Speaking of objective, let’s look at what the word means.
3 a: expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations
(you can look at the whole definition here)
Now, let’s look at subjective.
3 a: characteristic of or belonging to reality as perceived rather than as independent of mind
(again, the whole definition here)
The distinctions are self evident. There’s been a great deal of equivocation in the topics of science and history. I want to say this has been lately, but the truth is that there has always been a certain amount of equivocation about the difference between subjective and objective. We have actually gotten to the point where opinion has been given as much weight as objective reasoning, though, and that’s inherently problematic.
I’ve often had a discussion with someone, or overheard a discussion, that reached an impasse with a Dude-esque “yeah well, that’s just like your opinion, man.” Maybe it was them, and maybe it was me, but as mothers everywhere say “I don’t care who started it. I’m stopping it.” This has really got to end.
No one is asking anyone to give up their fundamental beliefs, practices, philosophies, affiliations and ideas but they’ve got to be questioned when they can’t stand up to objectivity. We all do. Part of being a fully functioning human is questioning and evaluating. Then reevaluating, constantly. If this is contraindicated by any particular belief, affiliation, practice, philosophy or idea then all I can do is side-eye the hell out of it.
But that’s like, just my opinion, man.
pollychromatic 