Relativism and How to Pronounce “Tomato”
I used to be intrigued with the concept of relativism. Like many college students who read Nietzsche and various social science folks, I was intrigued with the concept. I guess Thomas Kuhn and his book, The Copernican Revolution, played a role in all of that. Today, I continue to encounter the idea. I am not sure what to think of it today. Somehow though, we get by. Kind of.
More recently, two years ago to be exact, I had decided to take a class at CUNY Hunter. It was online. This was as the pandemic was winding. It was a class on German Idealism involving readings of Kant, Hegel, Marx and Nietzsche. Some light reading. I loved it. At that time, I was pondering going for a masters, but that is a different story.
I guess it was near the end of the semester. We were dealing with Nietzsche. Of course, we were. Where else would relativism come up? The Professor, who I enjoyed, who had a sense of humor, and who did have his moments, asked the class what relativism is. What is relativism?
All of us in our homes or somewhere, with our laptops, PCs, phones. . .whatever. Class participation was limited – just a quiet group. What is there to say regarding Kant and Hegel and the like. On this occasion, however, there were some responses. I chimed in first. I was routinely chiming in, but then I was the 50 + year old guy who had already completed his degree and had been reading this stuff for too long.
This time though, all that reading and that degree, really did not serve me. I instead chose to go with the cute response that relativism was “something like tomato vs tomato”. One with a long ‘a’ and one with a short ‘a’.
The professor quickly responded, “No”.
I would guess that at best I had provided an example of relativism and he would probably respond that I am being generous. He was good Professor. Professor Kirkland at Hunter College for anyone who desires to check him or his class out. He did try to engage the class even if the subject was impenetrable and keep in mind, we were doing this through an online video chat, an academic Zoom call.
He was right. My answer was not what he was looking for. I forget if any of the students who followed me nailed it. What he was looking for was a reference to a foundation. Reference and foundations. Relativism appears when our foundations are discovered to be limited. It is discovered that they are in fact not true in all worlds. Which in turn means that they are only able to provide support to the desired ideas only those conditions. Examples could include following God’s Commandments only if you devote yourself to that God. Another could be the necessity of sense data for an empiricist.
Relativism and Values
And with this some have celebrated the term, and others have challenged it. Those celebrating see it as a way to introduce ideas such as pluralism, diversity, tolerance. For many, a culture that esteems such things is a good one. Not everyone sees it like that. Many see the loss of absolutes as a challenge, a problem. There is with relativism no method of determining the primary or select system. There is no absolute. All is full of contingency.
And this is very much true with values. Today, we have largely accepted that each has their unique brand or approach to values. What is right and what is wrong is contingent upon the history and culture of which you are part. It is all relative. Interestingly, evil, is largely a null set today. Rarely do we hear the term “evil” applied today. Things are wrong, things are messed up. Things are fucked up! Things can be criminal, but rarely is it said that one is evil. Interestingly, it is the one that is evil. It is the individual that can be evil. Rarely is an action seen as evil though there are some evil actions-events. As we rolled into our pluralistic relativistic system, we perhaps became hesitant to decide that someone was evil based upon what is typically limited data. Better to focus upon on the action in question as opposed to the actor.
One can be “fucked up”, but that often refers to one being stoned or on drugs. His or her thought processes, their rational faculties, are impaired. Again, we are hesitant to condemn the individual. Even in this matter of being “fucked up” as in not in possession of their faculties, we are not saying that the person is evil, but that his or her thought processes are off. We slice this in such a way that we are critical of their behavior or at worst their cognitive faculties. The person is still alright, just a little messed up. In the relativistic society of which we are a part, we avoid the conclusion that a person is wrong or evil wherever possible. Rather, we focus on thought processes, intentions, and actions of individuals.
I digress perhaps but this goes hand in hand with the toleration of values and any resulting actions of those values. We typically tolerate as opposed condemn actions and values that are foreign or remote from what we would value and do. But when we do condemn, we attempt to limit what it is being condemned. We condemn the action as opposed to the individual, or one bad actor as opposed to a society. Again, the challenges to these various foundations of our society, or culture, of our world have caused us to be a bit more tolerant, which in turn has led to a pluralism, a diversity of belief systems, actions, and cultures. All are consequences of this relativism.
There are times, however, when one wants to arrive at agreement on topics despite these differences, despite the pluralities of cultures and belief systems. We still believe that there are occasions where it is best to act together, to have a unified response. If we had not before, we are now entering into politics, the desire to come together as one, to act as one. Can that be done? I have been pondering this one for a while. It does seem that people do agree on stuff often enough! Us Americans did it back in 1776, in 1787, and numerous skirmishes in between! Although the achievements I point to here were flawed and have required us revisiting certain items seventy-eighty years later and beyond. Regardless, they were impressive.
Regardless of the flaws of the agreements worked out we did largely agree to act together. If you look at the Declaration resulting in 1776, you see that it was Jefferson, who planted the seed of the chaos that ensued. I suspect it was largely unintentional. His assertion in the Declaration that all men are created equal really was not needed in that document. It was a rhetorical flourish that has driven the US for the past 250 years. And yes, it could be seen as a foundational claim, that justifies the actions that he and his coconspirators were engaging in. But as foundations are flawed, what does the assertion provide aside from a rhetorical flourish?
I would suggest that most did not truly believe the claim. A lovely thought, but neither the British nor the colonists truly bought it. Just look at the biographies of the men who signed the document, especially Jefferson. Yet that line largely makes us who we are today. In some ways it challenges the rights that he asserts a little further on.
I digress again, the above is related but we were talking values, politics, and relativism. I have recently been diving into this topic. Starting with Rousseau’s the Social Contract I move onto another Frenchman, (Yeah, Rousseau is actually Swiss. . .) Raymond Boudon. Boudon is a sociologist with philosophical interests. In his work, titled, The Origin of Values , Boudon attempts to overcome the predominant relativism of our age. He constructs the problem a little differently. He sees values as derived from one of two options. The first he describes as instrumental reason, which translates into one acting out of rational self-interest, weighing the consequences of one’s actions as we proceed.
It is, however, the second option that he is interested in. The first above can to some degree be seen as relativism, relativistic. Again, what works for me may or may not work for you. The self is the basis for our action and each self is unique. Right? Interestingly, despite the conflicts that follow our competing actions, they are rational-if I desire this then I will do that. We understand how we arrive at the consequences or conclusions of such a process, again one’s actions. What the self desires we pursue, or at least attempt to pursue, and it is in these actions, pursuant to our desires, that conflicts occur.
The second option for Boudon, what he describes as axiological, is again rational, but not based upon self-interest. We somehow understand that it is wrong to steal, and this is not derived from self-interest. He uses the example of voting. Why do people vote? He suggests that voting is done not out of self-interest, at least in the literature of social science. Voting, they urge really is not self-interested. Rarely, they claim, is it the case that people vote with self-interest in mind.
I am not sure that is true. I suspect that many do vote with misguided self-interest in mind. I would agree, however, that it leads not to instant or immediate gratification. Though as I type these words, my mind goes back to the celebrations had by people across the country when Barrack Obama when the Presidency in 2008. What or why were they celebrating this election win?
For Boudon, voting does not entail a means-end calculation. It is much more simply something that should be done. It is a responsibility. Just as one should not steal. It is categories such as these that he is exploring and wants to point to and claim that there is something there. He identifies them as objects or that we treat them as objects. All or most of us agree that voting is a good thing and stealing is a bad thing. Again, is as if these values are objects.
Boudon is trying to reclaim or reestablish that there are values in the world. Perhaps not absolute, but they exist. They are real. Values, he is claiming, are not fictions that individuals conveniently appeal to, to get what they desire. They are more than rhetorical flourishes used to manipulate. He ultimately suggests that values have a history. they are meaningful through their history, our history.
Our values, he suggests, are comparable or similar to the common law system we embrace in the US. We do not expect our legislatures to specify every contingency in the laws they write and part of that is because there is a history of the ideas applied found in prior legislation, prior law. In this, the doing of law becomes or involves both the texts, the laws on the books, and the methods embraced to interpret and apply those laws, which includes amendments to it.
Boudon, focusing upon values, embraces Adam Smith’s idea of the impartial spectator, where people in a society will appeal to these ideas available to them again and again, just as we see in our system of law. They, the people, assume that all can see what they point to. Again, these ideas are shared and available to all in the culture. They can be seen and pointed to, and they do guide our actions. The Bible becomes part of a religious tradition that guides our actions.
In the end Boudon accepts that values are relative to specific cultures and groups, but they do have meaning. It is the idea that ideas are somehow without meaning that he is challenging. And people have advocated such. People have advocated that what we consider good is more an expressive statement, more like an aesthetic taste as opposed to an empirical theory. Often seen as subjective, which has always puzzled me. I guess both Boudon and me want to see these as objects to be shared as opposed to subjective states that are inaccessible to all but the subject.
And Yet I Pause. . .
Despite my own desire for values to be available objectively like any empirical or scientific theory, like any material object, I do have to pause. As much as we would like the above to be the case we struggle. It has gotten to the point where some advocate for an autocratic regime to overcome the relativism and pluralism of values that prevents us from acting in any sustained fashion today. This goes from Tom Friedman’s article several years ago imagining us being China for a day to many on the right embracing the Hungarian leader, Viktor Orbán.
I have to admit that I have a certain addiction to social media. I do love going back and forth with a handful of folks online. Most people do not have patience for such engagements, but we can go on for days. This has been going for several years now. That said there are moments where I wonder what just happened. I will state a position and a response comes back, and it seems my offering was just totally misread. Was it done intentionally(?), the misreading I mean. Was the misreading of my text intentional? Again, we have pursued this for several years now. Who would intentionally misread for a period of years, considering there is little riding on it. There are no serious consequences to these online chats. Self-interest is not driving these conversations.
Our discussions are similar in some respects to the conversations of those on Cheers and the like but focused on the political and then some. We are not looking to arrive anywhere. It is a pastime, something that is done in fun. For myself, it is informative. They often lead, at least for me, to essays such as this one.
That said, in looking at conversations past and present in this series, I have to pause. The misreading that perpetuate-that facilitate us continuing on are amazing overtime. One wonders if that is it. The mis-readings, whatever their cause, in some ways perpetuate the continued debate, which we both enjoy. And despite the pleasure (Pleasure?) gained they are not intentional. Friendships may have evolved, yet positions have deepened. It is not, I feel, simply because we want to continue. I don’t think. I hope not.
It might just be the case that the mechanics of rationality are never quite sorted out. Perhaps, they simply facilitate us getting through what it is we are working on. And I am not talking engineering feats. Rather, I point to people of diverse cultures, subcultures, etc. and subscribing to God knows what and trying to proceed in some fashion. The language, the logic, is a consequent of the practice, of the game we are engaged in. Our histories and what we know of them will propel and likewise those we encounter, with their own history, will affect what happens, including what is said, and what proceeds.
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