Postmodernism vs. Objective Reality

For our class's assigned readings this week we read two guides on textual analysis; these guides generally covered the same ground and both introduces the reader to a postmodern/post-structuralist method of interpreting a text. While the two guides have produced a strong case for the post-structuralist approach of analysis, I still believe that their view is heavily flawed and offers an incomplete description of reality. 

Before pronouncing my objection, I will first summarize the arguments made by McKee in his Textual Analysis: A Beginner's Guide. The progression of ideas, as I interpreted them, are as follows 

    The world is composed of objects, but persons are incapable of actually interacting with objects; instead, persons interact with their perception of objects. 

    Therefore, the reality that persons interact with is not a world of objects; rather, it is a world of ideas and perception; language is a primary means by which we interact with ideas. 

    When a text is produced, the author may have certain ideas in mind that they want to communicate; however, texts may not completely preserve those ideas; in particular, the meaning of a text is constructed by the audience when the text is received. 

    Because our perceptions are culturally constructed, it follows that our interpretations of texts are also social constructions; therefore, to say that any interpretation of a text is more valid is to assert that some cultures are more valid than others. 

While each line of reasoning seems convincing, the end result of the post-structuralist view of textual analysis may make some, including myself, very uncomfortable about the epistemological problems that the view may present. For example, McKee himself summarizes that 

    A realist response: my culture has got it right. It simply describes reality. Other cultures are wrong.

    A structuralist response: all these cultures seem to be making sense of the world differently; but really, underneath, they have common structures. They're not all that different; people across the world are basically the same.

    A post-structuralist approach: all these cultures do indeed make sense of the world differently: and it is impossible to say that one is right and the others are wrong. In a sense, people from different cultures experience reality differently.

In particular, note that the post-structuralist approach prevents the very possibility of objective reality, or rather, it prevents the very possibility of accessing objective reality through reason and experiment. It is from this that I will describe my objection to the post-structuralist view. 

The post-modernists are right in that there is no certain way to make sure that an objective reality really exists; it may very well be the case that we live in a matrix, and that our perceptions are all that there is to the world. In this case, the claim that objective reality exists is not falsifiable: there is no event in this world that can potentially occur which would either prove or disprove the statement; to either accept that objective reality exist is solely a matter of faith. 

While the world of objects stays unaffected by our verdict on objective reality, the world of ideas and actions is significantly affected by whether we believe that there can be an objective reality. In particular, the possibility of objective reality comes with it the possibility of mutual agreements based on reason and evidence. On the other hand, if realities are truly subjective, then there is no such thing as mutual agreements based on reason; in the absence of Truth with the capital T, there is nothing left to guide human belief except power. 

It is therefore not surprising that much of the post-modern critique of society is focused on unequal structures of power and the violence that they perpetuate: I do not deny that such structures exist, or that they perpetuate violence, but I do disagree that they are solely structures of power. For example, the gender wage gap can be interpreted as the consequence of social patriarchy that has perpetuated gender inequality since the beginning of Western civilization. 

Now, there is certainly a large element of truth to this: our society finds it more acceptable for women to be stay-at-home moms than for men to be stay-at-home dads; certain careers, especially high-paying ones such as law, banking, and tech, are predominantly men; and girls and boys are raised differently by families as well as being treated differently in the classroom. It is certainly the case that there exist cultural forces within our society that oppresses both men and women; however, I would argue that not ALL inequalities can be explained by the presence of oppressive social structures, and that not all discriminatory structures are unjustified or even unjust. 

In the case of the wage gap, one may well argue that in addition to systemic sexism, that part of the disparity between males and females may come from biological differences or psychological ones (I may not agree with this completely, but I can recognize it as being a reasonable position). Certain careers, especially ones that demand significant physical labour, are positions for which it is easier for men to enter. Given the existence of biological differences, the existence of psychological differences (such as job preference) should not be surprising; and it should be at least possible to expect that these differences may be reflected economically in compensation over entire populations. 

With the possibility of an objective reality, it is possible for us to conduct psychological and sociological experiments to determine how much biological or psychological differences contribute to the gender wage gap; this may, however, not possible under a post-structuralist method of textual interpretation. Taking the post-structuralist view, we may deconstruct a scientific study as the product not only of evidence-gathering and experimentation but also of a patriarchal society. Indeed, science has long been used in the West to oppress women; from declaring "female hysteria" as a mental illness to pseudo-scientific claims that women are simply less intelligent than men, much has been done in the name of science that would disgust today's scientists. 

It may well be the case that today's scientific studies on gender differences are false, but it may well be the case also that they are true. The very possibility of determining this question is rejective under postmodern philosophical views; reason and science itself may be disregarded as constructs of oppression. Now, if someone truly believes this in all its dimensions, I invite them to jump from a roof to exactly how subjective Newton's theory of gravity really is. There must be a point at which we say that specific texts, such as modern scientific theories, do indeed reflect reality to a much more accurate degree than other texts, such as advertisements for healing crystals. 

In the context of textual analysis, this means that some interpretations of texts are indeed better than others and that some texts are simply better depictions of reality than others. For example, if the text that we are analyzing is a video of an airplane in flight, and one person explains the physics of how the airplane works while another proclaims that it flies by magic, we can be allowed to say that one interpretation of the text is, in fact, more accurate. 

Observe, however, that to say that one theory is better than another requires that we accept reality to be objective in the first place. Our perceptions may play tricks on us, our cultures may be imperfect, and that one True reality may allow a plurality of values and statements, but there is one True reality non the less. Here, Plato's allegory of the cave proves useful: we are people in a dark cave looking at shadows of forms on the walls; these shadows are not real, but they are perceptions of real things that exist as absolutes. 

With the establishment of objective reality comes a problem, or rather, hard facts that we must accept if we are to accept the existence of objective reality. Recall previously that we established that "because our perceptions are culturally constructed, it follows that our interpretations of texts are also social constructions; therefore, to say that any interpretation of a text is more valid is to assert that some cultures are more valid than others." 

Instead of saying that some cultures are more valid than others, we may limit our assertion and say that a consequence of objective reality is that some aspects of certain cultures are better than others. This should not be controversial: shamanism is objectively a less accurate way of describing nature, and much less powerful and useful predictively, than modern physics, chemistry, and biology. Can we, however, extend this to beyond the realm of science? 

I argue that we can. Having argued for the necessity of the existence of objective reality, and therefore the existence of texts and interpretations that are more real than others in this blog post, I will explain in my next blog post what it would mean for a story to be more real than another, and as a consequence (since stories are cultural products), what it would mean for a certain aspect of a culture to be better than another. Moreover, I will also explore why "representation" matters in media, and why more "real" representations may indeed be better than less real ones. 

Before ending this blog post, I would like to explain a final point: the existence of objective reality and the ability for reason and experience to access that reality does not preclude us from accepting the contradictory views of others as reasonable or valid. To elaborate, if we disagree with another person, we are still capable of recognizing their capacity to reason, and therefore recognize that they may be right and we may be wrong. However, if our positions are inherently contradictory it cannot be the case that we are both right. In this sense, the possibility of contradiction originates not from a rejection of objective reality, but rather from intellectual humility; and from this possibility of contradictory pluralism, we may still ensure the existence of an intellectually diverse society.