Thinking Christian

“Who are you to say?” “It’s true for you, but not for me.” “It’s wrong to impose one’s views on others.” Probably few of us has managed to avoid hearing the empty slogans that have grown in the soil of postmodern relativism and political correctness to the point of being far too plentiful. Certain statements get repeated unthinkingly in conversations, and as a result, they are just assumed to be self-evident, and any views that challenge this prevailing mindset are seen as “bigoted” and “intolerant”. Aside from the obvious problem that the classical definition of tolerance actually presupposes factual disagreement (something that the relativists often does not want to acknowledge as legitimate), there’s another aspect of this type of rhetoric that I want to briefly focus on.

OK, are you ready? IT IS (often) RIGHT TO IMPOSE YOUR VIEWS ON OTHERS!

It is right for the police (or even a random bystander) to impose his moral views on the rapist who thinks that if he wants to have sex with some particular woman, he’s entitled to take forcible measures to get it. It is right for the school to impose heliocentric views on the kids of the ignorant geocentrist parents. It is right for any of us to impose our views of equal moral worth of people regardless of their race on the racist bigot. When it comes to the religious fundamentalist cult leader that puts his followers in danger, it is right for us to impose our views on religion on the leader just as well as his followers (namely, the view that their cult is false and immoral).

I can go on, but one point is quite unavoidable by now. At least in some “extreme cases”, it’s perfectly OK to impose your views on others. In fact, it can often be immoral to do otherwise.Now, someone may object that it’s only these cases that are exempted from the requirement of not imposing one’s view on others. But the obvious problem here is this: Who gets to decide what counts as an “extreme case”? (Remember, the relativist denies the existence of objective truth in such matters.) And are you (gasp) imposing your view on the standards for what counts as an extreme case on me?

There are few strategic moves that the relativist may try at this point in order to justify his/her position, but I’m quite convinced that any such move will ultimately collapse under the weight of its self-refutation. (If you disagree, feel free to challenge me on this point in the comment section.)

Not only is it often right to impose one’s moral, religious, etc. views on others, but (assuming the flawed relativist understanding of “imposing” on which this slogan is based) it is also inevitable. Individual human behavior in a society (not to mention public policy issues) will either implicitly or explicitly presuppose and express all sorts of beliefs that have implications on others that doesn’t share them. Religious liberties, abortion laws, observance of traditions. You name it. If the mere expression of those views in the presence of people who think differently counts as “imposing one’s views on others” (as the politically correct postmodern relativist often claims), such imposition is impossible to avoid.

There is so much that could be further said on this topic, but perhaps I’ll return to it in some later post.