Wednesday 25 May 2011

Conservatives and Relativism

I remember that conservatives used to portray liberals as peddlers of relativism. But it seems to me that conservatives have become much less staunch defenders of objective truth, resting content with their own version of relativism. A few examples that I've recently encountered: (1) It's interesting to observe O'Reilly in his 2007 interview with Dawkins. O'Reilly doesn't attempt to offer any evidence for his religious beliefs simply "because they help him as a person" and "they're true for me". Dawkins takes him to task for his nambly pambly milquetoast relativism (starts around 2:20).  (2)  I was struck by a similar impression in reading the article "Transgender Clownfish Controversy". A conservative organization objects to the teaching of the possibility of more than two genders as this "does not represent the values of the majority of families in Oakland" as if the truth and facts and what we're to teach are defined by parental values rather than objective facts.  I suppose it has all gone downhill ever since the Bush administration plunged into Marxist "reality construction" with their infamous "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality" (see this old post)

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