Liberalism and Relativism (Part I)

“The point of politics can, therefore, never be to try and make individuals act well. Indeed, for Hobbes the very idea that there is any good or evil beyond our subjective desires is vainglorious and foolish.”

Introduction

Today’s politics are in many ways conflicts over the future of liberalism. In some senses this is a highly unusual development. As I highlighted in my earlier articles “The Rebirth of History,” just thirty years ago many people grudgingly accepted Francis Fukuyama’s claim that we had reached something of an end to the historical process. This is because, for all intents and purposes, liberalism had defeated all possible global rivals for influence. Earlier in the 20th century, liberal states had allied with the Communist-controlled Soviet Union to defeat their common Fascist enemy. This was followed by the Cold War, which dominated the latter half of that century, and ended with the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the seeming triumph of liberal democracy. But to many, it seemed inevitable that this situation would last forever.

How much can change in 30 years? Now there are many who are outright claiming that liberalism has “failed.” In a recent op-ed for The Washington Post, Robert Kagan has discussed how postmodern totalitarians now pose a real threat to the stability of liberal democracy. And I have commented at some length on the subject of postmodern conservatism and the dangers it poses to human rights and the struggle for greater equality. Interestingly, these developments are met with concurrent accusations that we live in a time where relativism is gaining greater and greater ground.

For many liberals, the threats posed by nationalist movements embody this specter better than any other. For many persuaded by liberalism, nationalism is an inherently partial and subjectivist outlook. It will, therefore, always be haunted by the specter of moral relativism and even nihilism (though of course many nationalists disagree). Moreover, liberals will often claim these reactionary movements are prone to authoritarianism in a way that liberal democratic societies are not. While I largely agree with these accusations, in this piece I wanted to examine the extent to which the liberal tradition itself is implicated in the emergence of relativism.