yasuhikomurakam “The Pitfalls of Objectivity” published today. Objectivity and numerical evaluation were born in the 19th century and have somehow become permanent truths. Society and even the mind have been objectified, the meaning of individual experience has been lost, and quantification is associated with utilitarianism, competition, elimination, self-responsibility, and even eugenics. This is the first half of the book.
yasuhikomurakam The second half of this book considers “How then to capture the meaning of individual experience? We will show that a close analysis of the narratives captures the vivid reality and style of each individual experience. This is phenomenology. We will end with a discussion of how the landscape changes when we think of society in terms of individual experience.
yasuhikomurakam “The Pitfalls of Objectivity” does not mean to deny evidence, but overarching objective knowledge and understanding of the meaning of individual experiences understanding of the meaning of individual experiences are complementary. But objectivity alone is only one side of the truth. I think that good quality research that uses statistics (numbers) to deal with experience is actually supported by an understanding of individual human experience and imagination.
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