Quote:
Originally Posted by nostatic
you didn't poke any holes, you just don't get (or don't agree with) my point. You are of the opinion that there is one objective reality. I maintain that this "reality" has no meaning for someone without their own perspective.
I can extend the elephant metaphor if you'd like to explain my point. While it is true that a blind person who feels only the tail might think it is something else, their "reality" is that if they stand there long enough they'll get ***** on. If someone tells them "it is an elephant", their reality becomes that an elephant is something that feels like a tail and *****s on me.
And just because *your* senses say it is an "elephant", how do you know you are correct? I'll again point to the "multiple versions of a single incident."
We have "an elephant" because some number of people have agree to call it such. The "reality" of an elephant is very different to someone watching it in a zoo vs someone getting stepped on it in the wild. So if you then talk about "America", you have the same issue. What is the reality/meaning of that for different individuals and groups? My argument is that different cultures and groups will have different versions of the American "reality." But some here seem to think there is only one "America" and that this guy is outrageously whack in his version of it.
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When each perspective is different, how can there be a single, right perspective?
Just because you see what someone else doesn't does that make them wrong?
Take it a step further.
How do we know what we know?
How do we know that we know anything?
These kinds of statements are designed to draw attention away from the subject at hand and instead force people to start to argue (unsuccessfully) that they have any knowledge or that their perspective is the correct one. It is a technique designed to derail a conversation and distract from the subject at hand.
Instead of people being able to say that Wright is a nutbag (which he is), they now have to explain how their perspective trumps his perspective without stating that some perspectives are better than others.
Bravo Todd. Now explain how someone who claims that the CIA invented AIDs to kill black men isn't lying.