I tend to believe that radical relativism (there are only narratives, all narratives are the same and the choice between them is personal/political and isnt based on facts, evidence, etc.) is one of the major negative influences that scholarship in the Humanities has had on the general intellectual and political climate of the recent decades. But often such claims feel simply megalomaniac: after all, who cares about what literature, history, etc. people think and write? That cant influence many people anyway and the omnipresent cynicism, obsession with conspiracy theories, inability to understand facts, to properly use evidence, etc. are caused by all sorts of other things, not relativism of a narrow group of scholars. However, sometimes one gets perfect illustrations of how this system works. Here is a response of a Hungarian MEP from the co-ruling Fidesz party to Nora Berends and Christopher Clarks recent article on the nasty politics of history and memory in todays Hungary: lrb.co.uk/v36/n24/letters (scroll down to the Who says what about Hungary section). So, what does that politician have to say in response to a well-evidenced accusation in the misleading ideologization of the past by Hungarian nationalist conservatives? His main argument is that there are simply different narratives in Hungary. Liberals (whom Berend and Clark follow) have their own version, socialists - their own, and the ruling elite - their own, national, version of the past. Here is your perfect relativist, who claims that everything is a narrative and choices between those narratives are ideological and have nothing to do with facts... Of course, there are many complexities to this debate, but this is a very good example of how a typical academic relativistic thesis gets co-opted by the right.
Posted on: Mon, 15 Dec 2014 12:24:03 +0000
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