Getting Discomfortable with Subjectivity: Part 1

Most people believe that Coke tastes better than Pepsi. But a discerning minority of sugar water revolutionaries insist that Pepsi is actually superior to Coke. They claim that Coke’s popularity is merely a product of Coke’s higher advertising budget. And in fact, in most blind taste tests, Pepsi actually wins. But the Coke diehards claim this is only because Pepsi is sweeter than Coke, which is pleasing in the first sip, but nauseating by the last.

So which side is correct? Neither, Dr. Pepper is the best! (Just kidding, I hate Dr. Pepper).

The truth is, there is no right answer to this stupid question because there is no objective, universal truth to taste or personal preference or even to the exact definition of the word “better” in this case. It is all purely subjective. That is, entirely a matter of personal opinion. In fact, most of what we believe is purely subjective. Is democracy better than fascism? Depends who you are, it’s subjective. Is capitalism better than communism? Depends how rich you are, it’s subjective. Liberal vs conservative? Subjective. Vegan vs Carnivore? Subjective. Batman vs Superman. Batman.

It is possible, however, that some of our beliefs aren’t just a matter of personal opinion. Some beliefs could potentially relate to an actual objective truth about the external reality we live in, like the belief that the sun will rise again tomorrow. Unfortunately though, even if what we believe is objectively true, we can never know that it is objectively true because we can never observe our external reality in its entirety. We can’t see into the future, for example. And so, we are trapped in our own bubble of personal subjectivity. In fact, I don’t think we can know anything with objective certainty, except perhaps that we exist right now and maybe 1 + 1 = 2. Then again, that’s just what I believe, which is of course purely subjective.

But more important than what I believe — I think — is why I believe it.

Getting Discomfortable with Conformity

What if I told you that some of your most cherished and deeply held beliefs about the world were actually implanted by a cult that secretly brainwashed you when you were just an impressionable child?

This is the story of my life… and of yours! This is the story of pretty much every human life. The cult is called The Family, and they brainwash us to be just like them.

I wouldn’t be surprised if you find this claim rather hard to believe. After all, the Western world is founded on a proud culture of “individualism”, where we take for granted that our individual beliefs, attitudes, and values are in fact uniquely our own. That they are hard-won, logically deduced positions we have acquired through intentional learning and personal experience. We think that we have consciously chosen our beliefs based on how clearly and rationally superior they must be to every other alternative. If someone disagrees with us, we naturally assume they just aren’t as “smart” as we are. And the fact that most other members of our tribe — our family and friends, our cultural group, and to some extent our entire country — all seem to view the world in more or less the exact same way, is taken as validation that what we believe must be objectively true.

But I think there’s actually a much simpler explanation. We only believe in individualism because everybody else does, which isn’t very individualistic of us after all.

Think about it. As babies, children, and even teenagers, we basically have no clue what’s going on ever, and we require the constant help of our guardians just to stay alive. As infants, we are little more than learning machines, naturally programmed to imitate and emulate our parents, immigrant nannies, siblings, and foul-mouthed uncles. As adolescents, we have to ask “why” like ten hundred thousand times in order to construct our concept of the world. As teens, we have to drink way too much Smirnoff Ice just because our friends tell us to in order to learn what not to do. Basically, we are social sponges in a profound way that other animals simply are not.

Most animals are born with a wide array of powerful genetic instincts. A preprogrammed instruction manual of primal urges that make it possible for horses to stand within 30 minutes of being born, fish to swim immediately out of the bag, and cats to be jerks like right away. But we humans start with little more than a blank slate. Aside from a handful of basic instincts to breathe, cry, and suck titties, we rely almost entirely on the care and direction of adult humans. Or in a pinch, a pack of wolves. Apparently, the unique plasticity of our brains affords us incredible mental flexibility, with a greater capacity to learn and change than any other animal. But it also means that in the absence of a comprehensive set of instincts, we need to fill in the blanks by internalizing the behaviours, beliefs, and attitudes of whoever happens to be around. To quote one of my favourite thinkers, Yuval Noah Harari, from Sapiens (his not so brief ‘brief history of humankind’):

“It takes a tribe to raise a human. Evolution thus favoured those capable of forming strong social ties. In addition, since humans are born underdeveloped, they can be educated and socialized to a far greater extent than any other animal.”

In this way, the subjective ideologies of our caregivers become the building blocks of our reality.

So on the bright side, we aren’t completely controlled by the rigid ancient instincts that keep most animals doing the same boring ass thing every Saturday night. Apparently, between random mutation and natural selection it takes literally one million years to meaningfully alter the instincts, behaviours, and weekend plans of most animals. Yet within a mere generation, humans as a species have the elasticity to adapt to all manner of different environments, situations, cultural or technological revolutions, and Batman reboots. This incredible ability is probably what allowed us to rapidly spread, advance, and dominate the planet. This means that as a species we are uniquely independent. But, ironically, this also implies that as individuals we are way less independent than we think.

While most animals conform to their instincts, we humans have an instinct to conform. This is why advertising is so effective on humans and so ineffective on lions. You can’t convince a lion to willingly go vegan no matter how persuasive your leaflet on animal cruelty is. Lions have been doing the exact same lion shit for as long as we’ve known them. We, on the other hand, have been up to all kinds of crazy different adventures in the exact same time period. In order for human culture and society to have changed so rapidly and broadly, most of us by necessity needed to “keep up with the Joneses” or revolutions like the spread of Christianity, capitalism, or the internet simply would not have caught on. Our incredible human ability to adapt would probably lead to chaos were it not for a strong instinct to conform. This instinct is called shame.

Shame is the rabid guard dog of conformity that says, if you don’t fit in, there must be something wrong with you. You must be different, bad and alone. At risk of being abandoned by society altogether and left for dead. Which feels terrifying in contrast with our other primal instincts, like the deep yearning for human connection, acceptance, validation, and love.

And though we all go through that phase in junior high where we swear never to turn into our stupid, stupid parents, even those oppositional attitudes are still just a reaction to our parents’ ideologies. We naively assume that we are completely independent people because we totally voted for a different politician than our dad. But we don’t realize that the very constructs of our sense of reality are forged in the exact same cultural furnace. We are all still disciples of The Family.

I’m not saying it’s impossible to break through these dogmatic beliefs. I absolutely think it is and I encourage everyone to try. Most of us have already succeeded to some degree — I hope — by exposing ourselves to new cultures, people, and experiences. By pushing our boundaries, scaring ourselves, and trying radical new things, like marijuana and non-monogamy. That said, it would be misguided to think that you could completely overturn every last unconsciously ingrained belief such that you are an entirely self-made man or woman. This in spite of the fact that I personally am trying to do exactly that.

But even if I were to succeed at fulfilling this dream of pure self-actualized individualism, my new beliefs would still be based on my own limited, subjective experience. Which in no way takes into account every possible viewpoint or truth out there in the big wide world. And so no matter how self-aware we think we are, we all have a duty to acknowledge the uncomfortable, yet fundamental truth that our personal belief systems are completely subjective to our cultures and ourselves, and in no way true for everyone else.

Given that we are all naturally, profoundly, and unconsciously brainwashed by the subjective beliefs of our family, culture, and society. And given that there are innumerable different families, cultures, and societies each with different subjective beliefs all forced to interact with one another in our ever-shrinking global village. I think it is high time we acknowledge to one another that none of us really know for sure if what we believe is actually true.

Everything we think we know for certain, everything we base our decision-making and most fundamental beliefs on is nothing more than an ideology. A subjective system of ideas and values that we were born into, or we at very least bought into. And while some of us have put a lot more thought into choosing our own ideology than others, which is great, it’s still just an ideology. And given that it’s just one of many ideologies to choose from and everything is subjective anyway (except maybe math), we cannot claim that our ideology is definitively better or truer than anyone else’s.

Getting Discomfortable with Ideology

Here are some of the subjective ideologies that I took for granted as totally true for most of my life. Being Canadian, I adopted various beliefs connected to my national identity, the main one being that I am not American (despite the fact that Canada is situated in North America). Incidentally, we Canadians are the only nationality that resent being labeled by our continent. This is because we define ourselves largely by what we are not, despite the fact that at this point, ideologically, we probably have more in common with our so-called “American” neighbours than we do with our British ex-landlords. To further muddy the waters, I personally haven’t lived in Canada for over a year and it’s entirely possible that I might fall in love with a cute Russian boy and never return. This in spite of my ingrained ideology that I am a “typical” Canadian.

Being a Millennial working in the arts (or “Xennial” to be exact), my political ideologies skew decidedly left. But coming from a rather uptight waspy family from Alberta, I also have a lot of conservatism and prudishness ingrained in me as well. For example, I’m kind of judgy about guys who post tasteful nudes on Instagram. However, being gay, I will also look at those nudes and secretly enjoy them. The conflicted ideology of my sexuality, based on my own experience, is that I think there is nothing objectively wrong with being gay and therefore believe we deserve equal rights and protections like everyone else. But at the same time, based on the ingrained ideology of junior high, I unfortunately still feel kind of embarrassed walking down the street holding hands with another guy. Which sucks, but is true nonetheless. Furthermore, the fact that I believe anyone deserves “equal rights and protections” at all is itself an ideology of human rights based on my Christian cultural heritage. This in spite of the fact that my personal religious ideology is agnostic at best. I do however have a great deal of faith in the ideology of science. Even though I have no real scientific training, experience, or knowledge to draw from whatsoever.

So, clearly, I have a complex mix of ideologies that sometimes even contradict each other. This is because our beliefs are a highly imperfect blend of conscious decision-making, powerful social pressures, subjectivity, faith, and a whole lot of brainwashing from our youth. And while we are all fairly well versed in our conscious ideologies — those being our chosen or proclaimed belief systems (usually closely tied to our sense of “identity”, like our nationality, politics, religion, and career) — we also have a ton of unconscious ideologies to contend with as well. These are the innumerable beliefs that we didn’t really choose and aren’t even necessarily aware of. These can also include “facts” that we are aware of, but don’t realize are actually just ideological because we take them so for granted as objective truths. Our unconscious ideologies are therefore the hardest to spot because we don’t realize they are even up for debate.

If you want to know what your unconscious ideologies are, which I highly recommend, you can try asking your bitter ex-lover. Or look at the embarrassing behaviour of your family. Or better yet, just interact with anyone from a radically different culture, political group, faith, or nationality — someone who thinks and lives very differently than you do. In short, someone who is not part of your tribe. I think you know who I’m talking about here. It’s those people. The ones you absolutely don’t want to talk to. The people whose views seem so backward and wrong that they sound almost alien or outright insane. Which actually makes perfect sense coming from your perspective as someone raised in a completely different cultural reality.

But the same people who rile us up into heated arguments because we disagree with them so fundamentally are also some of the only people, outside of a therapist, who can help us, even if inadvertently, to recognize exactly what it is that we actually believe — be it conscious, unconscious, logical, illogical, dogmatic, or otherwise. The problem is, we are usually too angry and judgmental in the moment to appreciate how unique, informative, and valuable these cross-cultural exchanges really are. It’s like the exact opposite of your Facebook feed. A chance to understand how the other side actually thinks and reasons. What could be more fascinating? So why is it also so infuriating and intimidating!?

Because shame.

If there’s one thing we all seem to agree on, it’s that we want to uncover the “truth”. The problem is, no one can agree on what the “truth” really is. Despite the sheer subjectivity of our beliefs, we all still attach an incredibly strong value on the ideology of one single, beautiful, golden, shining, flawless, objective truth above all others. We believe this single “truth” is “good”. Therefore anything less must be ignorance or outright lies, which is “bad”. And of course, we all assume that what we believe is obviously closest to the truth, because like, why else would we believe it? Therefore anyone who disagrees with us has to be, by default, ignorant and bad. But perhaps even worse, we know there’s always a chance that we could, in fact, be the ones who are wrong. Which would mean we are the ones who are ignorant and bad. Which is the very definition of shame, the excruciating fear that we are different, bad, and alone.

By adhering to this stubborn binary between “true” and “false”, or “good” and “bad”, we are creating a hierarchical viewpoint, ideologically blinding ourselves to that idea that people could disagree and still be equals. But someone needs to be “right”, we think. And of course, it needs to be us! In this way, any disagreement about our beliefs becomes very dangerous territory. It is nothing less than a subconscious shame battle, a competition to prove that we are “good” and they are “bad”. And what’s worse, contrary to what Twitter seems to think, shame doesn’t actually help people change their minds. Quite the opposite. Shame expert Brené Brown asserts that shame actually just entrenches people deeper into their ideological bunkers. We attach so much of our identity to what we believe in that even exposing ourselves to the possibility of being “wrong” puts our very worth as a human being at risk. And so we invest in our ideologies to the point where we can’t even admit they are ideologies at all.

But the truth is, we are not our beliefs.

In fact, I think all of us need to take a healthy step away from our ideologies and start regarding them with a modest dose of skepticism. To assume—for our own benefit — that anything we believe, no matter how passionately, could be wrong. Imagine how that would change our discourse, especially around politics, religion, and movie reviews. For starters, it cuts shame off at the knees. There’s nothing wrong with being wrong if you admit all along that you could be wrong. It’s a limerick. This acknowledgement naturally creates a distance between your identity and your beliefs, which drains the emotion so that you can assess and discuss your opinions dispassionately. Which in turn makes you that much more open-minded.

By embracing the fact that you could be wrong, you inoculate yourself against the fear of hearing new ideas. A discussion with someone else thus becomes an opportunity to learn. The goal of an argument changes from winning the shame battle, to genuinely trying to understand the other person’s point of view so that you can determine if it actually convinces you. At the same time, you are motivated to articulate your own stance as clearly as possible so that you can accurately compare the two, for the benefit of yourself as much as your “opponent”. It’s conversational utopia!

Imagine going into an argument saying, “First of all, mom, I believe your experiences are just as valid as mine. But your opinion about, say, climate change, seems quite different than my own and I don’t fully understand your thinking. Please explain.” And after you’ve really gotten to the core of what that person believes and why, you can still totally disagree! “Ok mom*, I think I understand where you’re coming from now. And while I appreciate your perspective, based on my own experiences I disagree completely for the following reasons… science.” I know this dialogue sounds cheesy, but I really do believe that some kind of open, respectful, and equal treatment of people’s ideologies is a far more fair, accurate, and advantageous way to approach communication and knowledge in general.

Now, at this moment you might be thinking, wait, what!? Are you saying the opinions of a climate change denier deserve to be treated with the same credibility as, like, a meteorology expert? Well, no, of course not. But also… kind of? Though I am loath to admit it, I have to confess that even my belief in science is subjective. But before you lose your shit and start publicly shaming me for unpopular thinking, please give me a chance to explain myself in the second half of this post, where we get discomfortable with science and faith.

Getting Discomfortable with Subjectivity: Part 2

*For the record, my mother’s not actually a climate change denier, that was just to illustrate a point. But we do often disagree on other crucial issues, like… what music to listen to at family dinners.