1 post tagged “cardinal pell”

Not my words.

Relativism is powerful in Western life, evidenced in many areas -- from the decline in the study of history and English literature, through to the triumph of subjective values and conscience over moral truth and the downgrading of heterosexual marriage.

One reason for optimism is that no one believes, deep down, in relativism. People may express their scepticism about truth and morality in lecture rooms or in print, but afterwards they will go on to sip a cappuccino, pay the mortgage, drive home on the left side of the road, and presumably avoid acts of murder and cannibalism throughout their evening. People, unless insane, do not live as relativists. They care about truth and follow clear cut rules.

Nothing matters more than truth to our country. Differences about important issues such as war, slavery, abortion, euthanasia are different claims to moral truth, not merely competing preferences. Some who have never been deprived of truth can give it up too easily, perhaps using talk of relativism or secularism to camouflage their actual commitment to money, success, possessions, power. But these are ambiguous goods: they can be misused and are rarely distributed fairly.

It is getting to the truth about things and having the integrity to live by that truth that is the ideal we should pass to the next generation. By comparison, relativism is bankrupt: it offers no future because it is not liveable; and where it is a camouflage, what it camouflages is generally rotten and often shaped by greed.

--Cardinal George Pell

I've been struck in recent years at how poor the quality of debate has become in my country and around the world.  I feel that this contemptible philosophy of relativism is mostly to blame.  To lay claim to any sort of moral truth is seen as backwards, an anachronism.  The current vogue is to merely "present one's opinion" and if someone should take issue with that then run to the safety of the lamest of rebuttals.  How can any serious thinker allow for the existence of relativism in matters of morality or even politics?  How can anyone who claims to be open-minded steadfastly refuse to change their mind on the subject of Absolute Truth?