What Religious Liberty?
The Incredible Ever-Expanding Dead End
Anti-Cure, Anti-Life
Whose Values in
Education?
Toppling
Dominos
Anti-Christians
don't have to be Hypocrites but Many Volunteer
Intolerant Tolerance
The Emperor's
Clothes or a Cheap Tuxedo
The Myth of
Hitler's Pope, Part I
The Myth of
Hitler's Pope, Part II
Embryonic
Stem Cell Research Again
The Madness of
Secularism
"Don't Impose Your
Religion on Me"
Dictatorship of Relativism
Two Babies at Christmas
Living Will or Death
Warrant?
Court Ordered
Slow Motion Torture-Death Sentence
Men in Black
A Lot of Hot Air
The Culture War
Battles
"Stay with us, Lord"
Secular-to-English Dictionary
Moral Guidance for
Catholics in this Election
Christians
Losing America
Stem Cell Wars
Catholic
Pro-Abortion Politicians and Communion
Useful Idiots
Who Killed Jesus?
A Primer on Gay
Marriage
Whose Side are You
on?
Vouchers Revisited
Real and Fake
Cloning Bans
Broken Compasses
No Room in the Inn
Killing Fields
Revisited
Gay but not Merry
Adam and Steve?
The Battle for the Court
Victimless Crimes
More Salt, Please
The Next Big Fight
When Religion
Becomes Evil
Virginity Making a Comeback?
You've Come a Long Way,
Baby
The Incarnational
Approach
The Many Meanings of ACLU
Things Your Media Never Told
You
A Nasty Little Secret
Two Points of View on the Birth of Jesus
You Gotta Kill Them. How Else
Are They Going To Learn?
Perplexing Christmas Questions
How Do You See Christ Today?
Now that there is Another Ewe, will there be
Another You?
What is Conscience Anyhow?
Divorce of Love and Life
What Counts as a Mass?
What is a Covenant?
I Wish I had Your Faith
Are there Too Many Decrees of
Nullity?
Dutch Treats
Ecumenism
Going from Baby Doe to Granny Doe
Comments of Evangelium Vitae
The Exception Corrupts the Rule
Good Morality or
Good Medicine
Generation-X'ers Smart in Every Way But
One
A Matter of Good Breeding
Herod and Pontius Pilate at the
Polls
Hitler's Pope or Righteous Gentile?
The Unknown God
What exactly is wrong with
homosexuality?
Ideology Trumps Science, Reality,
and Common Sense
What Exactly is an Indulgence?
Infallibility and Error in the Church
Pilate Asked, "What is Truth?"
The Truth about Families
New Killing Fields
Choice of Language and Language of
Choice
A Lexicon for Our Day
Why are there so many bodies?
Marijuana, Medicine or Menace?
Medical Research and Ethics
Meditation
"You Taught me well,
Mommie dearest"
Moral Fallout
Neutral on the Wrong
Side
"These are the
Nineties After All"
Many are Wed but Few
are Married
"...Prepare him for
additional obligations"
A Useful Lie
A Partridge in a
Pear Tree
Religious Persecution in
the U.S.?
What Makes a Person a
Person?
The Point of a Point of
View
Politically Correct,
Morally Depraved
Population
Controllers out of Control
Practical Dreamers
Social Progress
through Immorality
Shall we Do Evil for
Goodness Sake?
Reason and Faith
Resurrection Glory
Same Sex Marriages?
Pearl of Great Price
"I used to be
schizophrenic, but we're all right now"
Sexual Morality
Irrelevant in Judging Public Officials?
Undesirable Side Effects
Some News is Good News
SOSSLQ's, not POSSLQ's
Spoils of Splits
Why Attend Mass
Every Sunday?
Is it All Right to Pull
the Plug?
An Appeal for Intolerance
Topics Catechetical
A Voting Catechism
A Moral Guide to
Voting
Vouchers: Has Their Time Come?
What Child is This?
What did they die of?
You are the Man
You may be a liberal
if...
Get Rid of that Worthless
Relative
Planned Un-Parenthood
Weighing Pro-Life Issues
Prior to Voting
|
|
by Monsignor James C. Brunner |
Faith Points |
Dictatorship of Relativism
Our new Holy Father in a homily given just before he was elected pope warned of a “dictatorship of relativism.” I want to talk about what relativism is and why the pope calls it a dictatorship.
Relativism is a belief that there is no objective right or wrong, only opinions about them. Nietzche insisted, “There are no facts, only interpretations.” For relativists passing moral judgments is like passing judgment on music. I may think that punk rock is absolutely awful but others may with equal validity like it above all other music. The system of relativism gives the same weight to the statement, “Murder is wrong” as to “Purple is ugly.” According to relativism, since there is no objective compass that points to right and wrong as a compass points to magnetic north, we may not pass judgment on the cultures or values of others. We must tolerate them. The only sin is intolerance of other persons’ point of view. It is wrong to condemn persons who pretend to enter homosexual marriages because their view that this is laudable has as much value as the opposite view. Americans pride themselves on their tolerance and insist only by tolerating all viewpoints can a democracy work.
Relativism is intellectually absurd and morally bankrupt. Cicero said in de Legibus: “Only a madman would maintain that the distinction between the honorable and dishonorable, between virtue and vice, is a matter of opinion, not of nature.” There is objective good and evil independent of individual or societal opinion. There is objective right and wrong and we can know it.
Lack of agreement on moral issues does not destroy objective morality any more than students who produce different answers on mathematics quizzes destroy the possibility that the problem has a correct solution. Relativism is self-contradictory and self-defeating. It is like saying that it is true that there is no truth. If there are no absolute moral norms then the tolerance that they preach is not an absolute either. If intolerance is evil, then one must be tolerant even of intolerance. If one is not, according to the rules of relativism the person who refuses to tolerate intolerance is evil. It is like Sartre’s silly statement: “It is forbidden to forbid.”
The tolerant person allegedly occupies mutual ground. This is a myth. It is based on two things that relativists say are true. (1) It is true that there is no truth. The system shoots itself in the foot with that absurdity. (2) Contradictory opinions have equal value, e.g., the opinion that maintains that this $50 dollar bill is genuine is just as valid as the opinion that it is counterfeit. The bill is genuine or not independently of the opinions about it.
If there is not objective right or wrong we become incapable of judging virtue and vice. Hitler’s and Stalin’s horrendous atrocities cannot be condemned if we are to practice the tolerance required by relativists. Neither can we say that Abraham Lincoln and Mother Teresa were virtuous people because there are no moral yardsticks by which we can judge their activity.
Relativism is an escape mechanism for those who are unwilling to live up to an objective moral standard. It is an attempt to make our own wishes morally correct rather than submit to an external yardstick. It is succumbing to the oldest temptation of humanity, “You will be like gods who know what it good and what is bad.” Like gods, not subordinate to the real God or even to the dictates of reason. Augustine said, “Truth is loved when it enlightens but hated when it accuses.”
Relativism has misplaced the object of tolerance. There must be respect for the mistaken person, but not for his wrong opinion. All persons are equal in value, but not all opinions. Instead relativists demonize persons they call intolerant and refuse to debate their opinions. Relativism stifles debate and freezes dialogue because if everything is true there is nothing left to discuss. Modern relativism allegedly respects all ideas, but disrespects persons. I am not intolerant of persons if I disagree with their opinions. Tolerance is a virtue that we use with people who disagree with us. It is easier for relativists to call someone a bigot than engage in intellectual debate. Tolerance in the sense of neutrality is impossible because nobody is neutral about his own opinions.
The denial of moral truth by relativists does not mean that it is a benign, harmless system. False ideas about morality do not change reality. Reality is what you bump into when your beliefs are false! Truth matters because ideas have consequences and false ideas generally have bad consequences. Wrong ideas about drugs bring addiction and early death. Wrong ideas about sexual morality kill when they are the cause of sexually transmitted diseases, which are acquired by 12 million Americans each year. Homosexuality shortens the life span of those who practice it. Teenage pregnancy often condemns young females and their children to a life of poverty and dependency. Abortion not only kills millions of unborn human beings each year but implants the principle in society that unwanted humans can be done away with by others. It is not known who will be affected when this poisonous seed grows but the elderly, the insane, and the handicapped are potential targets. Pornography not only exploits and debases women but inflames the lust of sexual predators. Prostitution which looks like a voluntary activity is not always such for the women involved who are often virtual if not actual slaves. Lack of a moral compass by relativists has led persons to betray their country and to lie in the press in order to promote what they regarded as the good of Communism. They would not have made either error, considering Communism as a good and promoting it by immoral activity if they had followed objective moral principles about good and evil.
Why does the Holy Father speak of a dictatorship of relativism? With its notion that anything goes and cannot be criticized by others it would appear to promote freedom. A dictator is an absolute ruler. A dictatorship of relativism would be an absolute ruler that only allowed relativism as the stock and trade of society’s morals. If we cannot reach consensus about truth, then truth will be established by power. Preachers in Canada are fined and jailed for preaching against homosexuality. In the name of tolerance their speech cannot be tolerated. France will not let Muslim girls wear head scarves and Christianity cannot be mentioned in the European Constitution.
Moral relativists believe that their stance is true and must be accepted by everyone else. The ones who refuse to do so are demonized, fired, flunked, discounted or filibustered. If there can be no dissent from relativism what we have is a dictatorship of relativism. If there is no agreed upon right and wrong than one who has power enforces his views of what is right, true, and just. That is what is called tyranny.
Relativism is an ideology of dictatorship because its adherents have no tolerance for those who disagree with it. The great irony of relativism is that its final outcome is oppression. Only the truth can make you free.
(Printed July, 2005)
St. Mary's Church Pastor & Vicar
