Chapter 3: Intolerance

Abstract

We evaluate the phenomena that we directly or indirectly encounter in the external world through the lens of our values. Values represent our perception of what is good for us. But what is good or useful for us depends on the role we have been given by certain external environmental factors, whether natural or social. This is so-called objective utility, because we are always influenced by external factors. We do not choose this role ourselves; it is assigned to us from the outside. Because we only come into contact with the outside world indirectly through our consciousness, we perceive our role as independent, and we process the influence of the outside world through our perceptions and conscious selves in accordance with our understanding of it. We function based on our own understanding of our role and our own judgment about the external influences, which is just another expression of how we define our role. We judge for ourselves what is useful for us and what is not. This necessarily results in a difference between objective and subjective utility, which in different situations may be more or less synchronized. If we define values as our perception of what is good for us, then values can also be objective and subjective. We generally operate based on subjective values. The more our personal values correspond with the objective values of the outside world, the more our personal role will fit in with events in that world. The more people in our world act in accordance with our subjective values, the closer these subjective values will be connected to the objective world. But this cannot always be the case because we are dealing with subjective values. The alignment of subjective and objective values determines objective utility, and therefore whether our actions are reasonable in a given context. It will also affect the psychological state we call happiness, which is basically our perception of whether our own conditions and actions are in alignment with the objective conditions of the world.