Four Moods of Relativism

Richard Ostrofsky
(May, 2001)
It scarcely needs saying by now that the climate of the post-modern world is
relativist to the core. Even militant fundamentalists of this or that stripe may
be considered closet relativists, insofar as they despair of winning voluntary
converts to its Truth, and now are seeking to impose their vision through
armed force and law. Every dogmatist and ideologue finds himself
confronted with the brute fact that there are many cultures in the world –
many rooms in God’s house – each thinking of itself as justified by its own
history, and insisting on its own right to exist. Such men and women do not
think of themselves as relativists and would resent the label; but post-
modernity – the Diasporan Age as I think of it 1 – casts its seeds on them all
the same. Against whatever resistance, some of these foreign seeds will
germinate and shift the cultural ecology. On some level, fundamentalists
today cannot help but know this. And that bitter knowledge makes them
relativists of a vehemently reactionary sort, however rigidly they hate and
resist it.
Such zealotry is thoroughly passé by now. In its impotent rage, it will
still cause plenty of trouble, but cannot get itself taken seriously by serious
people. Accordingly, I am thinking about the rest of us – who hold to our
various commitments of understanding, value, and “life style,” and also
(just like the fundamentalists) face the problem of living among other
people holding to different commitments. For us, as a matter of existential
orientation, three basic moods are possible: To begin with, we can adopt an
attitude of “live and let live,” building into our social arrangements as much
distance and mutual insulation from alien cultures and sub-cultures as
seems necessary to avoid discomfort or embarrassment. This is the default
option in urban life today; and one sees a lot of it. People stay with their
own, flocking with birds of the same feather, but not seriously disturbed by
the propinquity of other flocks. It is no longer “cool” to discriminate against
homosexuals, for example; yet gays and straights tend to hang out at
different bars, and go to different parties. Except in certain very “advanced”
1 See What Comes After Modern, p ??
circles, we do not yet easily inter-socialize with people whose sexuality is
manifestly different from our own.
Sometimes this default arrangement of tolerance-at-a-distance breaks
down. We seek to crush some cultural modes and genres – not (like the
fundamentalist) because we wish our own to triumph, but because they
clash too drastically or dangerously with the prevailing urbane, liberal
culture of easy-going tolerance. Our attitudes toward clitorectomy, hard
drugs, child porn and even tobacco smoking might be examples. Such
instances of intolerance do not contradict but actually reinforce the
prevailing relativist norm of toleration. The reaction against these things is
all the fiercer because, today, so many threatening practices are tolerated!
No matter how liberal we are, we feel a line must be drawn somewhere to
keep peace on the streets; and the intolerance shown toward certain groups
and practices is actually part of the defense of tolerance in many other
areas.
Contemporary attitudes toward BDSM afford an interesting borderline
case. Scene clothing is actually chic, and a little safe-sane-consensual
whipping among consenting adults seems harmless enough, but many
people have their doubts. On which side of the line of tolerance does this
sub-culture fall?
The fourth mood of relativism is an active taking of profit and pleasure
from the existence of diversity, whether or not one chooses to participate in
these newly available options. When we do not feel threatened in our
commitments of value and belief and custom, we can be curious, and feel
interestingly challenged by the different commitments of others. We can
taste, buy, and learn what looks good to us – playing at different identities
or emulating and being changed by them as we see fit. The exciting,
dangerous possibility of the post-modern world is that of self-creation in a
global marketplace of goods and ideas. There have been many casualties to
this freedom. There will be many more. Yet the cosmopolitans who make a
go of freedom are not “rootless” as is sometimes alleged. Our roots go
everywhere.