Subjectively Objective: Why Perceiving Objectivity is Innately Subjective

All of us humans have a common tendency irrespective of what walk of life we are from. We all logically, so we think, define our environment as an objective space. Our setting is categorized as objective because it is apart from us. Though each person has a specific set of circumstances, objects, and people surrounding them, to each individual his/her setting is external, hence it is deemed objective.

However, since we are the very ones who endow the label of objectivity on our environment based on our own perception of said environment, this presents a paradox where what is thought to be objective is, in fact, innately subjective. Said plainly, an individual’s definition of objectivity is subjective.

Adding to this misconception and mislabeling of our environment is the existence of culture. When someone is part of a culture, shout out to the Migos, he/she unconsciously accepts a world view with a specific set of characteristics, values, and normalized understandings that exist within said society. This is the essence of what culture is, it is the culmination of value agreements of what is normal, acceptable, good, and positive vs. what is abnormal, unacceptable, bad, and negative. These values shape a society’s activity and rituals to ensure the maximum potential of good and the minimum potential for bad.

It appears that what is deemed good and bad is, most often, defined by cultural context. Culture is often described as being part of an individual’s environment, but I would argue that, though culture is a garment that covers a person from the outside, it is also internal in that, once cultured a person sees, perceives, processes, understands and acts out through the lens of their particular culture. Perhaps, describing culture as glasses as opposed to a shawl is more accurate here.

When someone is a part of a culture, he/she accepts a standard of norms and attributes certain expectations to his/her environment. Hence, from within said culture, these norms and accepted characteristics of the environment are defined as objective fact.

To everyone who is a part of the culture, the shared environment in which his/her society exists is:

• objective
• matter-of-fact
• normal
• familiar
• how thing have been
• how thing always are
• how things should be
• has been a constant feature of
• how things work or are done [around here]

These sentiments generate a feeling that one’s understanding of the culturally objective environment is objective to the point of being universal fact or truth. No one from within a culture will deem what is normal in said culture to be objectively abnormal. To make such an observation and statement, questioning the commonly held view of the environment, would be to demonstrate a subjective point of view in the context of this specific culture.

But for those who are entering into said environment from outside of the this culture, the will not always define the aspects of this environment as objective. Why? Simply because these foreigners (from other cultures) may not share the same standards or definitions of what is considered objective, normal, etc. To the outsider the insider’s understanding and definition of an environment will appear subjective at best, and vice versa. This is perhaps the classical dilemma of us vs. them, civilized vs. uncivilized, farmer vs. nomad, holy vs. infidel/pagan etc.

It’s important for us to pause and consider the following: what might be/seem objective to me, that is, what seems to be a no brainer, obvious, and normal to me could be/is subjective to someone else. Likewise, what appears subjective to me from a distance, could be quite objective from the other’s perspective.