Certainty in Journal

  • June 15, 2022, 4:14 a.m.
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  • Public

There are two kinds of certainty.
There are the coffee shop philosophers who have the answer to everything and it’s just that simple, period. They’re the period people. They are certain about specifics. Specifics which no one can have certain knowledge of, like how best to organize a group of individuals or how roads should be built. I’m not sure that anyone can stand these types of people. They are insufferable because of their obvious lack of self awareness. They cannot take criticism, but are perpetually dishing out the correct solution to everything.
And, there is the certainty of principle. This is an altogether different type of certainty, as adopters follow a method of which they are absolutely certain, and do not assume any specific outcome of that method. An example might be a scientist. A real scientist, not the government shill type that gets the label so often these days. Another would be a simpler iteration of a scientist; the empiricist. Using these types of principled approaches, it is possible to have concrete certainty about a specific if it’s been validated through that rigorous method. People of this sort have no problem with criticism, and do not get annoyed at questions.

There is a type of principled certainty that almost everyone cannot stand, and that is moral certainty. The reason that most people cannot stand moral certainty is because it exposes their own moral shortcomings. And everyone understands this, intuitively, I think. Because morality is really quite an easy principle to understand; it’s the most basic and fundamental human achievement. The principle of morality is universality.
I’ve encountered more vague negativity for having moral certainty than for anything else. Which I find very interesting, because I am obviously not perfect and I have many personal flaws to criticize. Yet, I am without exception personally attacked for the one thing that is not individual to me. Oh, of course! Because if they accept morality as universal, then they’ve automatically gained moral certainty. But of course they do not possess moral certainty, and so must by extension, personalize that failure.
The negativity is personal by necessity I suppose… by definition. And, since a straightforward criticism of the principles can always be responded to with clear, logical explanations. And of course, fake brands of morality are used everywhere to control people. No one wants to give that up.


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