Relativism = Lack of Learning?
Paul Johnson’s Modern Times makes a clear connection between relativism, nihilism, and Naziism. Clarence Thomas builds on Johnson’s assertion by saying:
The common idea that you can do whatever you want to do, because truth and morality are relative, leads to the idea that if you are powerful enough you can kill people because of their race or faith.
Thomas then asks the question:
So ask your relativist friends sometime: What is to keep me from getting a gang of people together and beating the hell out of you because I think you deserve to be beaten? Too many people think that life and liberty are about their frivolous pleasures. There is more to life. And again, largely what relativism reflects is simply a lack of learning.
Why is this idea important to me as a conservative, because as a conservative, I believe that not all ideas are created equally, not all “ways” of life are correct and moral. There does exist a higher moral order, which cannot be violated without grave consequence for mankind. I do not determine that moral order, God does. Thus only an order which is not one man’s preference versus another has the chance to be truly just, moral, and equitable. Relativism in practice leads to the worst forms of tyranny and inequity.
