The New Criterion
It operates as a refuge for a civilizing element in short supply in contemporary America: honest criticism
- The Wall Street Journal
FeaturesJanuary 2009 Truth vs. equality On the relativist threat to science (from "The Dictatorship of Relativism.") Relativism is a key weapon of those who seek to undermine Western civilization and its distinctive culture, one which embodies crucial values, its morality based on individual responsibility, and its strong respect for those who seek objective truth. Relativists often have a particular dislike of science. Generally, if one employs data or arguments derived from scientific inquiry that they can not rebut, they will reply in their cant phrase: “We must not privilege science.” Their choice of the word “privilege” already gives the game away. For the relativists there is no truth, only a series of stories about the world which are all equally valid and from which they can choose without ever having to justify their choice. Likewise, there are moral relativists who reject the traditional moral norms of Western society and deny that transgressions against them can be unequivocally condemned. Finally, there are cultu ... This article is available to subscribers and for individual purchaseSubscribe to TNC (Print and Online editions) Subscribe to TNC (Online only) This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 27 January 2009, on page 19 Copyright © 2013 The New Criterion | www.newcriterion.com http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Truth-vs--equality-3982
E-mail to friend
|
On "Man Ray: Portraits” at the National Portrait Gallery, London. On "Becoming Picasso: Paris 1901” at The Courtauld Gallery, London. On "Go F!GURE: Contemporary Chinese Portraiture” at the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra, Australia. The great famine before China's Cultural Revolution killed millions. Yang Jisheng took it upon himself to make sure the world knew about it. by Charles Hill He was an eighteenth-century Irish statesman, but Edmund Burke still has plenty to say today. Reinhold Niebuhr was a public intellectual and a theologian who still has a deep influence on both the right and the left.
Webcasts
Poet George Green reads from his award-winning Lord Byron's Foot
Celebration of the Life of Robert H. Bork, 1927–2012
James Panero on price gouging at the Met, with Fred Dicker Weblog 
|
add a comment
you must have an account to post a comment. {register now}