A RANT ABOUT SEX OMG WTF RAAAAAGE!!!!
Part of my job entails slogging through this poorly written intro sociology textbook a bunch of times, tasking away at the manuscript (TGI Word track changes function), the picture selection (TGI iStock.com), citations (TGI iPod), et cetera (TGIF). While this can get to be monotonous and monotonous and monotonous, it does allow me to think about
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A while back I dated a girl who was (at the time) a devout Kantian, and boy howdy we surely got into it about morality!
The traditional sociological explanation:
Imagine (if you will) an isolated island tribe that's never had contact with the outside world. Part of this tribe's culture, for as long as they can remember, has involved Swiftian baby eating. Within the tribe, baby-eating is and has always been a perfectly acceptable practice, and under their ethics set, is not cause for condemnation. If they can sustain themselves peacefully with baby-eating, who is anybody to say they're wrong? Of course baby-eating is a stretch, but cannibalism, degrees of incest, murder and rape have all been utterly acceptable and normal to some people at some point. Just because they're taboo to the majority right now doesn't mean they have always been. What happens when something is classified as ethically "wrong" and yet lots of people willingly and successfully continue to engage in it?
My addition:
Much of absolutism relies on a higher power, be it god or just some mystical but fundamental "truth" out there. I believe that man (or rather, society) creates religion and god/gods to establish unquestionable guidelines. Anything created by man can be challenged and overthrown, so cultures need to instill their norms and rules in something indisputable and powerful to maintain stability. It's human nature to defer power when things get out of our control, and thus the higher powers were born to reassure us that we're doing the right thing. Sure, some frameworks like utilitarianism are based on the population AS a basis for absolutism, but they end up being wishy-washy, baseless and ultimately gray when absolutism demands black.
And further:
Relativism, and more to the point impermanence, is at the heart of Buddhism. Everything is changing, nothing is static. What is a tree but a seed on its way to being ember, what is love but indifference on its way to being spite, what is truth but heresy on its way to becoming outmoded? To say that anything is unwaveringly permanent and true is to become fixated on that idea and unable to see beyond it to the deeper truth. To say that any action or thought is good or bad without considering intent and motivation is to become blind to the subtleties of life.
The snarky reason:
Just because a lot of people believe something right now doesn't make it true. Ethicists believe in absolutism because they have to--otherwise their whole system and area of study would fall apart. And since when is it naive to believe there's NOT a sentient god? I'll bet as more of the Western world comes around to secularism, relativism will creep back into play.
So that's that.
Have much fun in Chicago!! Hit me up for a play date/dining/booty call/whatevs when you get back!
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The heart of the anti-relativist argument.
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