A Word In Edgewise: Speaking ‘Objectively’?

I recently read a forwarded column that set me to thinking, or at least speculating, on topics I don’t usually entertain. Its title, “Postmodernism: The Idea that Ate Itself”; its author, Frederick Alexander, appeared in “The Gadfly.” The title suggested little to me; I know nothing of the subject, nor have I with any success been able to penetrate the works of Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida and others of their ilk, who have spoken on the topic at length.

Nor do I intend to delve into those writings in the foreseeable future. I read the article because it was forwarded by a friend. But, although I read frequently, and a fair amount, fairly widely, I’d confess, if pressed, that while my intellectual curiosity is broad, its depth more resembles a water-skimmer gliding hither and thither on a pond’s surface tension than a slow seeker plumbing abyssal depths.

The day Bill Watterson’s strip appeared, I cut out (and saved on my computer) Calvin bragging of his epistolary epiphany to tiger pal Hobbes, and asserting, “I realized that the purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning and inhibit clarity. With a little practice,” Calvin concluded, “writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog! Want to see my book report?” As Hobbes reads it aloud,* Calvin crows, “Academia, here I come!”

At the heart of much of the postmodern output, according to the article, as I read it, is that knowledge is subjective, and that power dictates the prevailing opinion. There can be no “Objective Truth.” It’s hard even for a water strider to argue with that, even in Homer’s epic Iliad. Are you chariot driver Achilles, or slain Trojan Hector being dragged by the heels around the camp for 12 days?

Up close, objective truth seems more an oxymoron than an attainable objective, but, I wondered, as I read on, what about “objective fact”? The Twin Towers did fall on Sept. 11, 2001; The Titanic did sink in the early hours of April 15, 1912 (it’s still there, been visited); the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus big top did go down in flames on July 6, 1944. One hundred and sixty-nine perished (I was there).

That, of course, doesn’t mean that the “truth” behind those facts won’t be argued from that event’s occurrence on, nor has every incident been as scrutinized or recorded as these. As an added complication, muddling “objective,” “truth” and “fact,” is that sometimes everything can be overridden by an outside agenda by someone or several, powerful enough to sway opinion.

It’s an objective fact that on April 19, 1989, a woman jogging in Manhattan’s Central Park was violently assaulted and raped. Five black youths were arrested and incarcerated, while the serial rapist (solo) continued until 2002, when that individual confessed, and DNA evidence confirmed the confession. The Five, having spent years in jail, sued the City of New York, a suit settled for the plaintiffs in 2014 for $41 million.

In 1989, while the original trial was underway, the now incumbent President took out full-page newspaper ads calling for the death penalty. Even after the Five’s 2002 exoneration, he still stands by his 1989 position, refusing to apologize.

Objective Truth remains for many Humpty Dumpty’s fiat in Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking Glass”: “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”

The main barrier to attempting to seek truth — or even, as it turns out, facts— is that one must deal with other humans. Members of the Gerridae family, those water striders, water skeeters, pond skaters and their ilk, continue to dimple the surface above their placid ponds. There are some 1,700 species, gliding serenely through life. I can’t claim serenity, being a homo sapiens burdened with all those truth/fact issues. Perhaps I’ll draw the pond next life.

*“The dynamics of interbeing and monological imperatives in ‘Dick and Jane’: a study in psychic transrelational gender modes.”