There has been, on any number of occasions, the opportunity to observe the peculiarities of a relatively new creature that has become increasingly more common, as well as more prodigious, since the advent of the 21st century. A strange creature, of dubious logical positioning, that has come to be known as Relativus absoluta (a semi-Latinate designation that translates to Absolute Relativist). The meaning of the appellation deriving from the terms absolute-being self-sufficient and free of external references or relationships (def 9) and relativist- a view that ethical truths depend on the individuals and groups holding them (def 2).
It is, of course, readily apparent that the terms, when juxtaposed, are contraindicative and establish an oxymoron, a device to be avoided generally speaking, except in such instances as its use in satire or in circumstances of irony, such as is the case herein.
This creature, the Absolute Relativist, can trace its ancestry directly to the demise of Modernist theory in the mid-20th century and the advent of post-Modern theory, along with its cousin Deconstructivism. Modernism itself can trace its lineage through time back to the Enlightenment period of the late 18th century and the intertwining of scientific thought as praxis for the dissemination of world-view, rather than spirituality, myth, religion, faith, or, dare I say, the sublime. This scientific-ism did not fully gestate into its present form until the first World War shredded the utopian idealism of the pre-war western world, leaving literature, Art, and philosophy, seeing the ramifications, in a desperate search for meaning, especially grand unifying meaning.
The search, through Modernism, proved fruitless however, as western thought dismantled itself, and the underlying structure necessary to build upon, at the same time it attempted to apprehend this universal concept. As an aside, it would be remiss here not to note the schism between the actually of scientific thought and the practice of what is considered scientific thought in the sense that science, built upon pre-existing thought, when proven deficient can discard meaningless attribute and rebuild on established systems whereas what is considered scientific thought had no such solid foundation, but must instead redefine terms to avoid structural calamity. The search through the rubble for the former yields Laws and Theory, through the latter there is only more rubble.
Much like the scientist searching for the building blocks of matter and finding ever smaller pieces with ever more peculiar qualities so too the artist, writer, thinker, found less adhesion between thought and reality, though the non-scientist had no Law of Universal Gravitation to revert to stop the free fall. In science this is called Uncertainty. In the Arts it is called Post-Modernism, and in philosophy it is called Relativism.
With this said, it is not important to fully attend the process theory and resultant implications of post-modern relativist thought beyond one simple clarification. To the relativist, meaning is a fluid concept, ever changing, dependent on time, location, and circumstance. Reality is an instantaneous concept, fragmentary, and only coalescing as reality when it is observed through the subjective lens of culture, locale, period, and of course, intelligence. It is not the perception of an objective reality the true relativist denies, but rather the actuality of an objective reality altogether, as reality can be said to be only the convention of subjective discernment.
Very few relativists will acknowledge the fundamental flaw inherent in their world-view, such as Sartre, and of those few most will attempt once again to redefine terms to avoid the problem, such as Dawkins. This flaw can be summed up in the proposition that making an inviolable statement that there are no inviolable statements violates not only the Law of Non-contradiction but also relativism’s most basic tenet.
The Absolute Relativist takes this one step further, not only refusing to recognize this contradiction, but to magnify it to the point of absurdity. Such a creature will not only state that it is absolutely true that everything is relative to subjectivity, but that this point of view is absolutely true and can be deduced from objective empirical data, such as observation. This is to say that the Absolute Relativist claims that there is no external objective source, for truth and value propositions, but that through personal experience they have discovered absolute values and truths. Some such claims made by these creatures are the following: that there is no God (an absolute statement to end all absolute statements, and it is also important to note that, due to their very nature, this is claimed to be not a mere belief, but an exhaustive fact), that people (implying all) are better off today than they used to be, morality is an effect of evolution (people are nice to each other because of it), science is always right (Kuhn begs to differ), being kind makes you good (a valueless statement without a scale by which to measure), and that morality (defined as how to be a good person) has no objective impetus yet is a universal proposition that holds true regardless of the relative situation of cultural, societal, religious, and historical context and is discoverable only by evolution, intelligence, and experience. While this may hold true for some manners of technology or medical practice it seems illogical to infer that there has been a time when people could not have been moral because they were un-evolved or lived outside the proper timeframe.
No comments:
Post a Comment