Relativism, Power, and the Need for a Standard – Part One
March 20, 2006 Posted by Amy Hall
(DISCLAIMER: In the following post, I will refer to Democrats and Republicans in general. I am not making claims about you, personally, who may not fit into the generalization, and I am only mentioning the categories as part of a story to make a larger point…so stick with me!)
Recently, I heard a radio talk show host cite a study showing a general increase in support for Israel (rather than the Palestinians) in the United States, but with a very large difference between the percentage of support among Republicans and that among Democrats. The host suggested this may be due to a greater acceptance of relativism on the part of the left (i.e., an inability or unwillingness to make judgments based on moral considerations in distinguishing between acts of terror targeting innocents and acts of military defense).
A woman’s call during this segment illustrated this perfectly. In answer to the question, “Why are Democrats more likely to support the Palestinians than Republicans?” she responded, “I’m a Democrat, and I can tell you why. We are concerned–and have historically been concerned–with power. Right now, Israel has the power, and the Palestinians are the oppressed, so we support them.”
There it is again! As I’ve written before, concern about power comes up over and over as the central reason for why the left (both political and religious) choose their positions. Power is discussed far more often than right, wrong, and truth. Some political leaders urge us to support the Palestinians because they have less power; some religious leaders urge us to adopt “humble beliefs” (beliefs that won’t cause one to have more power than another) rather than asking us to have a humble attitude about true beliefs.
In the past, I’ve connected the origins of this increasingly popular view of “might makes wrong” with materialism (the perspective that there is no God or spiritual world). Materialism is the root of relativism, for one can’t know right and wrong in a world where such things are created arbitrarily by societies and don’t really exist apart from those societies. In a materialist, relativist world, one would have to explain situations and develop “moral” opinions based on physical, observable things like power or possessions since nothing else can be judged.
Though most Christians on the left are not materialists, it seems that many of them, also, have absorbed these materialist-based ideas about the centrality of power. While this isn’t surprising, considering the increasing influence of Marxist ideas in our culture, this does concern me because I think it leads to a perversion of true justice (as I’ll explain in my next post) when we, as Christians, ought to be a light of true wisdom and goodness and a reflection of God’s character to a struggling world.
Related posts:
- Relativism, Power, and the Need for a Standard – Part Two
- Fighting the Evil Conservatives
- Think I've been Exaggerating?
- The "Hitler Charm"
- Presidential Debate: Who’s Responsible for the Financial Crisis?
- Book Review: The Power of Integrity by John MacArthur
Posted in Amy's Posts, Culture, Main Page, Philosophy, Politics
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March 20th, 2006 at 1:49 pm
Ahh, all is right with the world again. Well, not really, but it's better now that Amy's pen, so to speak, is active here again.
No one will be surprised that I think this is right on. While it is true that being “liberal” does not necessarily equate being relativistic, it is also true that most proponents of relativism fall on the liberal/left side of the political divide (there are some notable exceptions on the right, Rehnquist was one). All the more reason to be grateful for those on the lefty side who do make principled arguments.
March 20th, 2006 at 2:08 pm
Thanks, Micah–and I think this is an important clarification you've made here, as usual!
March 20th, 2006 at 5:40 pm
“The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left.”
March 20th, 2006 at 6:26 pm
Oh, very funny.
But seriously, I don't want this post to become left versus right (a huge topic I'm definitely not going to take on here!), but just relativism/power-based justice versus right/wrong-based justice.
March 20th, 2006 at 7:41 pm
I'm not sure about the connection between materialism and power, but I'd like to hear you talk more about that.
One of the fundamental moral principles of the left is that war is immoral, and peace is an intrinsic good. (I think this view is due to the “lessons” of Viet Nam, and the large number of anti-war protesters from that era who are now in leadership in the Democratic party.)
In this line of reasoning, power leads to aggression and violence. Only when power is balanced can we have peace (if you pre-suppose that humans are intrinsically good at heart, as many on the left do).
So it seems to me that the left sees every use of power as a threat to the peace and safety of humanity. There is a strong utopianism on the left that believes that we can achieve world peace by restraining the powerful, or taking away the weapons they might use to cause us harm. Utopianism is a materialist idea, certainly.
I want to hear more. Looking forward to your next post, Amy.
March 21st, 2006 at 12:55 am
“Only when power is balanced can we have peace.”
Charlie, thanks for your thoughts. You're right that this is a common view, and again, it doesn't take into account questions of morality. For example, would it be a good thing for Iran to have the same amount of power as the United States? Is the most important thing to have balanced power or to prevent those from gaining power who would use their power to wipe out entire countries (as Iran recently said it would like to do to Israel)? It seems obvious that we ought to want the countries that respect human rights to have the power.
March 24th, 2006 at 6:38 pm
Speaking of the “lessons” of Vietnam, I wonder why the anti-war protestors still insist that they were right about that war when the reasons to fight that war now seem to be largely valid. If the protestors were so concerned for the plight of the Vietnamese fighting against the “imperialist” US, then why do they remain unapologetic now even after the US pullout allowed the Communists to oppress and murder the very Vietnamese they supposedly cared about? And why, after the Communists took power, did the Vietnamese seek refuge in the US (their supposed imperialist oppressors)? It seems the US was right to fight that war and the protestors were wrong. -Johnny
April 2nd, 2010 at 7:41 pm
[...] the same phone call I described in Part One, the talk show host challenged the caller who said she supported the Palestinians because they have [...]