The Fracture Between Reality and Presumed Reality

The Resilient Philosopher

There is a quiet fracture that runs beneath modern life. It is not loud, and it does not announce itself. It forms slowly, through repetition, through comfort, through the stories we tell ourselves in order to avoid discomfort. It is the fracture between reality and presumed reality.

Reality is what is.

Presumed reality is what we need to believe in order to remain at peace with ourselves.

The more distance grows between the two, the more noise we create to drown out the tension. That noise becomes culture. It becomes identity. It becomes certainty. And certainty is often mistaken for truth.

This is not a political problem. It is a human one.

Accountability as the Original Test

The forbidden fruit referenced in the Bible was never about everlasting life, nor was it about knowledge in the simplistic sense of good versus evil. Humans were already capable of choice. The fruit represents something far more uncomfortable.

It represents accountability.

The moment after the fruit is eaten is the moment the test is revealed. Not in the act itself, but in the response. Adam deflects. Eve deflects. Responsibility is displaced immediately. No one says, I chose. No one owns the consequence. Shame follows not because of nakedness, but because of exposure.

That is the psychological truth embedded in the story.

The fruit does not awaken morality. It exposes justification.

From that moment forward, humanity demonstrates its most refined skill. The ability to explain itself away.

Good and Evil Do Not Require Permission

There is a comforting myth that humans require external forces to become cruel. That evil arrives through corruption, through influence, through manipulation by others. This belief allows us to preserve a flattering self image.

It is also false.

Humans are fully capable of kindness and cruelty without intervention. A person can act with integrity and still be hated. A person can act with malice and still be loved. Acceptance is not granted based on virtue. It is granted based on alignment.

People do not seek goodness first. They seek belonging.

This is why identity is so powerful. It allows individuals to outsource their conscience to the group. If the group approves, the action feels justified. If the group condemns, the self feels attacked. Truth becomes secondary to loyalty.

That is not weakness. It is human psychology.

The Noise That Replaces Reflection

When accountability threatens identity, noise appears.

Noise can be moral language used selectively.

Noise can be outrage without consistency.

Noise can be certainty without examination.

The louder the noise, the less reflection is required. This is how presumed reality survives. It does not need to be accurate. It only needs to be shared.

Values and morals, when weaponized, lose their ethical function. They stop guiding behavior and start justifying it. Crimes are no longer examined through proportionality, context, or restraint. They are filtered through affiliation.

Once that happens, ethics become conditional.

Moral Asymmetry and the Comfort of Exception

There are no perfect rules when examined through values and morals. Ethics require judgment. Judgment requires humility. Humility requires the willingness to be wrong.

That is why systems built on certainty struggle with ethics.

When one group is judged by intention and another by outcome, moral symmetry collapses. When one action is condemned in an outsider but excused in an insider, justice becomes branding. The rule no longer matters. The identity does.

This is the fracture where cruelty begins to feel reasonable.

It never begins with hatred. It begins with exception.

How Force Escalates Without Reflection

As children, we learn something simple while playing games. The harder someone runs, the harder they get tagged. Not because it is necessary, but because adrenaline replaces judgment. The game shifts. The intent changes. What was play becomes pursuit.

The same dynamic exists wherever authority, fear, and motion intersect.

Escalation rarely feels immoral in the moment. It feels justified. Necessary. Earned. Only later does reflection arrive, if it arrives at all.

When reflection disappears entirely, cruelty becomes procedural.

Ethics as a Mirror, Not a Weapon

Consider how we justify harm in the name of safety. We fear sharks, yet we kill them preemptively. We frame the act as protection, even when the danger is statistical, not imminent. We condemn violence in others while defending it in ourselves.

This is not hypocrisy. It is narrative protection.

Ethics are uncomfortable because they mirror our own logic back to us. They ask a single, dangerous question.

If this action is justified for me, why is it not justified for them?

Most people do not want the answer. They want the exemption.

Where the Fracture Leads

The fracture between reality and presumed reality does not collapse societies overnight. It erodes them quietly. It teaches people to trust the noise over the evidence, the group over the conscience, the explanation over the act.

Once justification becomes instinctive, accountability feels like an attack. And when accountability feels like an attack, cruelty becomes defensive.

This is how ordinary people participate in harm without seeing themselves as harmful.

Not because they are evil, but because they are certain.

The Uncomfortable Truth

The most dangerous human capacity is not violence. It is justification.

Once we learn to explain ourselves away, anything can be made moral. Once we learn to assign blame outward, accountability becomes optional. Once identity replaces reflection, ethics become performative.

The forbidden fruit was never about knowledge. It was about exposure.

And the test never ended.

Every time we are confronted with our actions, our silence, or our participation, the question remains the same.

Do we own it, or do we reach for cover?

That question is where reality and presumed reality diverge. And the answer determines which one we choose to live in.

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