You know where this came from: ‘Lived Experience’ = ‘Your Truth’ in Oprah-speak, and that many – TOO many – people believe Ms Markle’s phantasmagorical claims. Those of us who raise an eyebrow and point to hard facts to counter her claims are denigrated. Lying, apparently, is acceptable if you believe or claim you believe what you saw / heard / interpreted / experienced was true, especially if you are anything other than white, middle-class and male.
How come? Whatever happened to sound science and journalistic integrity (of which Oprah has none)? Whatever happened to tolerance, open-mindedness, kindness, friendship, selflessness and civilised debate.
I’ll try and provide some answers, starting with academic gobbledygook (albeit cadged from Wikipedia): “In qualitative phenomenological research [a branch of philosophy], lived experience refers to a representation of the experiences and choices of a given person, and the knowledge that they gain from these experiences and choices.”
In other words, people’s experiences are real to them because they’ve experienced them first-hand. The rest of us who haven’t experienced them through the same eyes and occupying the same space, but have other compelling evidence to prove another side of the story, are wrong to say that such experiences aren’t real.
That’s not as daft as it might sound. There IS a difference between facts, truth and reality (the terms are used interchangeably in everyday communication, which isn’t helpful) but that in itself is not a worrying thing. Indeed, it’s not phenomenology that’s at fault for dangerously destabilising the foundations of social relationships in the 21st century; it’s the manipulation and distortion of the philosophy by those who want to undermine society for their own cock-eyed motives.
Here are brief-as-I-dare explanations of the above three concepts:
· A fact is something that is ‘proved’ by scientific (empirical) evidence or logic: for example, “All insects are smaller than humans”. Everyone has seen this phenomenon. No one has seen anything other than this. Insects HAVE to be smaller than humans to fulfil their purposes in the natural world, as scientific study has shown.
· All facts are true but not all truths are facts. This is because a ‘truth’ might not be supported by empirical evidence. For example, “I have a headache,” might be true because my head does hurt, but until someone scans my brain and finds a cause or a biological effect of the pain, no one else knows if I’m telling the truth or lying. But when Meghan claimed in her list of ‘Truths’ that Archie was denied the title of Prince because of his skin colour, we know that’s not true because had Archie been ‘white’, he would still not have been a Prince because he’s not in the direct line of succession. It’s the 100-year-old rules that say so. Nowt to do with skin colour. Meghan, apparently, believes otherwise because (let’s be kind) she doesn’t understand the rules (although Harry should), but that doesn’t make her statement true. It’s still false. I’m not claiming (for the benefit of this blog) that she’s lying, because a lie is a deliberate falsehood, not a genuine misunderstanding.
· A fact is real. The truth is real. But the concept of reality also covers stuff that can’t be proved empirically or even logically and varies from person to person. For some, God is real. No one can prove it one way or the other. It’s a conviction. Meghan believes, apparently, that racism exists within the Royal Family. The Queen, according to her oh so masterful written riposte, believes that it doesn’t. The racism is ‘real’ according to Meghan, but not according to the Queen. Which is it? Who should we believe? Meghan and her supporters say that anyone who isn’t of colour has no right to doubt a coloured person’s claims of racism.
This is ‘reverse racism’. People of colour have grasped a privilege of claiming what they want at the expense of non-coloureds, who aren’t allowed to defend themselves. If this is some sort of pay-back strategy for historic injustices, then it’s divisive and counter-productive to the point of being inflammatory and downright dangerous.
Before throwing my toys out of my pram, let’s see if I can understand this more productively.
Meghan says the Royals are racist. The Royals say they're
not. Could it be that what Meghan means by racist is different from what the
Royals mean by the term? I’m guessing that my definition of racism is more in
line with Queenie’s than Meghan’s, which is that racism is judging or dealing
with people according to their colour or ethnicity. If Meghan
was disliked by her courtiers because of the colour of her skin, then that
is racism. If they disliked her because she was a bully, then that is not
racism. Come to think of it, as well as Meghan having a different definition of racism, she might have a different definition of bullying!
So according to Meghan’s definitions and sensitivities, she might have felt that the Royals were racist. In trendy parlance, it was HER lived experience according to how SHE defines concepts and how SHE perceives matters, so anyone who is not her is denied the right to judge her (unless they agree with her of course).
If you want the waters muddied even further, try this. Imagine me at my kitchen table, in discussion with two identical twins. I say something directed at both of them at the same time. Twin A thinks what I said was profound, interesting, amusing, whatever. Because she lived it; it’s real to her. No one has the right to doubt her. Therefore, I’m cool. (If only.) Twin B, on the other hand, takes umbrage and thinks what I said was out of order. Because she lived it, it’s real to her. No one has the right to doubt her. Therefore, I’m rude. (Shuddup.)
How is it possible to be cool and rude at the same time? The phenomenological response is that it’s because all lived experiences are real to the person experiencing them, and if something is real, albeit so-limited, then it can’t be doubted, even if two people experience two different realities.
This is the point where I reach for the gin.
Having established that it is perfectly legit to have more than one parallel reality (assuming you’re not a white, middle-class male, that is), what on earth can I say that everyone will find cool and no one will find rude? What are the rules? Who are the judges, the jury and the executioners? Are there any grey areas? Is there any tolerance? Is there any forgiveness?
No. No there isn’t. So this distortion of phenomenology is resulting in divisiveness and polarisation, intolerance and mistrust, vengefulness and mercilessness. The worst perpetrators appear to me to be those who preach equality, kindness and tolerance. The word hypocrisy springs to a polite mind, but I so don’t feel like being polite. I will keep trying though by brain-storming how we should be constructively approaching these mixed-reality issues.
The best approach as well as outcome, I believe, is a level playing field for everyone. Facilitating lying and closing down debate is not the answer. A healthier, more workable and sustainable strategy is to start from the premise that everyone is equal (which is a no-brainer). By that I mean everyone is of equal value to all sections of society – everyone has something positive they could contribute, whether they’ve ‘lived it’ or not. In other words, everyone is deserving of an equal voice AND an equal ear. Everyone can say what they want and everyone else has a duty to listen.
Only then can we start to understand other people’s points of view and test them against the evidence, against others’ counter-claims, and find the facts and the truth and work out a common ground on which we can build bridges, mend fences, hold hands and move onwards and upwards, not sucked into a whirlpool of lies, fear, mistrust and hatred, which is where distorted phenomenology – and Meghan – is taking us.
My approach, by the way, is called free speech. It’s not
rocket science.
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