“How difficult it is in the social media world to get a real argument going. Why? Because people have denied the objectivity of truth and values, so what’s there to argue about? All that’s left is a play of wills, a clash of powerful wills.”
Bishop Robert Barron
I may as well just start a Robert Barron quote category on here, because just about every time I listen I hear something pretty cool. The above quote was pulled from the podcast, “Ideas have Consequences: the Philosophers that Shaped 2020 (part 2).” All very good, but this line especially. It gets to the heart of the issues we face today. Younger people especially have bought into Sartre’s philosophy of existentialism where they define their own truths – their very selves. And so how can we have true discussion? How can we find a common set of rules that will govern arguments when at least one side of the debate denies objective truth and uses their own truth as the platform from which they deny the other?
It became clearer to me as the talk went on that the bottom line of all of this was that in order for these philosophies to exist, they had to deny God. And Barron hits it at the end of his talk. He says, “What’s one thing that all four of these thinkers – Marx, Nietzsche, Sartre, Foucault – have in common? The denial of God. And I think you see why. If God exists as the supreme truth and value, then there’s an objective ground for these things. Key to all four of these systems is a kind of dismantling of the objectivity of truth and value. Therefore, the institution that speaks most clearly of God is going to stand athwart this point of view.”
Again, Barron gets to the heart of it, and helps capture the issues that plague us today, especially in the world of social media. Good stuff. I recommend it.