Part Three: Reality

In our last post, we established that each worldview is a set of beliefs lived out in the world in response to others and their worldviews. All worldviews require a commitment on the part of each individual in order to be lived out in the world. Worldviews not only define who we are but they also provide each of us with a sense of community, a sense of purpose, a set of values and more … and they do this through our commitment to them and our refinement of them.   

We demonstrate who we are through our worldviews. The consistency of living out a worldview actually reinforces our worldview, which develops who we are from the inside out. As we live out our worldview we refine it, deepening some beliefs and eliminating others; this refining process allows us, over time, to develop a sense of who we are and an assurance that we do have a place in this world, and it all happens internally.

What happens when worldviews are defective? We begin to look outside of ourselves for worldview answers, which reverses the process. What was an inside-out process, that positively impacted us, becomes an outside-in process that is a detriment to us, manifesting as irrational behavior searching for the consistency that is now absent. Defective worldviews create anxiety and confusion in us due to an external dependence on culture. Instead of refining beliefs and values internally, we are now constantly searching externally  for our beliefs and values, reacting in emotion to each situation and doing it differently due to our actions now being impacted by our emotions and different situations.

The neat clean internal process of worldview development is now a muddled multi-layered messy external process. The consistency found internally is not found externally as culture is a multi-faceted changing landscape of diverse and peculiar ideas that are always shifting. Culture will ultimately provide us the worldview we seek but it will always be provisional and short-lived as more change will soon come, as it always does with culture, providing no solace nor the consistency we seek. 

A defective inconsistent changing worldview rooted in culture undermines our common sense, changes our moral orientation and destroys our empathy for others. We become negative, judgmental and unsympathetic. Our tendency is to live for ourselves in response to the culture through our emotions. It is our emotions that become the means of determining cultural change and as we continually adjust to those changes  and that continuous adjustment impacts us deeply. A focus on emotions erodes away a factual objective reality, producing a subjective pseudo-reality that is now needed to support and feed our emotions, which have taken the place of beliefs and values. 

A  pseudo-reality is not real. It is pliant, inconsistent and situational. There are no absolutes in pseudo-reality. Truth is elastic and changes with each situation, which are impacted by power structures, theories and trends. The only consistency is change and nothing makes sense because there is no need for anything to make sense in pseudo-reality. Inconsistency is the only rule. Everyone seemingly has power which, in essence, gives no one power. In pseudo-reality every situation and circumstance is its own reality with its own set of rules. This turns everyone into a judge with no forgiveness or concern for others.  

Worldviews of the past die in pseudo-reality because they need to be refined and require an objective consistent reality for such a process. What brought us comfort through an internal refining process that sought consistency through clarification is no longer viable in a pseudo-reality. Pseudo-reality is a subjective ever-changing reality that seeks to fill our need for a worldview—and each of us needs a worldview—with itself.

Pseudo-reality adjusts to each situation and circumstance and through this process of adjustment places itself at the center of our lives because it is the only constant we know. There are no objective beliefs or values in pseudo-reality only emotions and they are always changing and reacting depending on the situation or circumstance. Where beliefs and values were deeply held and grew toward consistency, emotions, instead, are reactive, temporal, selfish and always inconsistent. They will never consider others and always be erratic and mutable. This is the world at our doorstep. How do we deal with this world? Stay tuned for our final installment of this four part series.