Can multiple versions of reality exist at the same time?
The way people process “reality” is subject to interpretation; it depends upon
- their mindset, views, values; level of education, gender; experiences;
- how people “see”; senses; our perception – how perceptive are we – what are we capable of seeing, noticing and feeling?
- self-interest – we see things to protect our integrity, sense of self and honour, pride.
- the past, memory, our upbringing; we remember things to suit ourselves; we suppress uncomfortable truths; we reinterpret or suppress trauma; positive memories usually determine an optimistic outlook on life; see opportunities not obstacles
- their fears and phobias
- sexual and subconscious desires
- depending upon who is relaying the story – firsthand experience or second-hand, third-hand experiences.
See notes on “Whose reality” for numerous examples about different perspectives. Here’s a few more that I’ve been collecting.
Different versions of reality often depend upon our role in the group – insider (those who determine the dominant views and values) or outsider (those who are marginalised because of personality, skin, appearance, gender, social status or age).
People’s views often differ once they have had first-hand experience of life’s challenges and tragedies. For example, those who have the misfortune of witnessing some of nature’s most horrific disasters, will change their perspective on life. Becoming less secure, and more in tune with the vagaries of life, they are often become emotionally dislocated (do not process fear and guilt). (Think about the survivors of “Black Saturday”.)
A physical or mental disability informs a different perspective. Generally our physical and mental realities are linked, one influencing the other.
For example, Tim Sharp is an autistic artist whose most popular drawings are those that challenge the viewer to see reality from Tim’s autistic or rather very literal perspective. (In autism, language has a literal meaning.) Eschewing a metaphoric or symbolic take on reality, Tim’s “the Barbie Queue” relating to the family’s outing to a barbecue, features a line of Barbies in a queue waiting for a barbecue. As mother Judy Sharp states, “no one looks at a barbecue the same way any more.”
Compare the cubists’ view of reality as artists such as Picasso and Matisse challenge us to see objects in obscure three-dimensional shapes. Or Dali’s desire to obscure his paintings through visual ambiguity. (See notes on Whose Reality) asking us to consider how multiple perspectives can exist simultaneously.
Often individuals themselves embrace a variety of different perspectives according to their experiences in life. A change in our physical condition, can lead to a change in our mental outlook and hence differing perspectives.
A near tragic accident or near death experiences can heighten our sensitivity and alter perspectives on life. Closeness or first-hand experience has a big impact upon a change in perspectives as does an accident that may involve a significant physical change. (Refer to soldiers’ experiences upon their return from war. Many suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder which in itself leads to, or results from a different perspective of life. First-hand experience of the horror and brutality of war, can also lead to changed perspectives about one’s own sense of courage and honour as well as reflection upon dominant political agendas.)
For example, Brad Connelly broke his neck in a bodysurfing accident and his life changed forever. Learning to communicate through lip-reading leads to a significant change in relationship patterns as does the fact that he has to learn to live with the feeling of being a constant burden. (“I shattered so many people with my injury.” From a tactile perspective, he also had to rethink his relationship with his children as he can only feel their skin through his face. As he states, “It’s not how I envisaged being a father”. His relationship with his wife Pam is not physical but rather they “sit and talk for hours” contemplating “life’s big questions together”.
Whilst Brad personally struggles with the vision of himself as a burden, contrastingly, Pam, his wife, expresses gratitude for his life and from her perspective is thankful that she did not lose her husband. She believes that she has grown through their physical interdependence and admits, “I’ve never had a problem with the wife/carer thing. Now it’s like his body is my body.” In a strange way, she believes that the accident has even “improved our relationship”.
For example,
Sample response
“From my own perspective”: Jonathan Smithers offers his personal perspective in Claxy Matters (a youth magazine sponsored by the Meredith Shire)
“We can’t always see things as they are. Remember that others can’t either” (Matthew Ricketson, The Age, 8/8/06)
The other day my sister was bitten by our neighbour’s German Sheppard and claimed that the dog attacked her while she was dawdling past his property. In contrast, the neighbour stated that my sister was provoking the dog and deliberately placed herself in danger. He often snarled at Lucy just as the dog did and my sister had often complained about his snide remarks. Acting on his belief that my sister was the victim of a vicious dog attack, my father wanted to sue for negligence and wanted the dog put down because it had almost jumped the dilapidated fence. Contrastingly, the owner said my sister, was the provocateur — unruly and disobedient. (He believed she needed sterner discipline.)
Evidently, our view of reality is shaped by a multitude of factors, some more obvious than others. Place, age and context are important. Personality and experience also play a large role; my neighbour was evidently defensive and protective of his territory and for some reason held a grudge. They say dog-owners often come to resemble their dogs, one of the most famous being Salamano in Albert Camus’ The Outsider, but I was also vaguely aware of some happening in the past that had become a bone of contention between the two fathers. My father, equally protective, and armed with a legal background, was all too aware of his legal rights but also recognised the motivated attack on his authority.
During my research on issues and religious practices in Pakistan, I came across a story about a teacher in a remote village. The mob attempted to lynch her because she drew a cross relating to Jesus on the blackboard. Ironically she was pointing out the points of the compass, but due to different religious beliefs and possibly personal animosity there was near calamity. Ironically, the blasphemy of religion law, which is a cornerstone of radical Muslim Sunnis in Pakistan, was invoked against her.
I am a natural cynic, perhaps owing to my tendency to question whatever my parents expect me to take for granted. (Evidently, my position of junior vis a vis those in authority irks me. One’s status in the group after all gives rise to different perspectives as does the fact that I was born in Australia and not Pakistan.) It is perfectly plain to me that the students used this opportunity to take revenge on their teacher, because they could. Perhaps they didn’t like her. Perhaps she had chastened some of the kids or appeared to favour some over another. Perhaps she ignored one of the children .Perhaps the parents objected to her faith. Or perhaps, one of the kids had just retold an innocent story about what they had done at school that day — a day that had been blackened by the sickness of one of the parents.
My cynicism was strengthened recently when I ended up in hospital after jumping off the monkey bars in a park. (Actually, I was pushed off by my friend who was trying to hurry me and upstage me. He said he slipped and I had my leg in the way.) Whilst waiting in the casualty ward, for what seemed a couple of hours (although my parents said I was one of the lucky ones to be seen within one hour), I witnessed a distressed, agitated and aggressive man enter the hospital and after an inarticulate but furious argument with some nurses ended up shooting himself. (As it turned out, he was a returned soldier who had saved three lives during an ambush in a small village in Afghanistan. The nurses claimed that he was attempting to rob the medicine cabinet; his wife later claimed that they should have swiftly sedated him, knowing that he was unreasonably agitated. And I couldn’t help feeling angry at the fact that this soldier, who seemed to have acted so honourably during wartime, acted dishonourably thereafter.)
(As I mentioned, contrary to my perceptions of time, my parents said I was lucky to have been attended to within the hour. A gentleman and his wife, of Pakistani decent, who spoke but broken English, complained that he was not getting any attention for his wife who had a high temperature and accused the staff of putting him deliberately on the bottom of the list. The exhausted nurse said that all patients were accessed according to need.)
While I was sitting in the casualty department, I happened to pick up an old copy of the Time Magazine. The front cover, featured a picture of a mutilated girl’s face. As it turned out, Aisha was 12-year-old child bride, who had been brutally enslaved and persecuted by her husband. She was promised to a Taliban fighter to settle a blood debt. She was abused, enslaved and made to sleep in a stable with animals. She ran away and was caught a year later. Her nose and ears were sliced off by her husband as punishment. She was left for dead in the mountains and crawled to her grandfather’s house from where she was taken to an American medical facility.
The Americans ask, “What happens if we leave Afghanistan”. They stated that this was an excellent example of how the Taliban oppress women. It justified the invasion and proved that they could not morally leave Afghanistan. They were after all, fighting for women’s rights and justice in this fledgling democracy. The then president’s wife, Laura Bush, had almost adopted Aisha as her own daughter.
The Taliban stated that this picture was a typical example of “war porn” revealing the lengths that the United States was prepared to go to to blackmail public opinion. It was “fabrication” and an attempt to divert public opinion into supporting the war. They claimed that such atrocity was against sacred Islamic law.
Aisha’s husband justifies the atrocity because his wife shamed and dishonoured him. The ancient proverb states that a Pashtun man who is shamed by his wife is said “to lose his nose”. Aisha was living proof of the literal application of this proverb. And in her case, she lives with the pain.
The whole picture and the morality play reminded me of the witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. When they proclaim, “fair is foul and foul is fair” they foreshadow that Macbeth’s life will become a battlefield. However, this oxymoron also alludes to the fact that so many of our life’s experiences and events are subject to interpretation, and whether they are “fair” or “foul” often depends upon the circumstances and the context, our background, our views and our life experiences. What to the witches and Lady Macbeth may be “fair”, like the opportunity to murder a King, maybe be “foul” to others.
What seemed like a perfectly justifiable reason to invade Afghanistan, was to the Taliban a serious affront – one that they were determined to thwart at every turn. And 10 years later …
Hamlet’s idea to stage a play within a play in Hamlet to ‘catch the conscience of the king’ gives rise to the notion that many layers of truth often exist and that it is difficult to arrive at a final version. This ‘Chinese Box’ technique, or a story within a story, gives rise to the concept of multiple layers of reality and suggests that each layer metaphorically refers to, or implicates another. These various layers mirror one another, fuelling, rather than solving, the theory of an ultimate truth — unlike Plato’s cave analogy, which reveals that there is an ultimate truth or ordering principle that can be grasped should one turn towards the ‘sun’. It is a case of possessing the superior intelligence that enables the viewer to look in the right way. According to Plato, the reflections can lead, then, to the “truth”, just as the hunt for Bin Laden led to the culprit, or as one American soldier said: “we finally found the guy, who found the guy, who lead to the guy and this is it”. It is the tongueless Friday in Coetzee’s Defoe who ensures that we will never be certain of the ultimate truth.
Political propaganda and deception can often unwittingly create multiple versions of reality and truth as those in a position of power often fabricate or manipulate the reception of political events to suit their own agenda.
Former US President George Bush confessed to “misoverexaggerating” the threat of war, and on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War (2002) stated: “in the run up to the war my administration made claims that turned out not to be factual. Personally, I truly believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. But when we couldn’t find the evidence, we fabricated it.”
Fast-track to the war against IS (not ISIL as using the term “Islamic state” legitimises the perpetrators), and we are again embroiled in different self-serving narratives. Our western governments conveniently focus on the brutality of IS leaders and the Sunni “terrorists” to justify the government’s fear tactics and obsession with cancelling passports of dual citizens. However, the propaganda campaign waged by IS presents a different self-serving narrative. Every day they produce up to three videos and four photographic reports plus daily radio news bulletins in multiple languages. The focus is on the rewards of life in a Sharia (Islamic state) such as peace, security and freedom from the alternative of Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime. According to Mr Charlie Winter (a senior researcher at the British-based counter-extremism think-tank Quilliam), “it is the organisation’s utopian offer that is moist alluring to new recruits”. This involves photographs of happy Muslims eating ice-cream.
So these differences evidently point to another bone of contention that depends upon your side of the fence. Whether you are a head-chopping terrorist or a fun-loving ice-cream depends upon which videos you watch, who you listen to and whose fear campaign you follow.
“Everything is as it was and everything has changed”.
Please click here to download a PDF version of the Exercises in the Language of Persuasion: an essay writing guide for immediate use. By using these exercises, you will be able to follow our support material on each exercise (See “turn to exercise”). Each “turn to exercise” includes key strategies, suggested responses, students’ samples and assessors’ marks and comments.