Subjectivity protects the evildoer from accountability. It creates a setting where there is no right or wrong and/or no objective reality. Things that should be objective observations and objective chronicling of events are reduced to opinions and feelings. Subjectivity is a weapon that the evildoer may use against the voice that is trying to stand up to it and seek justice.
Impeding the ability of the victim to seek justice
In one example scenario, a victim has been wronged and decides to confront the perpetrator. The perpetrator may use phrases such as “I am sorry you feel that way”, “…how you feel…”, “that is your opinion”, “I respect your opinion”, “well now that you put it that way” and sometimes “I never thought of it that way.” To a naive outward observer, these phrases seem harmless, but to the victim they can pierce through the soul. Here the perpetrator is trying to push the victim into believing that the wrong done to him/her is all in his/her head. Admittedly, sometimes a person can feel victimized for the wrong reasons. I am not talking about such scenarios here.
In the land of subjectivity, the evildoer portrays the negative emotions of the victim as being their own independent entity. The evildoer does not acknowledge the stimulus that justifies the negative emotions. The evildoer attempts to remove the stimulus—his/her wrongdoings—from the consciousness of the victim and any others present. All that is left is this negative emotion of the victim who needs to be soothed.
When the victim has had a history of diagnosable mental illness, psychiatric disorder or just bad moods, the victim becomes an easier target. The perpetrator now has the opportunity to attribute the victim’s negative emotional response to his/her diagnosable defect.
If you find that you are having to periodically reassure yourself that you do see things pretty clearly and you do have your head on straight, then it is possible that somebody with bad intentions is messing with your head.
Subjectivity when evaluating disputes
When evaluating disputes, it is destructive to make the blanket assumption that both sides are always equally right, and/or equally at fault, and then call oneself impartial. This mindset, which I call fake impartiality, renders the victim unable to rightfully assert a wrong that has been done against him/her. The fake impartiality mindset assumes that it is always the word of one party against the word of the other party. If a victim tries to assert that a wrong has been done against him/her, then fake impartiality will render the victim’s assertion invalid because “each side always thinks it is right and is the victim.”
True impartiality, conversely, attempts to collect the facts about what happened and use sound reasoning to come to a conclusion about who did what wrong. When we do this, we will find that one side is often more at fault than the other. Oftentimes, one party is the victim and the other party is the perpetrator, and we do not want to lay part of the burden of responsibility on the victim that did no wrong.
One dispute that often occurs is a dispute between two neighbors where one neighbor likes to play loud music and the other neighbor wants peace and quiet. Some people seem to think that these disputes are simply “two people that just don’t get along,” but in such a dispute as this, both sides are NOT equal.
Nobody has a need to play loud music. This need does not exist and never has existed. Furthermore, headphones are available for people who want to hear music at the volume they want, and if the headphones are uncomfortable or inconvenient, then too bad. NO harm is done to an individual when an individual is denied the privilege of playing loud music without headphones, period.
However, potential harm can be done to the individual that wants peace and quiet. Loud music from neighbors can disrupt sleep-wake patterns, which can adversely affect an individual’s ability to function at optimal levels, leading to a reduced quality of life and increased risk of accidents when operating automobiles and other machinery. Loud music from neighbors can disrupt an individual’s inner peace and sometimes even mental health.
Subjectivity in communication
Another destructive form of subjectivity can be found when reviewing a message or set of messages. Here the subjectivity mindset is characterized by the phrase “…it all depends on how you interpret it.” This mindset neglects the fact that the intended message is the intended message is the intended message. You are either interpreting the message correctly or you are not. By adopting the it-all-depends-on-how-you-interpret-it mindset, you are stripping the writer of self-expression and have now decided that the writer no longer defines the message, but rather the reader!
The it-all-depends-on-your-interpretation mindset sometimes is applied to the Bible. This is bad because God’s intended message is God’s intended message is God’s intended message. Some parts of the Bible are hard to understand, but in the end you are either interpreting the message correctly or you are not.
Moral Relativism
Moral relativism is the mindset that right and wrong is subjective, and that my right/wrong is just as good as your right/wrong. We should just all accept each other’s ideas of right/wrong and be one big happy family. Seems not so bad to some until you consider the downstream implications. Moral relativism basically grants permission to the evildoers to inflict whatever harm on innocent people they want and simply call it “right.” Even during the Holocaust the Nazis came up with justifications for annihilating the world’s entire Jewish population and “solving the Jewish problem.” The Nazis also genuinely thought that they were making a better world by means of genetic cleansing. After all, people should be happier when they have better genes, right?
Now if you identify as a moral relativist, but still say that the Holocaust was objectively wrong, then you are contradicting yourself. Moral relativism, in its full form, states that nothing is objectively wrong. Even if one identifies as only being partially moral relativist — meaning that there are only some things that are objectively right or wrong — one must be warned that moral relativism to any extent leaves room for tolerance of potentially harmful behaviors. The more morally relativist we get, the more atrocities we are made to tolerate so long as at least someone somewhere calls it right.
Manufactured Uncertainty
In cases where it is known that there is an objective truth, such as whether or not there is climate change, evildoers may manufacture uncertainty about what that objective truth is where there would otherwise not be any uncertainty. Public health has especially been affected. The tobacco industry manufactured uncertainty regarding the health dangers of consuming their products. A saying is “doubt is in their product.” The oil and gas industry manufactured uncertainty regarding whether or not there was climate change despite the widespread scientific consensus that there is climate change and that the industrial revolution was a significant factor.
Manufactured uncertainty is an instrument of evil that evildoers use to conceal the destructive effects of their words and/or actions. It can create a confusion among bystanders that is not meant to be there. As long as there is uncertainty as to the destructive effects of something, the destructive effects can more easily continue without accountability. In the case of the tobacco industry and the oil and gas industry, profits are allowed to flourish at the expense of public health, and with reduced public scrutiny.
Summary
To summarize, subjectivity is an instrument of evil. It creates an unrealistic environment where there is no right or wrong, up or down, left or right. In such an environment, evil flourishes without accountability or scrutiny. Victims are left unable to rightfully assert the wrongs done against them. Justice is diminished. Psychological harm is magnified.