The Republicans Art of Relativism

One of the most interesting aspects of Stephen Hawking's "The Universe in a Nutshell" is his discussion of Albert Einstein. It's pretty amazing how a scientist (admittedly of the once in a few generations variety) could amass such a stature in popular culture- tot he point where everyone knew not only who he was but could recite and (in many cases) explain his most famous equation. As Hawking explained it, the reason behind Einstein's mainstream fame was that the theories of relativity were applicable not only to the physics and cosmological world from which they came, but also to almost every other facet of life. Relativity and relativism literally chanted the way people thought about the world around them; suddenly there was a coherent argument stating that there was no universal center, no universal truth which applied to everyone. Truth, centrality, and objective authority all depended on where you were situated, on your point of view.

I don't know the extent to which scientific relativity informed the social science concept of relativism- it's been a few years since I last read Universe- but I recall it being substantial. For instance, relativism complicates any notion of a universal morality taught by religion. It's harder to teach supposedly objective accounts of historical events as facts without presenting other points of view. Relativism as a concept brought many benefits to academia and the world, particularly by making possible different cultural studies programs as different points of view were given the same value as more dominant ones. Old sources of authority were questioned and forced to justify their positions. Anything that allows for more critical questioning, I think, is always a welcome development.

I am a big believer in self-reinforcement and relativism, which started out by saying that there are multiple valid opinions, reinforced that position to the point where it became ALL opinions are valid and further more, ALL opinions are equally valid. I'm definitely exagerrating the extent to which this sentiment was broadly expressed, but certainly many people had grown weary of the endless march into a sea of relative murkiness. There had to be some things that were certain, right?

This is just my mildly (mis)informed opinion, completely unresearched, but the rise of conservatism and the appeal of people like Ronald Reagan may had had something to do with achieving a degree of balance with the liberal relativism from the academic elite that said we should not judge but try to understand that hood nigga who mugged us after our delightful dinner date downtown.

But Pandora's Box cannot be unopened, and relativism of a different strain has entered the Republican party/conservative movement and is threatening to break it apart. The first thing that has made this infilitration possible is the relativism of the news media. After years of being accused of having a barely concealed liberal bias, the media has gone out of their way to be deferential to both sides, to the point where they will no longer call out blantantly wrongheaded drivel when they see it, but instead just present both sides of the story without passing judgement. Kind of like just laying out two sandwiches without telling you which one has the poison in it, even when they know. This has allowed the right wing to put out blatantly false statements without fear of retribution- because it could/can/is true from their point of view. This has made the use of testimony and evidence based in fact unnecessary.
The second thing is the new populism to which the Republican party has hitched their wagon. I was reading an article in the Wall Street Jorunal entitled "The Perils of Poopulist Chic." The article quoted NYT columnist David Brooks as saying that the base of the GOP started out attacking elite liberals but that attack has transformed into an attack on ALL elites even conservative ones. It's what makes the base believe that "Joe the Plumber"'s statements on economics and foreign policy deserve the same amount of attention as an economic policy professor's at Princeton. It's what makes Sarah Palin a frontrunner for the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination and not a colossal embarrasement to her party.
The problem is that it's just not true- the TRUTH is that Joe the Plumber's opinion is NOT as valid as someone learned in foreign policy and Sarah Palin is NOT even remotely qualified to be a head of state. When relativism goes too far it creates these kinds of false equivalencies that must be stopped on both sides, but mostly on the Republican side. Just because someone's opinion IS valid does not make their opinion AS valid as someone else's. The problem with eleites is that they are often times... well.. elitist and they can become guilty of not believing the first part of my statement. Just because they can become elitist though does not mean that we do not need elites to temper the base instincts of the base though. There has to be some kind of balance between taking into account all opinions without making them all equivalent- a balance between securing a place for the common man in the decisions of our country and discounting for the fact that common people are not as versed in all of the relevant subjects. That's the prevailing conondrum of democracy, but as long as the Republicans place all their chips on the opinions of their lowest base, I have a feeling they won't have to worry about being in power anytime soon.