The Clash of Civilizations
From The Guardian:
Relativism has made liberal openness appear weak, empty and repugnant compared with the clarity of dogma[.] …The clash of civilisations is happening not between Islam and the west, as we are often led to believe, but between pragmatic relativism and dogmatic certainty.
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What was shocking when Nietzsche first proclaimed it at the end of the 19th century became platitudinous by the start of the 21st.
* * *Some philosophers, such as Bernard Williams and Simon Blackburn, have waded into the public debate in an attempt to put the relativist genie back into the bottle. Books such as Why Truth Matters, by my colleagues Jeremy Stangroom and Ophelia Benson, have also tried to stem the tide.
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Truth may not be the simple phenomenon we assume it to be, but falsehoods must be challenged. those who helped create the impression that modern, secular rationality leaves everything up for grabs in the marketplace of belief will have to take their share of the blame.
While this seems basically on the mark, it's troubling to place those of us who reject relativism on the same side as the Islamofascists. Even though they reject the relativism of the West, they also reject the moral truth that it is wrong to intentionally target civilians with acts of war. In that sense, they too are moral relativists because they have wholly embraced ends-justifies-means thinking. "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter," is a relativist bromide that you can imagine hearing from al-Qaeda operative just as easily as from a Berkley professor.
related articles
- Constantly Directing? (June 23rd, 2007)
- Wilson Handles Hitchens (June 12th, 2007)
June 13th, 2007 at 12:05 am
As far as I understand it, Islamic terrorists don’t agree with the military/civilian moral distinction. I recall watching a documentary on Islamic extremism (this was pre-9/11) where a radical Saudi Arabian imam explained it like this: In a democracy, the citizens are sovereign, and thus bear the responsibility for whatever their government does. If this democracy is oppressing Muslim people, then Muslims are justified in killing its citizens, since they are the ones responsible for the policies that oppress Muslims.
You may disagree with that sort of reasoning, but it is in no way moral relativism. Moral relativists pretty much never get exercised about anything enough to kill someone over it.
June 13th, 2007 at 6:43 pm
That sort of reasoning — rejecting distinctions between combatants and non-combatants — is merely a rationalization that moderate Muslims would probably argue is inconsistent with their faith.
My point was that the “one man’s terrorist” argument is an appeal to cultural relativism. Thus, “in that sense” the terrorist who uses the argument is embracing a relativist position, which I find ironic.
The point of the excerpt is that extreme relativism is dangerous. While we may not have much to fear from the professors who peddle it, the troubled young mind, freed from natural moral constraints, often does get exercised enough to kill someone. Especially if there is an Islamist standing at the ready to fill the void with certitude, even if it’s a warped, false certitude. And who’s to tell him he’s wrong? Certainly not the relativist.