{"id":15555,"date":"2013-05-23T06:05:42","date_gmt":"2013-05-23T10:05:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=15555"},"modified":"2013-05-23T00:33:08","modified_gmt":"2013-05-23T04:33:08","slug":"why-relativism-leads-to-totalitarianism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2013\/05\/why-relativism-leads-to-totalitarianism\/","title":{"rendered":"Why relativism leads to totalitarianism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I\u2019d like to spin off from our reflection a comment Lars Walker made, as we blogged about yesterday in the post The Bible and Liberty<\/a>:<\/p>\n

As Paul Johnson notes in Modern Times,<\/em> moral relativism always leads to Totalitarianism. Because in a morally relative age, power alone can settle any question.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n


\nNow 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.\u00a0 All philosophies, ideologies, values, moralities, and truth-claims, so they say, are nothing but masks for power.<\/p>\n

So far postmodernist intellectuals seem to decry this, unmasking the power assertions of the \u201cprivileged\u201d as an exercise in liberation.\u00a0 But it isn\u2019t clear how they can escape their own assumptions and evade their own impositions of power\u2013whether when the \u201coppressed\u201d become the new rulers or in their own political activism or in the way they themselves treat people who disagree with them.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019d 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,36],"tags":[1769,2436,2239],"class_list":["post-15555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-philosophy-2","category-politics","tag-postmodernism","tag-relativism","tag-totalitarianism"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy relativism leads to totalitarianism<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"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\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2013\/05\/why-relativism-leads-to-totalitarianism\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why relativism leads to totalitarianism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"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\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2013\/05\/why-relativism-leads-to-totalitarianism\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Cranach\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/cranachblog\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-05-23T10:05:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-05-23T04:33:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Gene Veith\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Gene Veith\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2013\/05\/why-relativism-leads-to-totalitarianism\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2013\/05\/why-relativism-leads-to-totalitarianism\/\",\"name\":\"Why relativism leads to totalitarianism\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-05-23T10:05:42+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-05-23T04:33:08+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/f9ca8670bcc51908a78994c0484dbfa1\"},\"description\":\"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\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2013\/05\/why-relativism-leads-to-totalitarianism\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2013\/05\/why-relativism-leads-to-totalitarianism\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2013\/05\/why-relativism-leads-to-totalitarianism\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Why relativism leads to totalitarianism\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/\",\"name\":\"Cranach\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/f9ca8670bcc51908a78994c0484dbfa1\",\"name\":\"Gene Veith\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/054d79faea5d476edd8f99e5f14fb17f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/054d79faea5d476edd8f99e5f14fb17f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Gene Veith\"},\"description\":\"Gene Edward Veith, Jr. is a writer and retired literature professor, serving as Provost Emeritus at Patrick Henry College. 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