I’m picking on JJ again. Sorry, but not sorry at all. I’m also thinking of a conversation I had
with my sister, J, years ago. JJ and I were talking through my current favorite
medium, Twitter about the Caps because hockey. JJ was angry, though that is a
strong word, over the NHL and Mibury. Milbury said a lot of stupid things about
Ovechkin last year. The whole time I couldn’t help but think I’m not exactly
objective because I like the Caps, and I hate when people talk shit about my
teams even when they deserve it (I'm looking at you Cleveland Indians). For me it is comes out clearest when talking
LeBron James. He may be the best basketball player of our generation, but I do
not care. Because I can’t even pretend to be objective about it; he was a tool
when he left Cleveland so I’m guess he’s probably still a tool. Damn fine ball
handler though.
The conversation
with my sister centered on an ideological split. She and I don’t always agree, or most of the time, or ever.
That last one that might be the right answer. I’m pretty sure J thinks I’ve
wasted my life. I’ve studied English, History, Catholic Studies, Women’s
Studies, and now Social Work, but none of these are hard sciences. She studies
math. Now, it doesn’t matter than I spend my days with SPSS, and this
conversation took place before this job, because math and science are “real”,
her word, because they are objective. I will also note that I was pretty
damn offended the first time she said what she studies is real and by extension
what I study is fake, not real, I’m still not sure. However, I don’t believe hard
sciences are objective. There are math problems that can’t be solved, and some
that have been solved only to discover the answer was wrong. I’ve seen math
problems with more letters than some bad poetry I’ve written. However, society
puts a value on math and hard sciences.
J believes things
like the scientific method yields objective results, and that is why math and
science are worth more than literature and the soft sciences. I argued that
there is no such thing as objectivity, and math and sciences are prioritized by
society because they are prioritized by the patriarchy, and like most things in
the patriarchy are defined in relationship to femininity. So math is important
and women are bad at math, while literature is not important because feelings,
which is girly. *sarcasm* We had this argument several times, once in front of
a good friend of mine who decided she liked to watch us fight. [Aside, we weren’t
fighting.] I’m not even going to bring in Rand’s Objectivism, which anyone
reading this blog would know exactly where I fall on that…rational self-interest *for white men amiright?*
I don’t believe we
can ever be truly objective because everything is influenced by something. Every
thought we have has been influenced by something we have learned or experienced,
and anything gained through these processes can’t be objective. The scientific
method for example isn’t objective because it was shaped by those would created it, men. For the longest time experiments focused on
men with the exclusion of women. So if a study found X cures X disease in white
men, and then marketed X as a drug to cure X isn’t entirely accurate even if the
results can be replicated. Because the results were reached through a process
that thought white men can represent everyone when they can’t. Or the Tuskegee
Study as a good and awful example. It was done in a “scientific and objective
way”, but Black men were selected because they were devalued by our government
and by extension the scientific community. However, if we were morally bankrupt
and still pushing openly racist policies (we prefer covert racism now) then we
could replicate this study.
However, not only
to I think objectivity can’t be obtained; I don’t think it should be the goal,
ok maybe a little Rand. Rational self-interest implies that everyone starts out
on the same level and can look out for their own rational self-interest. I hate
libertarianism because this isn’t possible. Additionally, objectivity can't be obtained, and I'm not sure the results found through "objectivity" would be ideal anyway because they would lack human perspective or just present the perspective of the person running things. That is all. I like good research
as much as the next person, but when I study welfare, I want to know welfare recipients’
points of view. I don’t care about the views of people who oppose welfare, and
I know that my subjects are going to be bias. That doesn’t make their point of
view invalid. It just means it isn’t generalizable.
JJ and I, and
probably everyone else, don’t like Milbury. Part of our dislike is probably
based in the stupid shit he says about the Caps. That doesn’t mean we can’t
tell he’s an idiot because he is an idiot.
