The Laziness and Cynicism of "Subjectivity"

"It's subjective," people so often say.

Most of those who hear that word nod and grunt like Tim Taylor at Good Neighbor Wilson's utterance of Big Thinks from behind the fence.

But what does the word really mean?

Not what people think it does, usually.

Often what we're talking about is quite objective. (After all, those subjective feelings are usually in relation to some concrete thing, place, person, incident.) But we cannot explain what we want to convey in a satisfactory way.

Sometimes this is a matter of simply not having thought the matter through properly.

This may be because doing so simply does exceed our capabilities. In which case not so much can be done about it (at least, by the person so frustrated).

But often it is a matter of being too lazy to try and think the matter through.

Other times we say "It's subjective" because we have thought things out--and we know that we don't really have an argument, we're really being unfair and we know that we'll come off badly when we try to explain our untenable position, but damn it, we want what we want, and we're willing to play dirty to get it.

When something is really important, be very careful of people who try to fob you off with "It's subjective."

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