"Relativism: So What?": So What?

[koganbot]

I keep telling myself I'm going to write a series of lj posts called "Relativism: So What?" but I keep putting off beginning this. I think a major reason for my block is that, though I can lay out the "intellectual" issues surrounding "relativism," my true goal is to get at "what are people's underlying reasons for thinking there's an issue here?" or to put it better, "people wouldn't bring up the issue of 'relativism' if they didn't think they were taking care of something by doing so, so how do I get them to think and talk about what it is that they think they need to take care of?" A subsidiary question might be, "Frank Kogan thinks he's taking care of something when he tries to get people to think and talk about what they think they're trying to take care of when they raise the issue of 'relativism,' so what is it that Frank Kogan thinks he's trying to take care of when he does this?"

Anyhow, four questions:
(1) What do you mean by "relativism," when you use the word (assuming you use the word)?
(2) Does the issue of relativism matter to you? If so, why does it matter?
(3) What do you think other people mean when they use the word "relativism"?
(4) What do you think they think is at stake?

Don't let your answers by overconstrained by the questions. I want to hear your ideas before giving mine.

By the way, someone on my flist (though I'm not on his) used the term the other day, clearly believed that "relativism" was a potent force in the world.

Comments

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

That is "that isn't for me to say" might be closer to "I have no reference in the world I'm familiar with that tells me how to respond to what you're asking me" than "all cultures are entitled to do whatever they've already been doing."

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

see, here's a re-emergence of my "structure-buttressing myth": "pay attention student of the university of X: if you respect our powers, we will enhance yours" -- i agree with dave this is a silly just-so-story, but getting outside it, into the business of a general justification of the particulars higher ed (non-practical departments especially) is to risk stirring up a whole whirlwind of political arguments and currents WHICH UNIVERSITY X MIGHT NOT SURVIVE (or more pertinently may not survive in a shape which the commencement-speech (straw?)lady gets to give commencement speeches...)

so what we're talking about is a ritual invocation to stave off a particular cluster of demons -- and as dave says, the accusation of "moral relativism" isn't the identification of an ideology so much as a mediterreanean peasant's flashed finger-symbol, fingers as twinhorns meaning "avert the bad luck"