Resisting Relativism

Most of my contemporaries will argue taste is subjective. If often comes us in the context of movies - being in LA. They argue, art is in the eye of the beholder, everything is relative, you say tomato, I say tomato, I like Sound of Music and you like Commando, and can't we all just get along?

Well, no.

Art is not relative. It is not a question of popularity or the whims of the public or subject to the vicissitudes of time and chance. It has value outside of those temporary realities - value outside the current trends in art criticism or the assigned market value. It has value is in relation to the truth and to what degree it captures it.

Herein lies the issue - the question of truth. Does Truth exist?

It must.

Because consider the opposite. If there is no Truth what is the basis on which we can assign meaning to art? On what do we base morality? How can we say anything is right or wrong? Good or bad? When we say so-so has good taste or bad taste - that must mean precisely what is stated - good or bad. The phrase is not - so-and-so's taste is "different from the generally accepted amongst the cultural elite." Wrong. It is either good or bad. We must mean what we say.

And because art can be equal (who is to say what is "better" a Monet or a Manet) it does not follow that all art is relative. That all truth is relative.

This is the great question of our time. Our generation was raised on post-modern bullshit. We are taught from early on to consider the other side, how they must view things...and this is wise. But it is not as if pre-modern man did not understand this as well. The Iliad celebrates Hecktor, after all. Lincoln very well understood the position of the Southern Man and nevertheless sent hundreds of thousands of men to die to save the union/end slavery.

We cannot allow our fear of cultural/actual imperialism and the knowledge that we will get wiser as a species over time to discredit the notion of Truth. Because some things are relative, does not make all things relative. Because we change our mind and learn and grow, does not make all things relative.

Truth gets pooh-poohed because so much evil has been done in it's name. Religion all across time has perpetrated absolutely atrocious acts in the name of it. But it would be a gigantic mistake to think it doesn't exist because of these errors. In fact, it is precisely these errors which suggest it must exist. That 2+2 does not equal 5.

Concede this point, relativists, because you will not like the consequences of not.