We need to stop acting as if we make a decision to get married. Fact is, marriage is a collaborative change in being of two people. That change is subjective, but it is a subjective fact. There is no luxury of arbitrary invention in marriage. A marriage is discovered to have begun, and once begun it can be cultivated, or left alone, or starved, or killed.

The same is true for anything spiritual in nature, including the creation of art, the education of a child and the establishment of a brand. These entities, and the processes by which they become, are subjective facts — true or false to some real degree.

There are plenty of formal arrangements of people erroneously called “marriages”, formal arrangements of aesthetic elements erroneously called “art”, facts and skills acquired and correctly recited and performed erroneously called “education”, and formal arrangements of symbols erroneously called “brands” — and to the objective eye, they are indistinguishable. The protest “but what are the formal, measurable criteria by which we can judge the authenticity?” begs the question. Subjective truths exist, despite the fact that they cannot be judged by formal, measurable criteria.

*

So, faced with the painful “squishiness” of subjective truth, how do we satisfy the demands of objectivity? We institutionalize these things, act as though they are essentially institutional and lose the question of their subjective existence altogether. The institutional certification is the truth.

When this happens the subjective truths are lost. The solidity and outer appearance is gained at the loss of the inside essence. The outside “fact” gains honor and attention while its inner content suffocates in the dark and decays away.

Whether these objectively certified truths persist or perish, they do not live or function or bring any real good into the world. Nobody can really care about them, at least not intrinsically. But caring is yet another subjective fact.

*

A women who loses herself to her husband doesn’t have a husband and is not a wife. A man who ruins himself satisfying his wife’s demands doesn’t have a wife and is not a husband. There is no actual marriage to end or annul. What was called “marriage” was in fact only an institutionally certified arrangement of two separate individuals. It may be possible for the couple to recognize the error and become married. Or it might be necessary to declare the mistake irredeemable.

*

How is a subjective fact measured? It can’t be observed directly and it cannot be measured. It can only be detected indirectly through how it manifests in behavior.

*

We’ve got to get serious about understanding subjective truth, or our culture will lose its subjective core and stop experiencing it as intrinsically valuable. Our culture itself will become a big empty certified institution, even if it outwardly looks the same.

The inner difference will manifest in behavior: we will stop working to preserve it for future generations.