21 levels of Self-Deception: THIRD EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

T W E N T Y - O N E L E V E L S

something as a ‘table’ is to use a word as a simple signifier and it might be assumed that all words, if used clearly enough and with correct construction of sentences, would act in the same way (much in the manner of Bertrand Russell attempting to formulate logic by means of language). Context however creates a worldview in which individual words sit. As such, the meaning of individual words is at least partly dependant on context and an individual’s familiarity or otherwise with that context. A worldview — perhaps all world views — are therefore ‘constructed’. In this work, the context of our discussion is given by defining boundaries and ‘economies’.

In a similar vein, ‘transcendent’ ideals such as truth, goodness and beauty are distinguished from their representations (or immanence) in the world. Values then come to be seen as having some kind of ghostly existence of their own — even sometimes for people who have no religious belief. The Platonic forms — perhaps the most familiar example of transcendent ideals — are now widely rejected, but covertly still applied. Consider, for instance, the writings of physicists about mathematical truths. Scientism thus has an insidious grip — science claims to speak from a position of neutrality, but in fact has underlying assumptions that go unchallenged. There is, for instance, an underlying desire in science (and Western culture generally) that is denied — perhaps it could be called power over nature. Western politics has followed suit. Religion, at least in the West, actually reinforces this approach rather than contesting it. There is a reaching for an objective ‘hook’ on which to hang subjective

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