Episode Transcript  

One

Reality and Perspective

There is an old story about several blind men encountering an elephant for the first time. Since they could not see, each tried to understand the animal by touch alone. One felt the trunk and concluded the elephant was a snake. Another touched the ear and said it was a fan. One grasped the leg and declared it a pillar. Another pressed against its side and called it a wall. One held the tail and said it was a rope. The last felt the tusk and insisted it was a spear.

Each man is sincere. Each is describing something real. But each mistake his partial contact with reality for the whole truth. What they don’t realize is that their perspectives are not in conflict. They are fragments that only make sense when united by the single reality of the elephant.

That is the proper relationship between reality and perspective: one reality, many viewpoints, meant to correct, enrich, and complete one another. But now imagine something far worse. Imagine that the elephant slowly disappears…yet the arguments continue. The men keep speaking with confidence. They keep defending their views. They keep disagreeing with one another. But the reality that once unified their perspectives is gone.

That is the madness growing in our world, especially online: a world full of perspectives, opinions, and arguments, and increasingly detached from reality itself.

Two

The Rise of Viewpoints and the Fall of Reality

A viewpoint is supposed to be a viewpoint on a reality that everyone can see, that everyone can agree on. But right now, there’s an endless supply of viewpoints, but not much reality that people can agree on. There are so many news sources, opinion-makers, and commentators. But they’re not talking about the same things. They don’t agree on what’s happening. They don’t agree about the basic facts of current events, recent history, or remote history. 

Who knows which sources to trust? Who knows what’s legit and what’s a hoax, or what’s fraudulent? Who knows who’s telling the truth? And with AI deep-fake stuff, it’s not just testimony that becomes suspect, it’s video footage.

The viewpoints are multiplying endlessly, but the whole point of getting somebody’s view is that they’re supposedly looking at the same thing you’re looking at. And nobody’s looking at the same thing. It’s like everyone is ignoring the reality before them, and instead they’re clumping together in little groups, and each group is looking at its own set of pictures of random things, which somehow decisively proves that the other group is outrageously wrong-headed. 

And the few stragglers who are still looking at the elephant wonder what all these little clusters of people looking at pictures are getting so keyed up about. In other words, society is getting increasingly fragmented. Which doesn’t make for peace.

Three

Isolation

Reality is what unites minds. It’s the only thing that unites minds. Without a shared reality to talk about and engage with, there’s no bridge between one mind and another. The whole reason our dreams are irreducibly private, that we can’t sync up our dreams with someone else’s, is that our dreams are just an experience that starts and ends subjectively, that doesn’t give us access to the same common reality that’s at everyone else’s disposal. 

But when you’re not beginning with a shared, agreed-upon reality, then how can you be with other people in any real sense? 

And this is what’s going on. There’s outrage, there’s upheaval, there’s all this drama, and unless you’re part of a little clique of people who cluster together in the same internet discussions, you’ll know nothing about it. Because the outrage, upheaval, drama, it’s all disconnected from reality. It’s all happening in computer-land. And when you close your computer, and you look around at the people in your home, or your workplace, or your parish, you think, “These people don’t really know me. And I don’t really know them.”

How could you? When you’ve rejected the reality in front of you, which is the only thing that can tie you to them?

Four

God: source of reality, relationship, and right perspective

God is the source of all created reality, and He is the only omniscient one. What that means, because He is present everywhere, sustaining everything in being, He has the ultimate perspective on everything. He literally has the “view from everywhere,” because He is present to all reality, from every angle.

We do not. That’s not our design. God has made us to engage in one little portion of reality, and to dedicate our time to purifying and clarifying our perspective on the truth that He does make available to us. 

God has the inside scoop on what’s really going on in the Middle East, what’s really going on in the nitty-gritty dynamics of Washington, and what’s really going on in the worldwide Church. We don’t have that inside scoop. And the more we try to get it, the more likely we are to close our eyes to the only concrete reality before us. And the more likely we are to close our hearts to the people God has placed around us to share our portion of reality, truth, and happiness with. 

Five

Resolution

The resolution is very simple. Every time you feel tempted to get invested in something where you couldn’t possibly know all the details, not just because your perspective is limited, but because you have no firsthand knowledge of the subject matter at all, where you don’t have any direct access to the reality. Instead of investing in that, invest in something that is right inside of you or right in front of you. A deeper friendship with God by reading and thinking about the Word of God. Your spouse, your kids, your work. Your home. Your yard. A skill. Your friends.  

That’s the reality to focus on. That’s the reality to delight in. That’s the reality that will unite you with others instead of isolating you from them. 

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