I have a few positions that I assume all the time. Things like there is a world out there. You are capable of feeling the kinds of things that I'm capable of feeling. Things that if we don't accept we're in all kinds of trouble.
Secretly though, I'm terrified that we're in all kinds of trouble. Here's what I mean. I have friends and colleagues across the political spectrum. And lately it seems like we have completely stopped talking about the same world. The most frightening thing ever to me is that the world is so radically subjective, so always-already interpreted because of my pre-existent beliefs that it's impossible to talk about "the real."
And then I remember why I write. If I didn't assume that the person who would read this would basically understand what I meant, it would be utterly absurd to say anything. He or she perhaps would disagree about this or that fact, but the fact that there would be some shared understand, leads me back to the wonderful belief that there is a coherent world, but it's not exactly out there as much as it is constantly being shaped by everything including me typing this at exactly this moment. There is no gap between us and the world.
I'm not sure where that leaves us. It's not exactly a reassuring point to argue for something that everyone basically assumes all the time anyways. Perhaps that's all you get though.
