accurate.

We go towards truth.

If we hypothesize that truth exists, though we cannot discern it perfectly, we can then recognize, as they say, the journey, and respect it in terms of the degree to which one (or another) has progressed toward a probable scenario.

So, let us say we have a sample person who is inclined to obsessively examine the world, ever curious, ever eagerly testing his phenomenological archive. I’m postulating that such a person is going to exhibit less of a tendency to see selectively than a person who, perhaps because he has failed to embrace the unifying hypothesis I mentioned, does not invest in the pursuit of truth. This lonely individual must seek succor from triumph, from acquisitions, from manon, having very little context within which to trust information received from others. When he has an opinion, he thinks of it as legitimate because it exists. When another has an opinion with which he doesn’t concur, he thinks of it as irrelevant to him, because he has his own opinion. To each his own, a hapless phrase.

The person who sees (willingly) selectively blinds himself to the level of empathy which requires a deep identification with the other. It frightens him, for he has no basis for trust. He does not benefit from cooperation or from anything collective. He is afraid of being overrun, whether by others or by his own emotion.

Therefore, he cannot be authentically kind. He may relate better to animals, having, with them, no need to experience the kind of trust that socialized human interaction requires.

To elaborate a little on the Hostility/Opportunism side: if temptation or profound need is encountered, the probability of rationalizing an action in order to take unfair advantage of a situation increases. In conjunction with this, the perp is likely to foment hostility toward his victim. And, of course, resentment, legitimate or not, may be the genesis of a propensity to be opportunistic.

I’ve described two paradigms. One is the inverse of the other, and they form a kind of moebius strip. Or they seem to; functionally they are all connected, though morally, intellectually, and in order to have our species act constructively (and survive) a clear definition of these two sets of links, and a recognition of the polarity between them, is crucial.