CiRCE Talks: Laura Berquist’s The Poison of Subjectivism

[dropcap]I[/dropcap] sometimes think that Laura Berquist is someone I’d be very fond of in real life. Part of it is probably because the way she speaks reminds me of my friend Rahime. Regardless, I have to say that I like Laura Berquist, and being that she is one of the only classically-educated women I’ve ever encountered, I respect her as well.

Her talk takes its title from C. S. Lewis’ essay of the same name {available in the collection Christian Reflections}. The idea is that subjectivism is like a poison — it kills the most valuable things in our culture.

But first: what is subjectivism? I took it upon myself to try and describe it at the outset, and decided that subjectivism is embodied in our idea that something can be true for me, and its opposite true for you. In other words, it is the idea that there is no capital-T Truth, but rather each person discovers his own local truth.

Berquist has a better, more insightful definition {as I was dealing mainly with symptoms}:

Subjectivism is the view that there is no objective reality by which we are measured.

The ramifications of this are huge. The eventual result is tyranny. If there is no absolute truth, morality and goodness become defined by local contexts. In the end, then, the only litmus test is conformity to what is accepted, and Berquist rightly points out that it follows that what is accepted is what is what the people in charge say is accepted.

Confusion also follows, because subjectivism is not internally coherent. How is it that one can say absolutely that there is absolutely no absolute Truth? One cannot, and when one tries, logic breaks down. The result of this, sadly, is not repentance, but rather a questioning of logic and reason. Perhaps they don’t exist? Perhaps there is no cause for accepting logic and reason?

Morality becomes based not upon absolute standards, but upon will and desire, says Berquist.

And, since our discussion really centers on education, it is important to note that education itself breaks down. Learning become impossible because there is no truth. As Berquist says,

There is nothing to know.

Berquist doesn’t exactly put her argument in this order, but after listening to her talk, it became very apparent to me why we have traded a liberating education for a slave’s education. If there is no truth, a liberal arts education is fraudulent at best. Berquist herself says that

without objective measure, man turns his attention to control of his environment [{i.e., technology}], and he uses his reason as a problem-solver and a deviser of techniques. The concern for true and false, for good and evil, is replaced by a quest for power.

So we have high schools now that train students in techniques. It may be how to pass a test to get degrees to get a high level academic job {a form of intellectual power-wielding} if you are bright. Or it may be any number of job-training foci. In our town we have high schools {or, at least, we did a few years back — I’m a little out of touch} that train students for nursing, for film, for the beauty industry, whatever. Folks think this is just wonderful. We can only think this because we have traded the truth which can and must be known and which sets us free for the lie of subjectivism. Our only option becomes turning to power, which, when translated into education, means training students for jobs so that they can have money.

Money is seen as power. Technology is also seen as power, but one cannot have it without the money to purchase it, and so we return to the need for a job.

The “best” job in this subjective world is then seen as that which offers the most money any particular student is capable of earning.

And thus darkness conquers America without a shot.

Just something to think about.

Now, I’d like to focus on some important thoughts that Berquist that I found helpful. Most of us were educated by a subjective curriculum and teachers who were at least functional subjectivists. We were in a total immersion program, folks, and we picked up the language and thought patterns whether we like it or not.

Berquist’s ideas, then, can be cleansing.

• Berquist made a comment about subjectivism which was striking to me. In sharing what a subjectivist high school teacher had taught her {even she had one!}, she explained that his lessons taught them that
  

  the currently prevailing way of thinking, which was not measured by anything given in the order of nature or grace was what we were supposed to adopt.

  I’d like to focus on the idea here of measuring by something given in the order of nature or grace. The more time we spend knowing the orders of nature and grace, the more we are protected from subjectivism. So, for instance, grace has revealed certain moral laws. When we measure ourselves against these laws, instead of against our own passions, we do well and subjectivism is purged from our morality. Nature, too, reveals her lessons to those who are willing to listen.

• One of the side-effects of subjectivism is that it has become offensive in our culture to say that one thing is better than another. Is this not the cause of many a mommy war? Berquist gives us a philosophy lesson to aid us:
  

  To compare two things involves a standard against which both are measured. Something can’t be better than something else unless there’s a third reality that is measuring both things. When one says something is “better” one is saying that it is more like what it should be than the alternative. This means there has to be a third reality against which both are measured.

  Let’s think about this for a minute. This means that we have to study and know that objective, third reality. In recent years, I’ve had folks question our choice to homeschool, or homeschooling in general, saying that “if we all abandon the public schools, it’d be a tragedy,” and so on. For years, I didn’t really know what to say to that. Now, I know that the best response is in using an objective standard. The standard is the Bible’s use of the Greek word paideia in Ephesians 6:4, where fathers are commanded to raise their children in “the paideia of the Lord.” As paideia refers to a form of education that was total immersion, I can confidently state that Christian fathers are commanded to insure a Christian education for their children. Period. Their argument, then, is with God and not with me. Do you see how this lifts us out of subjectivism? Now, instead of saying that my opinion is this and theirs is that, we can go together to the Scripture and discover what that Christian education might look like. And so we see that subjectivism brings to the table a lot of tension, while knowing and studying the objective reality brings peace and community.

• Berquist tells us how she thinks we can avoid subjectivism, and both points above are actually examples of this. She says we avoid it by knowing. When we discover Truth, subjectivity flees before us. She uses Euclid’s Elements as an example. By the time a student has worked through all thirteen books, he knows something that is True in the order of nature. He is astounded, amazed. And any bit of subjectivism that was in his heart in this area fades away. Truth, we must recall, sets us free, and it can set us free from our cultural bondage to subjectivism.
• Therefore, liberal education itself is a means of combating subjectivism. As Berquist beautifully concluded,
  

  Man desires to know, and when he knows, he is doing what he was made to do. This is freedom, for freedom is found in learning what one is supposed to do, and doing it. The free man is able to direct his own life and the life of the community. He is not the slave of his passions or of fashion in thought. He recognizes that he should work to come to an understanding of the truth.