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the use relativism as a device to force access for the whole range of indefenable beliefs that constitute the core of conservative ideology is a pretty basic tactic of the right.
i see it as an attempt to reduce how people understand what is at stake in politics to matters of opinion, all of which are arbitrary--to muddy the grounds for rational debate---in a domain where there are no criteria accepted to ground validity claims, anything goes: so factual material can have no greater sway than religious opinion--say--in discussion.
this is about opinion management.
this is also the basis for conservative arguments that they are being somehow persecuted because, outside their ideological world, their arguments are not taken seriously.
it is about solidifying support for a politics of based on distraction, on fake "cultural" issues--like the wholly absurd question of whether gay folk should be allowed to marry. of course they should. it is ridiculous to think otherwise.
while the shabby and unpleasant nondebate about this kind of matter goes on and on, behind the scenes, real power is excersized by folk who oocupy a position that is not at all identical with what you would imagine from the content organized by the right's ideology machinery--and these people do as they like.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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