PrintMarch 14, 2009
The Myth of Relativism and the Cult of Tolerance
Introduction It has been twenty years since the late Allan Bloom shook the intellectual elite in this country with the opening line of The Closing of the American Mind: “There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every student in America believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative.” In one sentence our dirty little secret -- we believe in the truth that there is no truth -- was out.Why do we believe this? Bloom had that pegged too:Relativism is necessary to openness; and this is the virtue, the only virtue, which all primary education for more than fifty years has dedicated itself to inculcating. Openness -- and the relativism that makes it the only plausible stance in the face of the various claims to truth and the various ways of life and kinds of human beings -- is the great insight of our times.But relativism is not a new idea. Ever since Protagoras declared, “Man is the measure of all...(Read Full Article)
