Two Realities Tangled Within One Country: The Demise of A Society

Every society has governing principles that maintain order within that society.    These principles establish standards, provide methods for resolving disputes, and protect certain rights.   The specific details of these principles will be based on underlying values that the individuals within that society share or have decided are ones that should be respected and honored.  Without that agreement and respect for the laws and common standards of conduct, lawlessness likely prevails and the society fails. 

This country was founded on values that are primarily Western and Judeo-Christian and that include a value in the individual, in a work-ethic, independence, and respect for others, both like and different.  These values are reflected in laws that protect the individual and which demand from the individual a responsibility for both self and society.  Similar requirements and protections appear in religious law and even in modern western philosophers such as Ayn Rand who recognized a morality that is objective, absolute, and secular and has life as the basis of its value.  Our society does not demand that we all think or act alike or that we hold the same beliefs or pray to the same God, but it does demand that we all respect this shared belief in the value of the individual.

Further, this society has chosen to use objectivity as a standard for judging violations of our governing principles.  This standard of objectivity has been codified within our laws.  Hence, when there is an alleged violation of one of our codified standards, we go through a process designed to make sure that any judgement on that allegation is rendered as fairly as possible.  This includes investigations, demands for untainted evidence, sworn testimony, and substantial proof before punishment or compensation for injury.  It takes place within a judicial structure and not in the court of public opinion.

This objective standard exists because this society has recognized an underlying and important value of objective truth, in part as a way to protect the individual.  This is a truth based on facts and evidence.  While reaching the perfect objective Truth may be an ideal, this society has made it aspirational to come as near as possible to that truth.  We have chosen to seek that truth using tools of the mind – such things as logic and reason.  And, while we also value tempering judgments with compassion and understanding, our legal system, the reflection of our societal values, is based upon facts and objectivity.

This reality has worked well for this country and within it we have been able to evolve and succeed.  All members of the society do not always agree (nor should they) but we have agreed to live within and play by the same core societal standards.

But, now, a critical mass within this country has decided that those standards of behavior do not work for them and that they therefore will play by different rules; rules with which the entire society does not agree.  We have a second reality sharing space with the original reality of this country.

The new reality values a different truth:  Narrative Truth.  This is not evidence or fact based, but outcome based.  It says that one can ignore objectivity if it gets in the way of one’s narrative.  The narrative seeks a goal that has subjectively been determined to be “good” by some number of people. 

In the narrative truth reality, cases, violation of laws and our societal standards are tried not using the objective rational of our judicial processes, but in the court of emotion and public opinion.  This Truth sees little value in accepting decisions based on actual evidence that do not further its proposed narrative.  Rather than accept logical, fair, and final decisions and move on, those valuing Narrative Truth will continue to fight in the hope of remaking the narrative to the result they prefer.

Hence, we saw those of the narrative based persuasion argue that the lack of evidence did not matter when they wanted to find Justice Kavanaugh guilty of sexual abuse while able to ignore actual recorded evidence of sexism or bias by Joe Biden whom they may need for an upcoming narrative.   We see people determine guilt or innocence based on immediate reaction and emotion rather than evidence in occasions of violence including police shootings and arrests.  We have the Democrats refusal to accept the Mueller investigation’s conclusion and indeed, even their refusal to accept the valid results of the 2016 election. We see people ignoring crimes or bad acts when to call someone out on those acts would weaken a narrative. 

The narrative Truth is more concerned with the goals or needs of the narrative than it is with the goals of objectivity in order to protect all members of the society.  This combines with a more general replacing of the respect for life and value of the individual with the value of self and State combined with disregard for individual others.  There is an importance upon self and immediate gratification leading to an acceptance of violence, death, and self-destruction. 

We hear people called liars, we hear the term “fake news” and other epithets about the reality of which we are not a part.  But for members of each reality, their world is indeed right.  Hence, for example, when a narrative that all women must be believed is a core of those who value a Narrative Truth, the value of a person’s innocence without evidence to the contrary is irrelevant.  Their narrative truth that an innocent person can be guilty if a narrative demands it is consistent with their values and principles.  It is right for them, but very wrong for those living in a reality that values objective Truth.

NYC Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza recently gave a presentation about “white supremacy” culture.  A graphic from Carranza’s lesson explained that “objectivity” is a negative concept “because it can lead to the belief that there is an ultimate truth and that alternative viewpoints or emotions are bad.  Teachers were instructed to reject “objectivity,” and “written documentation” along with “perfectionism” as part of the Chancellor’s effort to “dismantle racism.” Carranza identified these values as tools of the “white-supremacy culture.”

Perhaps they are, perhaps they are not.   But objectivity and written documentation have long been valued by the American culture.  Other cultures (and seemingly the Chancellor as well) have other values. 

For another example, a video from a Mosque in Michigan recently reportedly showed the Imam educating students about the role of “wife-beating”:  it should be conducted in a way that does not cause serious pain or any red markings and as a reminder to the woman that she “misbehaved in cases when words (of admonishment) do not make her change her ways.”

This was spoken from a cultural standpoint that accepts this standard of behavior.  The point here is not to judge it right or wrong, but to demonstrate that there are many different value structures.  Each significantly different structure will result in a different set of societal principals.  It underscores the point that all societal rules are subjective and are dependent upon the underlying values, morals, and mores of the particular society.  What is wrong for one may be very right for another. 

For a society to function, the members must accept the core standards of the society.  Without that collective support, a society will ultimately weaken and fail.  When two realities share space, when one tries to supplant the other, things do not go well.  Each will fight, often to the death, for its own survival.

That is very much what is happening today in America: two realities, one country housing two societies with very different guiding principles.  We certainly do not follow one another’s guiding philosophies and mores, despite double speak claiming that we all support the same principles.

Every day we see the Left refuse to accept legal decisions and processes simply because they do not like them.  They weaken our country not only by not supporting its core principles, but also by vocally asserting that those principles and the actions taken under them are both wrong and unjust.  They signal to the world that America is no longer united and that our society is thus less strong and more open to attack.

One cannot have both a culture of life and a culture of death, nor a culture of objective Truth and one of narrative Truth.  They form the basis for two very different societies.  They cannot co-exist.

We whine, complain, try to fix this or that overt symptom, but what we really need to do is honestly accept and face the fact that we are living with two realities fighting for the same space, each trying to destroy the other. 

I would argue that while the Right still favors a Democratic and Capitalist Republic which values the individual, the work ethic, and personal responsibility, that the Left more values the State, the collective, and either a pure Democracy which is simply mob rule, or some form of State sponsored Dictatorship which denies the value of the individual.

So, here we are. There may be some sort of middle ground, but that would require an open, fair, and honest discussion of what is and what is not negotiable within each reality’s value system.  Such a discussion, of course, requires a respect for the other, something that the Left’s philosophy does not seem to include.   Yet, if we cannot find core beliefs and standards to govern our society, then we must accept that we are no longer one country, that reconciliation is not possible, and move forward to face how to deal with that situation.