The Objective Truth About Subjective Truth

In my secular political and legal education prior to October 7th, I would often be taught about the notion of subjective truth. In this ideology, facts did not exist, opinion was all that mattered, and rationality was offensive. The similar basic principles and inherent links of subjective truth and subjective morality were a concern of mine that I had often voiced and became familiar with in my early Holocaust education. Simply put, if there was no truth then there was no history, if there was no history then there was nothing to learn from in the present, and if there was nothing to learn from in the present then we, both as Jews and as humans in general, had no future. However, although I may have thought I understood my concerns at the time, it was only after the largest amount of Jews were killed in a single day since the Holocaust on the 22nd of Tishrei 5784 that myself and many others would personally realize the true harm that disregarding any notion of truth beyond opinion brings.

Whilst studying in Jerusalem this past summer, I had a rabbi with whom I often discussed the Christian versus Jewish concept of “sin”. In these conversations, we discussed the Gemara in Mesechet Sota where Reish Lakish says “A man commits a transgression only if a spirit of foolishness (shetut) enters him” (Sota 3a). If we are charitable in our understanding of those who attack Israel’s reasons for doing so, we can say that it comes down to a rendition of the history of the land and the modern realities of those who live in it. While I am thankfully not in Gaza defending against physical attacks stemming from historical and modern distortions of the Israeli-Arab Palestinian conflict like so many of my brothers, their sacrifice and bravery allows me to sit in a classroom where I see a different yet fundamentally identical foolish rhetoric that causes academic anti-Israel attacks. However, unlike Hamas and groups like it, my peers and professors do not outright state their intentions. This is usually due to the fact that they cannot define their intentions since they have been taught that supporting evidence for an idea cannot exist. The comfortable simplicity of this lazy notion is the socially intoxicating evil that has allowed armchair academics to harm others without consequences in the name of protesting an objectively impossible claim of Jewish colonization in the region, a consistently disproven “ongoing genocide”, and a picture of an apartheid state that shows their true distance from any connection to the ongoing Israeli-Arab Palestinian conflict. 

When these claims are brought up on the academic front of the Swords of Iron War and Jewish students are negatively impacted by it, there is a moral obligation for those who have the expertise in these subjects and the courage to disprove propaganda to do so. This, however, does not mean yelling and screaming or subjectively and callously calling everything and everyone antisemitic, indeed it is quite the opposite. If we are discussing an intent to remedy the ongoing conflict like peace or justice, then we must first go through the due process of establishing the problem before we prescribe a solution.

A common metaphor I have heard for this is that a doctor would not neglect to examine their patient before prescribing a medication. However, I add to this that a doctor would also not be a doctor unless they had learned the requisite information to examine their patient in order to prescribe medication, and likewise had a level of care for their patient that motivated them to do so. Therefore, as Jews, if we are to address the problem of misinformation and anti-Israel propaganda, we must first use the powerful connection we have to Israel and care for the Jewish people in order to become educated ourselves. However, this is not as simple of an objective as it may seem and there is not infinite time to study since the Jewish people are being attacked as I write this. This is unfortunately why the sickness of subjective truth has infected many “Zionist” advocacy and activism spaces on Canadian university campuses to a point that contributes to the harm of Jewish students as a whole.

While other marginalized communities enjoy a modern right to define the hatred of their community subjectively, the inherent flaw of this system has become clear as concepts like Jewish sovereignty and self-determination have been distorted in order to weaponize anti-hate social and physical legislation against the Jewish people. Therefore, it is clear that if we are to utilize subjective truth in proving the legitimacy of the anti-Jew hatred narrative, even if it was moderately successful in the short term, it would set a dangerous precedent that would eventually be used against the Jewish people in the future. Furthermore, the inherent double standard that would be necessary in determining and prosecuting “hatred” subjectively would be hypocritical at best and morally corrupt at worst. So if we, as Jews, are willing to feel the many painful emotions we have felt as Jews all over the world are being attacked, foster the discipline to study our heritage and history, and create the courage to stand up against these hateful narratives, then we must not let our emotions cloud our judgment and ethics. We must commit to going beyond the comfortable simplicity of subjective truth to not only seek but exemplify through our actions and activism the importance of rationality in both legislation and thought, and objectivity when it comes to morality and truth. 

A common objection to objective truth I have often heard in Western academia is that everyone has the right to their own beliefs of reality and that even if two people contradict each other they can both be right. Whilst an essential value of a free society is the right to believe whatever one would like to, a person’s right to their beliefs does not make their beliefs correct or intelligent. Many seem to overlook how the reason we have freedom of belief and speech is so that ideas can be voiced and scrutinized in order to improve our society and conflate the importance of these rights antithetically to suppressing conflicting opinions. I can empathize with the simplistic nature of being against objective truth since in this system it means you do not have to do your research to be correct or be well-founded enough to withstand confronting questions about your conclusions.

However, it is just as simplistic to disprove since reality as it truly exists is not relative. For example, if two people are standing in an enclosed room and person one says there is a chair in that room and person two says there isn’t a chair in that room, then if person one is right, person two is wrong, and if person two is right, person one is wrong. It is inherently impossible that two people can be right about reality when their beliefs are contradictory. Another example is if a person goes to a doctor with pain in their leg, and the doctor looks at an X-ray of their leg and concludes that the person has a broken leg. Whether or not the person believes they have a broken leg does not define the health of their bone. Even if they may appreciate the bandaid that their subjective belief may put on certain objective wounds in the short term, their leg is still broken and will never heal properly if they go on acting like it is not broken.

In the case of personal medical decisions, if someone wants to disbelieve objective reality it is likely not harming anyone besides themself and is therefore illogical, but permissible, in a free society. However, if we were to say that the patient’s belief based on no evidence is just as correct as the doctor’s conclusion based on rational inquiry and examination, simply because the patient believes their opinion, and then we were to let the patient start diagnosing other people, the harm of their personal ideology will become one that spreads beyond themself. While many claim to be against objective truth, they are really against someone’s subjective opinion being the “objective truth”. This is a necessary distinction to make since, for example, one doctor’s medical opinion is not necessarily objective truth in the same way that their conclusion based on an examination like an X-ray picture is.

However, if this doctor were to refuse to answer any questions about their patient’s X-ray or even show their patient the image, the credibility of this doctor would immediately be under inquiry. The right to have an opinion and express it is only meaningful if it is joined with the right of others to disagree with it and express their reasoning. A good example of what it means to seek truth is how in the Yeshiva learning system around the world there is a popular and constantly tested concept that if you ask a question in good faith (i.e. wanting to know the answer), no matter how offensive, elementary, or ridiculous your question may seem at first, if nobody can answer your question then your question is correct. It is clear then that if we are to even debate subjective versus objective truth, ironically we need to first arrive at objective conclusions about many things ranging from the sounds of the letters that make up our words and the meaning of the words we are using, to larger concepts such as the inherent importance of disagreement and public discourse. The unending benefits of free social and academic dialogue can only be adequately constructed through rational examination, a shared understanding of an objective reality, and a willingness to hear and assess the opinions of others, even if they are contradictory, in order to determine what objective reality may be. 

The abandonment of objective truth is not just an academic exercise; it is a dangerous path that leads to the unraveling of our moral compass and the erasure of history itself. The events of and continuing attacks that followed the 22nd of Tishrei 5784 tragically illustrated the real-world consequences of letting subjective narratives dominate. When we disregard facts in favor of opinion, we give license to those who wish to rewrite history and justify the most heinous actions. Thus, our fight is not simply against falsehood – it is for the clarity and power of truth itself. To defend what keeps us safe and continue to improve human culture as a whole, we must be willing to rigorously pursue and uphold facts and challenge comfortable lies with uncomfortable realities. The objective truth about Israel, Jewish history, and the moral struggles of our time cannot be subject to personal whims or social convenience. It is imperative that we stand firm, grounded in reason, history, and evidence. Only then can we dismantle the lies that fuel hatred and secure a future where truth, justice, and peace are possible for all.