DICTATORSHIP OF RELATIVISM
Pope Benedict XVI
A conversation with Peter Seewald
In
his futuristic novel Brave New World, the British author Aldous Huxley
had predicted in 1932 that falsification would be the decisive element
of modernity. In a false reality with its false truth – or the absence
of truth altogether – nothing, in the final analysis, is important any
more.There is no truth, there is no standpoint. Today, in fact, truth is
regarded as far too subjective a concept for us to find therein a
universally valid standard. The distinction between genuine and fake
seems to have been abolished. Everything is to some extent negotiable.
Is that the relativism against which you were warning so urgently?
It
is obvious that the concept of truth has become suspect. Of course it
is correct that it has been much abused. Intolerance and cruelty have
occurred in the name of truth. To that extent people are afraid when
someone says, "This is the truth", or even "I have the truth." We never
have it; at best it has us. No one will dispute that one must be careful
and cautious in claiming the truth. But simply to dismiss it as
unattainable is really destructive.
A large proportion of
contemporary philosophies, in fact, consist of saying that man is not
capable of truth. But viewed in that way, man would not be capable of
ethical values, either. Then he would have no standards. Then he would
only have to consider how he arranged things reasonably for himself, and
then at any rate the opinion of the majority would be the only
criterion that counted. History, however, has sufficiently demonstrated
how destructive majorities can be, for instance, in systems such as
Nazism and Marxism, all of which also stood against truth in particular.
"We
are building a dictatorship of relativism", you declared in your homily
at the opening of the conclave [in 2005], "that does not recognize
anything as definitive and whose ultimate standard consists solely of
one's own ego and desires."
That is why we must have the
courage to dare to say: Yes, man must seek the truth; he is capable of
truth. It goes without saying that truth requires criteria for
verification and falsification. It must always be accompanied by
tolerance, also. But then truth also points out to us those constant
values which have made mankind great. That is why the humility to
recognize the truth and to accept it as a standard has to be relearned
and practiced again.
The truth comes to rule, not through
violence, but rather through its own power; this is the central theme of
John's Gospel: When brought before Pilate, Jesus professes that he
himself is The Truth and the witness to the truth. He does not defend
the truth with legions but rather makes it visible through his Passion
and thereby also implements it.
In a world that has become
relativistic, a new paganism has gained more and more dominion over
people's thoughts and actions. It has long since become clear not only
that there is a blank space, a vacuum, alongside the Church, but also
that something like an anti-church has been established. The Pope in
Rome, one German newspaper wrote, should be condemned for the sole
reason that by his positions he has "transgressed against the religion"
that today "is valid in this country", namely, the "civil religion". Has
a new Kulturkampf started here, as Marcello Pera has analyzed it? The
former president of the Italian Senate speaks about a "large-scale
battle of secularism against Christianity".
A new intolerance
is spreading, that is quite obvious. There are well-established
standards of thinking that are supposed to be imposed on everyone. These
are then announced in terms of so-called "negative tolerance". For
instance, when people say that for the sake of negative tolerance [i.e.
"not offending anyone"] there must be no crucifix in public buildings.
With that we are basically experiencing the abolition of tolerance, for
it means, after all, that religion, that the Christian faith is no
longer allowed to express itself visibly.
When, for example, in
the name of non-discrimination, people try to force the Catholic Church
to change her position on homosexuality or the ordination of women, then
that means that she is no longer allowed to live out her own identity
and that, instead, an abstract, negative religion is being made into a
tyrannical standard that everyone must follow. That is then seemingly
freedom – for the sole reason that it is liberation from the previous
situation.
In reality, however, this development increasingly
leads to an intolerant claim of a new religion, which pretends to be
generally valid because it is reasonable, indeed, because it is reason
itself, which knows all and, therefore, defines the frame of reference
that is now supposed to apply to everyone.
In the name of
tolerance, tolerance is being abolished; this is a real threat we face.
The danger is that reason – so-called Western reason – claims that it
has now really recognized what is right and thus makes a claim to
totality that is inimical to freedom. I believe that we must very
emphatically delineate this danger. No one is forced to be a Christian.
But no one should be forced to live according to the "new religion" as
though it alone were definitive and obligatory for all mankind.
The
aggressiveness with which this new religion appears was described by
the weekly news magazine Der Spiegel as a "crusade of the atheists". It
is a crusade that mocks Christianity as the "God delusion" and
classifies religion as a curse that is also to blame for all wars. You
yourself have already spoken about a "subtle or even not so subtle
aggression against the Church". Even without a totalitarian regime, you
say that there is pressure today to think the way everybody thinks, that
attacks against the Church show "how this conformity can really be a
genuine dictatorship". Harsh words.
But the reality is in
fact such that certain forms of behavior and thinking are being
presented as the only reasonable ones and, therefore, as the only
appropriately human ones. Christianity finds itself exposed now to an
intolerant pressure that at first ridicules it – as belonging to a
perverse, false way of thinking – and then tries to deprive it of
breathing space in the name of an ostensible rationality.
It is
very important for us to oppose such a claim of absoluteness conceived
as a certain sort of "rationality". Indeed, this is not pure reason
itself but rather the restriction of reason to what can be known
scientifically – and at the same time the exclusion of all that goes
beyond it. Of course it is true that historically there have been wars
because of religion, too, that religion has also led to violence. . . .
From: Pope Benedict XVI,
Light of the World: The Pope, The Church and The Signs Of The Times. A Conversation with Peter Seewald (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2010), 50-54.
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Taken from: http://www.lst.edu/academics/landas-archives/373-dictatorship-of-relativism
