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

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the surface, both in individuals and in culture generally and has an even more insidious grip for going unacknowledged. There is a rejection of things that suggest some kind of value — at odds with an apparent acceptance of all values that might be assumed as the stance of a tolerant society. At the same time, Western culture also seems to embrace truth as an ultimate value and quite readily speculates on truth as being transcendent. Mathematical ‘forms’ are regarded as somehow pre-existent or transcendent. Society suggests that it is embracing moral relativism and tolerance, but again I wonder if this is a pretence. And again, whilst we may happily claim that we believe beauty to be ‘in the eye of the beholder’, nonetheless there can be a certain ambivalence around beauty. On the one hand, society still clings to a transcendent truth of science and mathematics and yet at the same time argues for relativity in all other aspects of truth. We can somehow have a personal subjective truth that is okay for us so long as it does not overlap any scientific truth. Likewise, goodness and beauty are seen as subjective, but there is a rejection of strongly-held values as well as a rejection of beauty for its own sake that might be expressed in sensuality. There is a common disregard for the ‘sensualist’ in art, perhaps exemplified by criticisms of neo-classicism. This seems strange and contradictory in an intellectual environment that usually purports to be post-modern. A broader aesthetic that might find expression in a bohemian or decadent lifestyle may also be questioned. Artists, for instance, may claim to be rejecting sensual beauty, but in doing so they are making statements about beauty along the way. There

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