An essential story to communicate like a master
The curiosity of subjectiveness pitched into me in quite an interesting way in the age of adolescence when I wasn’t even aware of this academic discourse. And this is how: I have always been keen to grasp languages, for maybe I was multi-lingual, or it was purely a natural inclination. One day, talking to my cousin, some questions arose and captivated my mind. How does it feel to him when he moves his lips and speaks; how does language feel to him; how is it like for him to speak in our native language; is it different than how I feel while speaking; how does speaking feel to a native speaker of others languages or experts of my native language? After some time, the question transcended languages, and I started to wonder how someone feels this world or how existing and being feels to someone? The riddle captivated my mind everywhere, whether I was walking to school or looking after animals at the farm, or counting stars before sleep. The idea of looking at someone with a new perspective, sitting inside someone’s brain, and watching everything through his eyes was undoubtedly interesting to the young lad and worth pondering over. After days of endeavor, I couldn’t find out the answers; I couldn’t find a way to even feel a little about how does something feel to someone; so, naturally, I disappointingly concluded that we can’t do it. Life went on, and fast forward to my final year of university, I come across the term: Subjectivity or subjective experiences. I’d explain it before I tell my reader the importance of it in today’s communications when conversations are immensely accessible and the influx of information is more than ever.
Subjectiveness has various ambiguous and conventional explanations, so I’d underlay a stipulative argument for how I understood it so it becomes easy for my reader to understand what precisely I’m talking about. Subjective experience is how an individual sees, hears, and feels something. It‘s independent of reality. Subjectiveness depicts the personal judgements or opinions. It’s any experience which belongs to somebody from first person prospective. For example, if one claims to see an alien or to feel better in noisome vapors, these are his personal experiences that cannot be put into a scientific or objective test. Here, it leads to another phenomenon which is called objectivity.
Objectiveness, on the other hand, is when people or, more specifically, scientists (including social scientists) try to determine the reality of something, and it involves no personal influences. Any discussion, speech, or paragraph that struggles to determine the reality of something independent from individual subjectiveness is an objective discussion, objective speech, and objective paragraph. For example, some people sit in a noisome places and share their experiences or observation. If they felt bad about it, it’d be said that humans don’t feel good in stinky places. Now, the statement humans don’t feel bad in stinky places is an objective reality.
Almost all of the scientific work is presented as objective reality. For example, the earth revolves in orbit around the sun, the human ear has certain hearing limitations, and the human eye has certain restrictions. On the other hand, objective statements look like this: I feel that the earth revolves around the sun; my ear can’t hear specific frequencies, and my eyes can’t see bacteria.
Having explained the subjectiveness and objectiveness in my words, I also want to bring my reader’s attention to the following possibility: On the surface, the concept of objectiveness seems powerful, but it’s not possible to be absolutely objective as every experiment involves human observation and nobody can measure the accuracy of it. Researchers and scientists have developed methods to attain the best possible reality of something. For example, thousands of observations are made to eliminate the probability of human error, yet chances are available that all those observations are wrong. Number of scientific theories were presented and then turned down. So there is nothing purely objective.
A simple example is that let’s say science says the human eye can’t see beyond a material that is not transparent (wall or cardboard sheets), and an individual claims to have seen things beyond walls. No science can prove his experience wrong but only present their theory. Furthermore, you must have comes across discussions such as whether things exist independently or they only exist in our minds. And unfortunately, no one can escape their body and soul so that one can see reality as it is.
What’s the importance of understanding subjectivity in common man’s life?
We have more important things in our life than material (science only deals with materialistic things), which are morality, soul, supernatural/superscientific experiences, and spirituality. And it’s essential for the common man to realize that it’s not their capacity to judge anyone’s experience, no matter what they say appears whimsical and nonsensical to a common understanding of the human race.
Every day, whether on social media websites or in group discussions, people often get agitated by the opposing view and contrary ideas, and the venue turns into a battleground rather than a constructive and helpful conversation. Tolerance has touched shockingly low grounds. People are labeled every day for expressing their ideas and their prospectives.
It’s only possible to listen calmly and even to the best-provoking ideas by learning how beliefs, ideas, and personalities come into existence.
You must have observed that some kids are outspoken while others are shy, some are docile while others are stubborn; humans are born with some natural inclination in their personalities which are different for different people, just like humans have various body types. Moving forward, they learn from their parents, teachers, and societies, where they adopt various beliefs alongside personality traits until they reach the age of consciousness and start thinking by themselves. So it is valid for a human that existed. We should now understand that what we believe or speak is what we learn from within our society, including families and schools. And no one can be sure how far or how near their ideas are to reality as no one can escape their personality and view something purely objective. So it can be rightly said that every concept has a chance to be wrong. Being humble and accepting one’s inability to know the truth is the only way forward.
It’s only possible to listen calmly and even to the best provoking ideas by considering the two following factors which hovers over subjective experiences:
- One have been wrong in the past and One can be wrong today which would create a learning environment.
- One doesn’t know the history of speaker’s nurturing and dones’t know about experiences the speaker went through.
How to deal or respond to subjective statements or experiances?
The following key point must be considered while discussing any subject with anyone to make your conversations productive, respectful, and beautiful.
- Listen to the speaker as you expect them to listen to your ideas and thoughts. Give respect to what you’re being told because you’re not merely listening to just an idea or thought but the speaker’s experiences.
- Share your experiences as something you understood politely and in the best manners.
- You can also point out if you see an error in the speaker’s observation in a way that ensures that you neither disrespect the speaker nor show superiority.
- Sometimes, only listening and not responding is a good gesture.
- Always express with a mindset to educate rather than to convince.
- Never lose grip of politness and gentleness.
In conclusion, one’s target should be to convey the idea or message in the best possible way with wisdom. It should not be to disrespect someone or make them feel low. One must not try to forcefully convince someone but only present ideas wisely and politely. If you’d keep in mind that the purpose of your conversation is not to convince someone of something or win the debate but rather to create knowledge, I believe you’d win every conversation and every friend or interlocutor.
