Re: Discourse and Relativism

At 3:59 PM 17/4/96, Jim Underwood wrote:

* I've been reading all this stuff about relativism, which seems to be
* overlying a difference between Marxists and others (but who?) and I can't
* resist asking:
* What's wrong with relativism? (a lot of Foucault's difficulties seem to
* come from trying to avoid relativism)

I may be simple-minded, but it appears to me that only someone living with
the assumptions of a generally liberal society could afford to ask a
question like that. That's because the answer is, again in simple-minded
fashion, all too obvious for anyone who lives within an illiberal society:
if there are no standards to appeal to, grounded in something other than
"discourse", then it is power that decides: whoever has the power sets down
what is right and what is wrong, what can be done and what cannot be done.

* I guess my real question is: why are so many people so uncomfortable
with
* relativism?

Why? Because that abdicates the field altogether to power.

Of course power does impose itself: and that's the kernel of truth - we
can't run away from having to deal with power and the ability of power to
establish the "truth". But having said that, it is altogether a different
matter to leap from that to suggest that there's nothing more than power.

It is perhaps this "totalizing" drive - even by those opposed to
"totalizing discourse" - that is the problem. A somewhat more balanced view
- a middle way - so to speak.

We need a touch of relativism, just as we need a touch of empiricism. And
of course we couldn't do without induction. But expand that to: there's
nothing but relativism, or empiricism, or whatever, and we run into
insoluble problems, not just of epistemology, but of life and living
itself.

Khoo Khay Jin





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