There are few things more headache-inducing than trying to reconcile different perspectives on the world. If a person, or a group of people, or many generations of people analyze something in order to discover an explanation for it, and emerge with a certain perspective based on their analysis, they tend to declare that as far as they can see, their perspective is the truth. If more than one group of people goes through this process, and come up with different perspectives that contradict each other, the situation can feel unresolvable. How does one discuss or compromise on what one believes to be the truth? There is a reason why people consider religion and politics the two things you should never get into an argument about — both claim to know the truth. However, being too hard-headed about the supremacy of one perspective over all others is jumping to conclusions, not because the perspective may be wrong, but simply because the other perspectives may still be right. While different perspectives may seem to contradict one another, it does not mean that one is absolutely right and the others are fundamentally wrong. There are two rather simple explanations encompass all incompatibility between different perspectives: 1) they are all wrong, and 2) they are all parts of a larger truth.
The first explanation is rather unlikely in most cases, especially cases like the three different viewpoints of the Bretton Woods system, because the theories can be easily tested to show that there is at least some grain of truth to them (although some people may feel that only one theory is correct, this still would mean that not all of them are wrong.)The second explanation is more likely, and easier to discuss, because there are many ways of interpreting it. If conflicting theories are part of a larger truth, it would stand to reason that different perspectives could apply to different situations. If one theory explains one situation perfectly, but cannot explain another, while a second theory that is completely incompatible with the first theory explains another situation perfectly, but cannot explain the first situation, that is a clue that neither of these theories are complete or “perfect” explanations, and therefore, there must be a larger truth that would explain both situations still waiting undiscovered. All we can do is come up with more and more theories and perspectives until all the pieces of the puzzle are found.
The pesky issue that would inevitably arise from this seemingly comfortable theory is the question of how to find out when the whole truth is found. Sometimes, conflicting perspectives may be one-directional, with perspective number one insisting that perspective number two is just part of perspective number one, and perspective number two insisting that they absolutely are not, or even arguing that perspective number one is actually part of perspective number two. For example, a realist might argue that constructivism is just part of realism -- identities are simply a factor of the state’s interest, and changing identities are just a factor of fluctuations in the state’s position of power in the world. On the other hand, a constructivist might argue that realism is perfectly accurate -- it’s just one facet of constructivism, because a state that operates by the rules of realism is the product of a state whose identity is described as realist. Which one is right then? Or are they both wrong once more? The issues of differing perspectives never seems to reach a satisfactory conclusion. It is, after all, almost certain that someone out there thinks my self-confident explanation of contradictory perspectives is a complete load, and then we’re back to square one again.
No comments:
Post a Comment