Why relativism leads to totalitarianism

Why relativism leads to totalitarianism

I’d like to spin off from our reflection a comment Lars Walker made, as we blogged about yesterday in the post The Bible and Liberty:

As Paul Johnson notes in Modern Times, moral relativism always leads to Totalitarianism. Because in a morally relative age, power alone can settle any question.


Now that we are in postmodern times, as any survivor of mainstream academia can testify, the postmodernist thinkers themselves are pretty much admitting this, claiming that since there are no absolutes, everything does, in fact, boil down to the exercise of power.  All philosophies, ideologies, values, moralities, and truth-claims, so they say, are nothing but masks for power.

So far postmodernist intellectuals seem to decry this, unmasking the power assertions of the “privileged” as an exercise in liberation.  But it isn’t clear how they can escape their own assumptions and evade their own impositions of power–whether when the “oppressed” become the new rulers or in their own political activism or in the way they themselves treat people who disagree with them.

"I’ve got the book and it is quite remarkable. I was at the Missouri Synod’s ..."

Flame’s New Book on Church Fathers ..."
"One of my biggest problems with Lutheranism is that it routinely produces people who speak ..."

Flame’s New Book on Church Fathers ..."
"I don't know if you're disagreeing or not. You said you didn't understand what is ..."

Flame’s New Book on Church Fathers ..."
"It is unclear to me what you think I am saying and how it is ..."

Flame’s New Book on Church Fathers ..."

Browse Our Archives

Follow Us!