Both And, Not Either Or

In America, we are plagued by cognitive dissonance or “the discomfort a person feels when their behavior does not align with their values or beliefs. Cognitive dissonance is a psychological phenomenon that occurs when a person holds two contradictory beliefs at the same time.” Now, in the 21st century the cracks of this break in cognition have yielded destructive results. Postmodernism “is an intellectual stance or mode of discourse characterized by skepticism towards elements of the Enlightenment worldview. It questions the "grand narratives" of modernity, rejects the certainty of knowledge and stable meaning, and acknowledges the influence of ideology in maintaining political power. Postmodernism embraces self-referentiality, epistemological relativism, moral relativism, pluralism, irony, irreverence, and eclecticism. It opposes the "universal validity" of binary oppositions, stable identity, hierarchy, and categorization. We will get into the ironic attack on the Enlightenment later in the article.

Its quite common for a persons value to be determined by what accidental characteristic they possess e.g., skin color, sex, genealogy etc. characteristics a person is born with and do not control. The problems and questions of law of identity and the law of non-contradiction have been a debate in philosophy since the Pre Socratics. Aristotle stated: “When A belongs to the whole of B and to C and is affirmed of nothing else, and B also belongs to all C, it is necessary that A and B should be convertible.” In layman’s terms: I’m a white man, the fact that I’m white does not negate the fact that I’m a man and the fact that I’m a man does not negate the fact that I’m white, these characteristics are harmonious with being.

But does a characteristic of a person have a higher value than another characteristic? Is the fact that I’m white more important or “better” than being a man? The objective answer is no, there is no epistemic justification or legitimate argumentation that could be given as to why one aspect or accidental characteristic is more valuable than another. A run of the mill liberal ideologue may say something to the effect of “inherent racism”, “white priveledge” or “social conditions” but they aren’t answering the question and they are trained by their college professors not to. Why in their worldview are certain characteristics, or anything for that