The objective is really just an attempt to impose order on chaos. That is not to say that there is nothing useful about the idea of being objective, but only to emphasize that objectivity never actually fulfills its purpose completely. It can succeed in rooting out obvious errors and biases, just like the laws of logic can be useful in demonstrating consistency. But every step which is taken to create something like the objectivity does not ever successfully get us closer to the essence of truth. It only succeeds in helping us get further from error, since no human is capable of actually understanding truth in its entirety, minus that which is true which can be given to us directly by divine revelation.
Objectivity is just a tool that we have to try to get at what we inappropriately refer to as the truth in a neutral way. There are some occasions where we nearly can all agree that someone was acting biased, but often times the concept of the objective turns into an argument itself over what constitutes the objective. These arguments really are just two groups attempting to advance their own subjective positions by underhandedly arguing that they have the corner on what is objectively true. Sadly, this is a position that we all end up finding ourselves -- both because there are people who very transparently abuse the objective, and because being objective itself is such a fool's errand.
When we are arguing over what is objective and trying to deny others grounds of objectivity, being objective is actually most dangerous: it is a false front for truth. It is advancing a specific ideology against others, and it often is able to have a great impact precisely because it reinforces the biases of people by encouraging them to the fallacious conclusion that reality is a perfect reflection of how they think it is.
Brenna Murphy's Lattice Design Visual
Reality, though, is chaotic, and far too large for there to be a theory for everything that is truly universal.
Objectivity is then usually just part of this strange hyperreality in which we live. Because so many of our public ethics are founded on false claims about what is objectively true and because we treat those who disagree with these truths as hostile players in a game, all political & social discourse that is part of this (and always able to be tied back to some poisonous concept of the objective) is part of a hyperreality.
The greatest example of this is the Western Christian who has been convinced that he has to actually bury the things that he believes and participate in the politics & ethics of hyperreality in order to fairly be part of the public discussion. They are convinced that there is a realm of objective truth that is independent of their Christian theology and accessible to everyone. And they have to actively deny their own, deeper Christian motives and submit to the false god of objectivity.
I believe it is actually the case that, once upon a time, we were able to have dialogue between people of radically different metaphysics come around the concept of an objective, neutral ground and reach very limited decisions based on it because they understood that these tentative agreements were meant to do something small. But when the scope of government became larger, the epistemically neutral ground of discussion became a new standard for what people believe to be objective, and now people started crafting whole ideologies and stances from this barren soil.
These new ideologies based on the neutral ground of discussion, which was never intended to be anything but a place of transaction for discussion to come up with agreeable solutions, constitute the hyperreality that we now live in.
When we understand that objectivity can be a part of the neutral ground is a place merely for the discussion of ideas that we now that we will never agree on, we recognize that the truth has a private or unknowable element to it. We are ready to walk away and to disagree. This necessitates believing in a smaller domain of government.
When we falsely believe that objectivity can provide us with moral imperatives, the neutral ground becomes toxic soil that spawns soft totalitarian ideologies. This is because the poor conclusions brought about by "objectivity" and "neutrality" now determine right/wrong for everybody, and the government now has the scope to act in a much broader way which interferes with how people think and live their lives.
When we understand that objectivity is really only a tool, and we deny the importance of the neutral ground for determining policy at all, we can come to the conclusion that government should be a reflection of Truth. Naturally, different peoples do have different truths, and I will continue insisting that my own truth is proper and the only one, but I also recognize that other peoples governing by what they understand to be as true is not problematic.
This sort of system can have larger, more totalizing government, and be animated by a greater sense of truth. This is the sort of model that creates civilization because it is founded on something that is unifying and that people are willing to die for.
These societies can be thought of as the third position to the
Liberty-oriented modern state (which objectivity was created to serve)
Egalitarian modern state (which is based on the perversion of objectivity)
This mini-essay on objectivity got out of hand and went into political philosophy but I liked where it went and do not think I have the energy or power to expand upon it or resolve it, so I have just posted it in its current form.
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