7 min read · Oct 12, 2021
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Or vice versa. And meaning: Objective or Subjective?
A meme was portraying two observers looking at a symbol: “6” or “9”
Numbers are symbols that have the meaning that is appropriate at the time they are perceived. The things about this symbol that are concrete are the curves and geometry of the shape. The meaning is not objective, but is assigned by the perceiver.
Some people say that this is the case with EVERYTHING in our holographic universe.
Sure, any person has to deal with understanding their own personal basis of perception conscientiously. Observing a 6 or a 9 is one thing. What might we observe for an individual who has assumed autocratic power? One context brute force, perhaps rendered with high levels of skill, has traditionally led to distortions of self-perception, as with Alexander the Great´s being assassinated at 32 years of age after drinking the cup of Iolla, his cupbearer and son of an official worried about Alexander´s whims. There was Alexander, who had advanced with his Macedonian Greek forces into India, and was back at Babylon. Among various details, he had dismissed and summoned a governor, Antipater, who might have been concerned about his life based on Alexander´s previous dealings with some people. Antipater´s son Iolla was Alexander´s cupbearer, in fact. Thus, Alexander the Great´s self-perception of autocratic military greatness was undermined by his apparent inability to inspire stability and then, perceive treachery.
It´s interesting to recall Alexander´s encounter with the Gordian Knot at the Phrygian palace in Gordium, under the Persian Empire at that time in the 330s BC/E. The oracle at Telmissus had originally prophecied and commanded events that led to the ox-cart being tied with an elaborate knot. Another oracle later prophesied that the person able to undo the knot would conquer all of Asia.
In a similar vein, that of “might makes right,” “science” is among the most notable of distorted viewpoints, along with the US-led model of corporate executive profiteering business. Might doesn´t make right, yet it´s not merely individual subjectivity that ´s involved. That ultimately is the significance of psychosomatic medicine and transpersonal psychology. Breaking that down in conceptual analysis, the phrase “might makes right” often reflects the manner in which physical force directed by an individual wields objective, irresistible force. Subjective, individual alternative views, however, shift that objectivity. In the Old Testament, little David son of Jesse and a shepherd bravely faces the giant of a man the Philistine warrior Goliath with his sling and some rocks. In that context, the concept of “might makes right,” like other natural principles such as “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” was in fact in operation. David´s victory over Goliath didn´t turn the Philistine´s into followers of Moses and the Jewish God Yahweh. Within the Hebrew culture, however, scholar Huston Smith points out that in the Biblical record, Elijah became a pioneering prophet of God for social justice. Elijah stood up to King Ahab and Queen Jezebel to declare their vicious acts. The prophet was then led to escape unharmed, under miraculous circ*mstances.
It is with Jesus later that “might alone doesn´t make right” gains a very convincing context. Socrates´ experience as a moral philosopher is another case worth considering briefly. The Oracle at Delphi in the Temple of Apollo showed some divine qualities historically by spurring Socrates to develop his method of questioning. The powerful ancient Greek philosophical tradition then burgeoned in Socrates´ student Plato, and his student Aristotle, among others. By Jesus´ time, then, he flips the basic conceptual equation to “right makes might.” Jesus was tortured and executed, and his Resurrection vindicated his range of teachings around his two loving Commandments for Moses and God. It was that event that overcame the sobering effects of Jesus´ death, leading scholars to observe the sudden change in behavior of the disciples. The religious leader persecutor Saul then had his spiritual-religious vision of Jesus and became Paul the Apostle. Christianity then spread like wildfire as Christian integrity promoted caring cultural qualities, as studied by sociologist Rodney Stark. When an epidemic like the Antonine plague in 165 AD/CE appeared, many Christians stayed to care for the sick. Stark also argues that Christian ideas of redemption through sacrifice offered an explanation of “why bad things happened to innocent people.” Perceptions from a subjective viewpoint, intersubjectively, were constructed with objective results.
“Science” itself shows the role of subjective perceptions. The term “science” itself emerged in the spirit of Auguste Comte´s logical positivism, and replaced “natural philosophy” or scientific philosophy. The position of scientific philosophy thus would help assess trends in epistemological naturalism, in which people assert that “science” is the only legitimate form of knowledge. Therapeutic psychology is a context in which personal growth through introspection and psychoanalysis occurs. Transpersonal psychology identified the way that people experience their sense of identity, although it also deals with their relationship to forces larger than themselves. Psychosomatic medicine identified the healing effects of mental life, no less.
Economics faces a similar challenge, since economists tried to use the natural scientific approach in studying human economic exchange. However, as a human activity, the role of human values and understandings is inherently involved, not natural laws. In addition, the sociology of business shows that businesspeople have used University-based education in developing the profiteering corporate shareholder business model and in industrialization. They have also used their social power and influence to impose their views on the rest of society in a complex twist on “might makes right.” Meanwhile, Jesus´ legacy has historically involved resurgent integrity as people like Anthony of the Desert started Christian monastic spiritual practice. By George Fox´s era in the 1600s, his spiritual practice and integrity along with some sixty co-founders in establishing the Quaker-Friends in the English Reformation made a key advance in Martin Luther´s legacy. Quaker protege´s became agitators of a sort around anti-slavery abolition, which led them to a powerful affinity with the young college graduate Thomas Clarkson. With Quaker support, Clarkson galvanized the pioneering abolition social movement. Robert Owen´s own pro-social business practices were also inspired at that time by a Christian doctor, T Percival. Owen´s efforts, along with the abolitionists´ work, oriented the Rochdale pioneer workingpeople to found their pro-social co-ownership co-operative business model and grocery store.
That is, all meaning is centered on a perceiver, but not all meaning is merely limited to perceivers. Objectivity, transpersonal significance, and the transcendental all enter the question, with the Holographic paradigm still an objectivizing approach, and Transpersonal disciplines like psychology articulating the all important personal relational mode including empathy and compassion and their spiritual-religious and sociohistorical foundations, and linking to the philosophical basis of all these views, and self-referential contemplation and introspection as well.
Thus, the UN and the symbolic signifier “human rights” were advocated by the specific individual and his US presidential administration, FD Roosevelt and Truman, and First Lady Eleanor. FDR´s legacy achieved international agreement for the UN and the UN UD of human rights, but, for example, Islamic nations have rejected the actual signatory covenants because they´re too Christian, and the US and USSR demanded the split of the covenants, and refused to sign the corresponding opposed ones, the US refusing to sign for economic, social, and cultural rights. YN Harari has called human rights a “fiction.” He´s overstating one potential subordinate nuance interpretation, since it´s first a symbolic “abstraction” with concrete referents, sociohistorical and so on.
That helps understand how Big Biz profiteers have pushed one pro-rich anti-social economic model that emerged with Reaganism and massive deregulation. The persistence of pro-social societal and business models has been reduced at the federal gov level (Sen Russell Long´s ESOPs in the 1970s, esp) and left to societal initiatives, like the UN eco-social Conferences like 1986 WCED “sustainable development and 1992 UN Rio Earth Summit and associated Global People´s Forum, 2004 founding of the US Federation of Worker Co-ops, in Latin America Solidarity Economics and the World Social Forum. Thanks for a great observation and a chance to reflect further on this!
