On the Mystery and Meaning of Perspectives<\/p>\n
The title of this little blog post could be the title of a book! And perhaps someone has written it. I haven\u2019t\u2014yet. These are merely my musings<\/em> about the subject sparked by a recent series of essays and letters about a television program.<\/p>\n I live in the American city where a very popular television program produced by the cable channel HGTV (Home and Garden Television) is filmed and produced. The show is called \u201cFixer Upper\u201d and stars a local couple\u2014Chip and Joanna Gaines, owners of Magnolia Homes\u2014a real estate and construction firm that specializes in remodeling old houses for their clients. Sounds boring, huh? Well, if you\u2019ve watched the show, which has now aired its third season, you know it\u2019s not boring\u2014to many people.<\/p>\n In fact, this single television show has, in less than three years, turned around the national and international reputation of an American city and brought thousands of people from all over North America and some from other places here to visit the scenes and sites\u2014especially the new Fixer Upper empire which now includes not only beautifully restored homes (one only three blocks from my house) but a home decorating \u201cmall,\u201d a bed and breakfast, and (soon to be) refurbished and reopened historic restaurant. Other parts of the \u201cempire\u201d are in the works.<\/p>\n This little television program is watched by people of all ages and both genders and widely commented on\u2014from coast to coast. Everywhere I go around America\u2014from Pennsylvania to Oregon people ask me \u201cHave you met Chip and Joanna Gaines?\u201d I can proudly say I have. They would not remember it, but I met them at a local coffee house two years ago.<\/p>\n The show is about remodeling old homes, but it\u2019s also about Chip and Joanna Gaines and their family. I think the real attraction of the program is the chemistry between the couple and their beautiful children. They have become local and even national celebrities. She is exceptionally beautiful and charming and he is exceptionally affectionate to his wife and children and at the same time a \u201creal man.\u201d (Sometimes he can be exceptionally silly, but I think that\u2019s part of the show\u2019s charm.)<\/p>\n The responses to \u201cFixer Upper\u201d and to the stars provokes some serious and, to me, puzzling questions about truth. Or, perhaps better said, they illustrate<\/em> those questions which have been swirling around in my mind for decades and maybe since I first became aware that equally sincere and intelligent people can and often do have totally opposite interpretations of the same events<\/em>.<\/p>\n I think most people<\/em> tend not to take that phenomenon seriously enough. The whole idea of trial by jury of peers<\/em>\u2014especially as practiced in the U.S. today\u2014tends not to take the phenomenon seriously enough. Or at least we tend not to take it into account. Modernity, rooted in the Enlightenment, lingers in our tendency to believe that twelve people hearing and seeing the same data will agree and come to the right conclusion. I happen to think it might be better for trials to be adjudicated by one of Plato\u2019s \u201cphilosopher kings\u201d\u2014a high-minded, intellectual, observant, trained person who has proven himself or herself capable of being relatively objective. (After all, such a person\u2014a higher court judge\u2014has the authority to overturn a jury decision!)<\/p>\n Back to the case study at hand: \u201cFixer Upper.\u201d The humble television show has provoked serious reflection\u2014including by Christian scholars. Grove City College\u2019s social psychologist Lisa Hosack has written one such essay reflecting on the values and virtues and dangers (!) of the show from a Christian perspective: http:\/\/www.visionandvalues.org\/2016\/03\/a-fixer-upper-project-of-the-heart\/ . (I do not put hyperlinks here because, for some reason, they always lead to the wrong place! Please copy and paste this URL into a web browser and read this wonderful piece of Christian interpretation of popular culture.) Hosack thinks one of the attractions of the show for women is the husband\u2019s affection (\u201cobvious adoration\u201d) for his wife. I have talked with some people who think Chip Gaines\u2019s displays of affection for his wife are a bit cloying.<\/p>\n Today the local newspaper published another<\/em> piece\u2014a letter to the editor from a social worker in Ohio who is also a viewer of \u201cFixer Upper\u201d\u2014arguing that the male star of the show is abusive toward his wife<\/em>. The editor placed the headline above the letter: \u201cAre we watching the same show?\u201d Among other things, the letter writer claims that Chip Gaines has hit his wife, verbally abused her, and chased her with malicious intent. She interprets Joanna as an abused wife.<\/p>\n I will let you decide what you think about that difference of opinion\u2014assuming you have watched the show regularly and often. (I have watched every episode of all three seasons\u2014with my wife who thinks the female letter writer from Ohio is \u201ccrazy.\u201d)<\/p>\n So, here we have a single reality-based<\/em> television program that gives rise to at least two<\/em> radically contradictory interpretations of the same facts<\/u>\u2014the husband\u2019s behavior toward his wife as shown on television. (At issue is not his behavior towards her off camera although the female letter writer suggests it may be worse than on camera.) How can this be?<\/p>\n One might be tempted to think the difference has to do with gender<\/em>, but that seems to be undermined by Lisa Hosack\u2019s interpretation as well as my wife\u2019s. (My wife agrees with me that sometimes Chip Gaines\u2019s adoration of his wife is a bit over the top.) What can account for this radical difference of interpretation of the exact same data?<\/em><\/p>\n Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (d. 1952) argued that all \u201cseeing\u201d is \u201cseeing as<\/em>.\u201d In other words, there is no \u201cview from nowhere.\u201d Every individual \u201csees\u201d things, interprets them, from a subjective point of view. In other words, there is no such thing as pure objectivity<\/em> in interpretation of data. I do not think this to me<\/em> obvious fact has filtered down to and influenced the average American. We are still fascinated and captivated by the illusion<\/em> of pure objectivity<\/em>\u2014when it \u201cworks\u201d for us. In other words, we may jump to it when it works to our advantage but most of the time we believe pure objectivity is possible and desirable.<\/p>\n Ironically, most Americans are also, and at the same time, conditional relativists<\/em>\u2014people who believe truth is contextual, never absolute.<\/p>\n If we believed with Wittgenstein and his postmodern followers that there is no view from nowhere<\/em> perhaps we would be much more humble in our assertions of and attempts to enforce our own perspectives.<\/p>\n Let me give one\u2014to regular readers here predictable (!)\u2014example and illustration. If<\/em> we took the reality of \u201cseeing as\u201d seriously we would abolish the death penalty because we would realize and acknowledge that any individual\u2019s or groups\u2019 interpretation(s) of data could be so biased and flawed as to be simply wrong. In fact, that has turned out to be the case in hundreds of jury decisions that have sent innocent men and women to prison for life. Without doubt it must have been the case in at least some<\/em> jury decisions that resulted in executions.<\/p>\n We can\u2019t stop incarcerating people, but we can and should realize that perspective so intrudes into everything<\/em> that putting someone to death because they are judged guilty of a heinous crime \u201cbeyond a reasonable doubt\u201d is too final and absolute. It assumes an objectivity that may not be available to finite minds.<\/p>\n The reality of perspective should result in fallibilism<\/em>\u2014the belief that human beings can<\/em> be wrong about anything (and possibly everything!). And fallibilism should result in acknowledging that even a jury of twelve \u201creasonable\u201d peers (are they ever really \u201cpeers?\u201d) could<\/em> be wrong even when the evidence seems beyond doubt. We all know this was the case in the past<\/em>\u2014when all white juries of only men condemned poor African-Americans to death (to say nothing of lynchings!). Why do we think it couldn\u2019t still be the case? We believe, apparently, in the modern myth of progress and assume we have reached the stage where we are beyond the past. Now<\/em>, we assume, we<\/em> are above the past<\/em>. How arrogant we are.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Note to potential commenters<\/em>: Please refrain from injecting here your own interpretation of Chip Gaines\u2019s behavior on \u201cFixer Upper.\u201d I have already acknowledged that there can be and are radically different perspectives and interpretations. (My own is that he is totally innocent of the Ohio woman\u2019s accusations.) Please restrict your comments to discussion of the phenomenon it illustrates and what should be our response to that.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On the Mystery and Meaning of Perspectives The title of this little blog post could be the title of a book! And perhaps someone has written it. I haven\u2019t\u2014yet. These are merely my musings about the subject sparked by a recent series of essays and letters about a television program. I live in the American […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n