How does real/subjective truth affects the way people interprit Dominican history?

First and foremost, I will go through a lengthy explanation in an attempt to be as clear as possible as to what I am asking at the end of the post. Please read through it all. Thanks in advance.

Let's be clear about something regarding "truth". There are two types, there is what I call the real truth and then there is subjective truth.

The real truth is the reality of something(s). It exist, its real regardless whether people recognize it or not.

The subjective truth is reality only to those who believe it is. This type of truth is shaped by pre-concieved notions, ingrained patterns of analyzing something, and/or through constant repetition which eventually causes the information to seek into the subconscious mind.

An example of a real truth would be ice melts when temperatures are above 0 degrees celsius. This is a fact that is very real, regardless if anyone is aware of such fact or not, regardless if someone believes in such fact or not, etc. Its a real truth.

An example of a subjective truth would be the notion of whether God exist. If you go to a group of Athiest and tell them that God exist, they will tell you that its not true, God does not exist. For them, the notion that there is no devine being is the truth.

On the contrary, minutes later you go into a group of believers and tell themt hat God does not exist. They will tell you that God does exist and that is the truth. For them, the notion that there is a devine bieng is very real, its truth.

Each of them believe in what they believe based on preconceived notions, their patterns of analyzing things, and constant repetition of what they believe.

Athiest constantly remind themselves that God does not exist by questioning the existance of God in moments of grief, chaos, war, etc. They will have eveyr reason to discredit organized religion, the notion of a God, etc and they will not only use those reasons to keep their own belief that God does not exist, but they would also use it in an attempt of making others believe in the Athiest belief.

Believers constantly remind themselves that God does exist. This is done by constant validation which is done through repetitive prayers, constantly looking for proof of the existance of God (ie. they attribute any good luck they might experience on the fact that there is a God looking over them), and also by rejecting moments of doubt through the idea that whatever life turns out to be like is because God wanted it to be so. Their belief that there is a God, that God is divine and thus, always right leaves them no room for doubt to come through.

In both instances, the constant validations, repetition, searching for proof is the way each group believes in what they perceive to be reality or truth.

However, such truth can be easily modified through the long term by media sources using the same tactics.

For example, if I was to say that men are better than women, who believes such depends on the various factors I have described above in the other examples.

If I was to say that prominent men hate women, that would be hard for many people to swallow. However, I could change the opinion of people by constantly reading, expressing, and quoting prominent men whenever they make a claim that could be interpreted as hatred towards women.

Examples of such quotes by prominent men includes:

Stendahl, a novelist who once said "a woman must never write anything but posthumous works... for a woman under fifty, to get into print is submitting her happiness to the most terrible of lotteries; is she had the good fortune to have a lover, she'll begin by losing him."

Psychologist Dr. Bruno Bettelheim in 1965 once said: "As much as women want to be good scientists and engineers, they want; first and foremost, to be womanly companions of men and to be mothers."

French Psychologist Paul Lamet in 1990 said "The average woman's judgment is never as good as the average man's - and when they pass the age of forty, their ability to reason seems to deteriorate quite rapidly."

Pat Buchanan said in 1984: "The truth is that women's income, on average, will always be a fraction of men's, so long as America remains free."

The Theologian Martin Luther said in 1533: "Girls begin to talk and to stand on their feet sooner than boys because weeds always grow up more quickly than good crops."

An old Dutch proverb: "A house full of daughters is like a cellar full of sour beer."

Muhammad Ali (the boxing champion) in 1985 was quoted as saying: "People ask me how many children I have and I say one boy and seven mistakes."

Afhani proverb: A woman is well only in the house or in the grave.

Last but not least, Senator Barry Goldwater in 1980 was quoted saying: "Women are hard enough to handle now, without giving them a gun."

Now, the question is this:

If I were to say that men hate women or better yet, that society is intentionally taken to believe hatred to women, how many people will agree with me?

The answer is more people will agree after such bombardment of quotes rather than before!

I went into such detail to make sure everyone reading this see for themselves what I am trying to say about subjective truth and how it can be shaped by mere repetition and changing the way someone analyzes something.

If I say someone is a racist, from that point forward everything such person says will be seen on a racist vs not racist slant. Everything will be judged along those two realm and things that in past may not had registered as possibly racist could become alarming and insulting to those who start to analyse such person on the basis of whether such person is racist or not.

The same goes for all subjective truths, once mass media sources get a grip on a perceived notion and constantly repeat something, it will have an effect on how people perceive their subjective reality.

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The question is this: Do you think the way people are reacting to Dominican history is being manipulated by a wave of tactics aimed at influencing the subjective reality of most people?

Regardless if you think whether this is right or wrong or whether Dominican history should be analyzed in the way it is beginning to be analyzed.

Do you think this is occuring because of forces controlling what people think by mass media attention or do you think this is something that is genuinely in search of real truth?

Is this shift in analyzing Dominican history genuine or is it engineered via various mediums?

-NALs

This is not about religion, so let's not start going off topic.... PLEASE!!

macocael said:

NALS would it help to point out that despite the pains you took to clarify your distinction between subjective and real truth, the "truth" is that your distinction is faulty from the get go? You compared an ethical truth (notions of divinity) with a scientific or empirical truth (a change of state occurring in a substance as a result of temperature change), but that is comparing apples and oranges. when we talk about history, we are in the realm of ethical truths, not empirical, scientific truth --though admittedly there is a school of thought, albeit long outdated, that would have us believe that "objective" historical truths are the aim of the historian. But what shape would such truths take? Granted there is such a thing as "fact"(an event can be dated, its form verified, etc) -- but facts are not truths, they are mere data, which in turn must be interpreted if we are to understand their meaning, and of course the interpretation of data, the creation of meaning, falls under your category of "subjective." It is a hermeneutic. T he moment you start writing a narrative you automatically enter the realm of interpretation; all narratives are attempts to shape reality, they are in fact fictions (in the true sense). But it might be well to remember that Aristotle placed fiction above all other forms in terms of its truth value.

I might also point out, as an aside, that the concept of subjectivity is overwrought and hackneyed. How is anything truly ever "subjective" at all, when in fact consciousness is a social construct, we are social beings not solipsists, and the feelings and ideas that each one of us considers our own are in fact shared by all people. Ideas, feelings, values, beliefs -- are INTERsubjective, to borrow the philosophers' term, and not actually subjective at all. You didnt just make any of that up out of thin air. You are borrowing concepts that are freely available to all of us. I mean, read Kant, read modern Philosophy, read the cognitive psychologists of the 2oth century -- bring your thinking up to date for heaven's sake.

What you really are positing is whether history can be grasped in some pure, verifiable and unbiassed form as opposed to having its "meaning" manipulated by private interests. Well the short answer is no, not really, Even Thucydides, in his great Peloponnesian War, which is famous for beiing the first "truthful" or "objectively written" history (as opposed to Herodotus, who is full of myth and story), admits in his brilliant prologue that he was forced to make up many things, despite his taking pains to be a disinterested observer at many of the events and a careful interviewer of many of the key players. Again, he had to interpret events. And histories are not necessarily weaker for having a bias or a point of view. In fact one could argue that a strong point of view makes for a stronger narrative. Your job as the reader is to grasp that point of view and judge things accordingly.

Rick, one point: neither the camera nor the pen is an objective recorder of history. A photo is not a fact, though it appears to be one. It presents facts, yes, just as does a historian who writes about certain facts; but the presentation constitutes an interpretation and there is NO WAY to wriggle out of that.

"A photograph is a moral decision taken in one-eighth of a second."
Salman Rushdie

?Every photograph is a fiction shown as if it were true . . . What counts is the control of the photographer to impose an ethical direction to this lie. The good photographer is the one who deceives the truth well.?
Joan Fontcuberta

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Maco,

Tell me something.

Does everyone has an opinion when it comes to religion? I sure think so, an opinion that is often ingrained with tremendous feelings and self reaffirmation, regardless if the person believes or doesn't believes in religion and its concept.

But, they believe something and they believe it with mixtures of feelings.

"People think not with their brains, but with their emotions"
-Unknown (to me at least)

Thus, if you want people to give you their deepest thoughts and express to you their deepest feelings towards a particular subject matter, not only do you need to touch into their emotions. That is why I included the religion example, simply making a point between subjective truth, which perhaps I should have coined "what people want to be believe".

The other examples were meant to make clear how subjective truths can be altered through constant reaffirmation and repetition. This I cannot possibly do in its entirety through a sinlge post, but I tried my best in order to give the reader a good understanding of my point which is this:

I think peoples perception of truth (vs. what is actually true) can be altered, especially if you target their subconscious mind.

Such mindset can be influenced through constant repetition, constant bombardment of a particular mantra, agenda, or the sort whether its visual, hearing, or emotional or all three.

Thus, I wanted to know what people think of such assumption, that subjective truth can be influenced and changed over the long time and how does that changes the way people interprit history.

Of all the major institutions humanity has created, the one that exploits influencing the subconscious mind has been religion. It should be clear why I chose the examples I did, even though they are inherently different and to a certain extent uncomparable from each other.

Then again, I was not comparing each of them, but rather presenting an example of real truth, an example of subjective truth, and an example of how subjective truth could be changed in the long term and whether people agree with such or not.

The first example came forth with the ice melts example, the second with the religion example, and the third with the views on violence against women in society prior and before a slight bombardment of quotes, intended to affect the original opinion a person might have had regarding such subject.

All three used to make a point not about each particular subject itself, but by the underlying question I have which was posted at the end of that post.

The fact that you focused into the actual examples and not into the underlying purpose of each shows me that you did not got my point.

Re-read it, take it how it was meant to be taken, and answer the question, but (as with everything) only if you want to.

-NALs

margaret said:

I find this topic very interesting NALs. I?m not sure if I understand your question correctly. So feel free to elaborate on it. In my opinion, history is nothing more than a narrative that is constructed by an author who is positioned in a particular social context. This history is constructed and communicated through text, rhetoric, propaganda, and public relations and reinforced with rituals. (Voting could be a ritual that is related to political identity as democrats.) The mass media is one channel of delivery to the receiver of the message and I suppose it troubles academic historians because the relationship of author/text/reader is changed with the mass media. The receiver is also socially situated and reads it with filters and bias. Sometimes we only read the history (or narrative) to reaffirm our existing beliefs and keep the meanings that we cherish. These meanings give us identity. The historical messages can be shaped with logic, emotion, and visceral, physical and even spiritual or intuitive argumentation. Yes, I believe it can persuade people and influence their beliefs. It?s a powerful means of creating mythic narratives that give cohesion to a society. Histories build political identity. I think when it?s mass-mediated it can have a very powerful effect similar to advertising. Mass-mediated history can create brand identity for a nation. If there is a great deal of discussion about Dominican history in the mass-media, I would guess that it could be due to a crisis in Dominican political identity. It might be related to the existence of two nations on the island (DR and Haiti), some reaction to external threats to resolve the crisis, and the need to consolidate democracy in the Dominican Republic. I don?t know, but it?s an interesting subject for debate. I'm here to learn.

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Thanks Margaret.

That's precisely the type of response I was looking for.

Very interesting and informative.
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And Maco, what can I say?

Others read something and respond as expected while others take it upon themselves to become formal on what is essentially an informal medium. :tired:

-NALs