pomo greg I

just wondering... how is it that i can both believe that the one worth waiting for is worth waiting an entire lifetime up till the final breath while also acceding to every opportunity is love in its infancy... why beauty is only as deep as the observer while goodness tends to show on one's countenance... the proverbial do unto others as thou wilt have unto thyself even as justice and fairness to all regardless contains similar amounts of moral righteousness... even the easily accepted logic breeds reason and persuasion in the interest of rationality and utilitarian equity faces contradiction with rationalisation begets mind-numbing bureaucracy and ends-serving amorality in the service of status quo.

these truisms have a simple similarity: they are expounded proudly in the absence of context.

contextualisation (note its subtle differences with rationalisation) brings form to essence; it gives a love story sordid details, it matches quantum mechanics to the world, it allows political rhetoric to blossom into war. the human experience is but an unfathomable sublime abstraction if not for the expressive agency of language, and thus communication. your feelings are truisms, up till the point your expression contextualises it for me, whereupon i see through your glasses, thus your experience is empathised into a common reality between us.

context is very much an inextricable nature of reality (i will critique reality some other time), and in saying that different contexts varies the commonality of experiencing realities between different entities, i concede that reality is very much subject to relativism. in one context, truism A may apply, yet in another, its complete opposite truism B makes marvelous sense, even if these opposites are as contrasting as black and white, or even mutually exclusive pronouncements of morality. killing a person for his money is wrong, so is killing out of jealousy, although killing in a fit of rage seems slightly more forgivable; in a war we kill each other fairly; a cop is allowed to kill if the suspect is substantially dangerous while killing the unborn child in defense of the mother's life is almost universally faultless. in this one subject of taking life, myriad contexts already present their fervent cases: could you live happily if thou shalt not kill crept into your mind (and held you back) when you had the chance to kill the eventual murderer of your family?

so i wonder if the postmodern critique of objective reality and absolute truths could hold more than just some water. indeed the entire paragraph on killing above reeks clearly of modernistic rationalisation either way. neither does removing the absoluteness of morals dilute its capacity as some of life's greatest pieces of advice. in this case, can we say pomo is attempting to move closer to the truth? that contextualisation is a more apt appraisal of reality than fundamentalism?

watch out for pomo greg.