24 Comments

1. mrbones:

Roger, if you continue to stick your fingers in your ears with such alacrity — aren’t you concerned about the probable brain damage? Sorry, buddy. Shouting “Newsweek!” every time bad news come out about your president isn’t going to make him any more popular.

Feb 28, 2006 - 8:17 am 2. In Vino Veritas:

So, then, what is reality according to you? Bush’s approval is maybe 37%? 39%? Or, is it actually 60%, and CBS just made up the results? You are questioning the truth of this poll, so surely you have some indicator in mind of what percentage of Americans back this President.

Another interesting thing about the poll: Republicans actually have a lower opinion of the GOP led Congress than Democrats. So, had the poll included more Republicans, the approval ratings for a Republican Congress would have been lower.

The Democrats have offered nothing, have cowered in front of Republicans, and have no national leaders (Obama, it seems, has been consumed by the Senate). Yet, they are poised to defeat the party which has a War President in the White House. No amount of spin can change the fact that this Presidency is on its way(not there yet, he still has nearly 3 years) to being a failure of historical proportions.

Feb 28, 2006 - 8:24 am 3. JK Ribera:

I am so pleased that this Veritas person understands the future so well. I was getting confused.

Feb 28, 2006 - 8:34 am 4. RogerA:

I have never thought polls were relevant one way or the other–even less so when they arent constructed scientifically. I do think, IVV, with your prescience, stop blogging and start buy futures–you are going to make a fortune!!!

Feb 28, 2006 - 8:43 am 5. reliapundit - the astute blogger:

rog – this post and the one below ARE EFFIN FABULOUS! Right On, Bro’!

Feb 28, 2006 - 8:53 am 6. Robert Crawford:

Forget the bias, cultural relativism … the “upmarket philosophy” behind multi-culturalism … makes a wonderful excuse for laziness. If there is no truth, then there is no point in pursuing it.

Welcome to the party, Roger. Nice to see someone realizing it and stating it that clearly.

Likewise, with moral relativism, there is no wrong; there are no limits on what you can do or should be allowed to do. The falsity of that proposition is easily demonstrated: when is rape the right thing to do?

Feb 28, 2006 - 10:37 am 7. markus:

Whether or not the poll is accurately weighted is a factual, scientific question, one that I don’t have time to explore right now. Nevertheless — in contrast to Neverdock’s ravings — I appreciate CBS Public Eye providing a forum for explanation and discussion, as well as links to what looks to be informative writing on the science of weighted polls.

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2006/02/28/publiceye/entry1352504.shtml

Feb 28, 2006 - 11:02 am 8. Steven Mitchell:

Careful, Roger. People that enjoy making up their own amoral reality don’t appreciate it when you comment directly on such things. Next thing you know, you’ll be accused of thinking that black and white are colors.

(If anyone doubts, I do now the difference between immoral and amoral.)

Feb 28, 2006 - 11:54 am 9. Roger:

I note how this thread got hijacked by discussion of the recent poll. Sorry that I even mentioned it, although if you’re interested you can go here

http://newsbusters.org/node/4211

I was intending to write about cultural relativism, less transitory than polls.

Feb 28, 2006 - 12:40 pm 10. AlanC:

“…makes a wonderful excuse for laziness.”

How true, but unfortunately, not new.

35 years ago my best friend ( a Philosophy professor ) was lamenting the trend in his students to “debate” things based on their own, personal “philosophy”.

He could wax poetic (and profane) on the laziness inherent in this posisition where ones unexamined feelings were put on the same plane as the musings of Plato, Kant, Heidigger, Aristotle, etc., etc.

Cultural relativism is nothing more than a lazy way to operate on the basis of feelings (no work involved) rather than learning or critical thinking or logic.

I’m afraid that a large part our generation is all too good at this sort of laziness.

Feb 28, 2006 - 2:18 pm 11. Sandy P:

Aren’t those numbers still higher than Ronnie’s at 1 point?

I thought Ronnie was around 27%.

Feb 28, 2006 - 2:22 pm 12. David Thomson:

ìSo cultural relativism is a great convenience for people who don’t want to bother.î

Iíve been saying this for a long time. Post modernist philosophical underpinnings easily justify grade inflation. If everything is relative—then why not award a D- student with an A+? Stephen R. C. Hicks makes similar points in his superb, Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault.

Feb 28, 2006 - 5:29 pm 13. Barry Dauphin:

The degree of cultural relatavism you mention not only enables laziness, it promotes fantasies of god-hood (probably of the Greek god type). If we are the sole architects of the only standards relevant to us, then there is no more searching for truth or rightness. The quest is over, and we have arrived. Just like the Olympian gods, we can laze around and treat the politics of the “mortals” as soap opera. As Nietzsche said, ÔøΩThere are no facts; only interpretations.ÔøΩ Or, even more to the point, it was Nietzsche who said, ÔøΩGod is dead.ÔøΩ This means that we take his place and have the run of the place.

Of course, we experience discontinuities with this way of being since others are usually not so cooperative with our standards or values. The contemporary reply to disagreeable others is, “well, that’s just your opinion.” When we say that phrase in mantra-like fashion, we undermine ourselves too.

Feb 28, 2006 - 6:10 pm 14. ralph the bald:

the point about post-modern relativism is that while it’s legitimate to say that there are multiple narratives and that a single “objective” one is impossible, that certainly doesn’t mean that all narratives are equal. on the contrary, just because objectivity isn’t possible doesn’t mean that there is no such thing as honesty or dishonesty. it’s up to us to a) be as honest as possible, and b) exercise our judgment in assessing the narratives of others.

part of what makes the blogosphere so interesting, is that we judge what we read on the basis of its content, tone, etc., not on the basis of the name or the brand.

rtb

Feb 28, 2006 - 9:02 pm 15. gumshoe:

Roger -

I just posted Re: Cultural Relativism
yesterday at YARGB, and referenced a 1988 book
by Allan Bloom “The Closing of the American Mind”

Your initial comments in the post are
almost a direct reflection of that discussion…

Bloom’s book can be conceived as a mid-1980’s
version of “Explaining Post-Modernism” by Stephen R. Hicks…rather prescient,in other words.

I wrote:

“i just recenty pulled this one off my bookshelf for a read…Bloom saw Horowitz’looming brand of University idiocy and the abandonment of the search for truth in the mid 1980’s
(don’t be put off by the title,aside from the title,the book is *not* sensationalist
and is quite rigorus):

“The Closing of the American Mind” Allan Bloom
(Paperback – May 15, 1988)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/
0671657151/sr=8-2/qid=1140655874/
ref=sr_1_2/103-2478812-
0501453?%5Fencoding=UTF8

Bloom starts off describing how the one moral conviction ALL his students seemed to arrive at the Univ with was “the relativity of truth”…and I believe this is where Bloom’s title derives from:

they were ALL closed to the idea
that there even was such a thing as Truth.

Hence their minds were already closed
to any kind of search/seeking after it.”
____________________________

It’s been my off-line reading for the week,
and it’s not been a disappointment.

Feb 28, 2006 - 10:48 pm 16. zefal:

I would like to see what areas of the country the people were polled from.

They can slant the poll by what kind of democrats or republicans they survey. They could do this for selfdelusional purposes or believe they can convince people that they are in the minority in supporting Bush and this would have an effect of changing people’s minds. Herd mentality effect.

Does anyone remember when CBS took a poll and it showed favorable to Bush and Dan Rather didn’t report on it on his newscast. But 2 days later another poll on the same thing was done by someone else that showed the opposite and that made his newscast?

The CBS poll was on CBS.com that’s how someone exposed it. Don’t remember what the poll was about.

Mar 1, 2006 - 3:18 am 17. Steven Mitchell:

“So cultural relativism is a great convenience for people who don’t want to bother.”

As others have agreed, this is true. It is not, however, the whole picture. Cultural relativism, same as its moral counterpart, is also a great convenience for people who do very much want to bother–but know that reality is not on their side. That is, the habits of relativism in the populace are great cover for those who want to put a load of hooey over on everyone else. “The man who believes in nothing, with believe anything.”

The “20th century American” (as one of my professers called ‘em) is so mired in the language and habits of relativism, that even those who consciously reject it will find it creeping in unless monitored carefully.

Of course, that really means that cultural relativism isn’t a great convenience at all. It’s actually a terrible impediment, that seems convenient at the time, but always has a price attached.

Mar 1, 2006 - 5:30 am 18. Paul:

The postmodern concept of no objective truth more than anything else makes it easy to lie. To others and to oneself.

Another vote for the Hicks book. Every recovering “liberal” should read it.

Mar 1, 2006 - 6:42 am 19. Steven Mitchell:

Ugh, mangled the Chesterton quote, even when paraphrasing. Of course it should be: “The man who believes in nothing, will believe anything.”

Mar 1, 2006 - 7:17 am 20. markus:

Don’t forget the other great enemy of “cultural relativism”, your comrades in the struggle against it: the radical Islamists, fighting the good fight against the separation of mosque and state, the idea that some women might prefer not to wear a burkha, and other countless other affronts to God-given natural law.

Mar 1, 2006 - 7:20 am 21. Steven Mitchell:

Yeah, markus. If one person has a bad idea, then anything that can be tied to that idea–however illogical, dishonest, and plain silly the ties, is automatically discredited. So goes the basic “logic” of the relativist. Thanks for demonstrating the start of the slippery slope.

Mar 1, 2006 - 11:37 am 22. markus:

Steven — if you want to have a discussion, please be clear. I pointed out that radical Islamists also strongly believe in absolute, universal standards of truth. Disagree?

Wikipedia, by the way, appears to have a good entry on cultural relativism, distinquishing it from moral relativism.

from it, a Clyde Kluckhorn quote:
The concept of culture, like any other piece of knowledge, can be abused and misinterpreted. Some fear that the principle of cultural relativity will weaken morality. “If the Bugabuga do it why can’t we? It’s all relative anyway.” But this is exactly what cultural relativity does not mean.
The principle of cultural relativity does not mean that because the members of some savage tribe are allowed to behave in a certain way that this fact gives intellectual warrant for such behavior in all groups. Cultural relativity means, on the contrary, that the appropriateness of any positive or negative custom must be evaluated with regard to how this habit fits with other group habits. Having several wives makes economic sense among herders, not among hunters. While breeding a healthy skepticism as to the eternity of any value prized by a particular people, anthropology does not as a matter of theory deny the existence of moral absolutes. Rather, the use of the comparative method provides a scientific means of discovering such absolutes. If all surviving societies have found it necessary to impose some of the same restrictions upon the behavior of their members, this makes a strong argument that these aspects of the moral code are indispensable.

Mar 1, 2006 - 12:59 pm 23. Gary Rosen:

Ahhh. I understand now, “markus”. Adolf Hitler believed in his principles, Winston Churchill believed in *his* principles, so they were really the same. It all becomes clear now.

Mar 1, 2006 - 9:31 pm 24. Twill00:

Veritas -
It hardly matters what the “right” figure might be for a poll when the polled group is so skewed to the left. Heck, why not poll 100% Democrats and get Bush’s numbers into the teens?

Besides, pointing out that a poll is bogus doesn’t imply that Bush is doing a great job – it just points out that the people doing the polling are committing a fraud. Intentional or not, it’s journalistic malpractice.

Mar 4, 2006 - 12:32 am

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