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actually, art, i was going for a different notion--that relativism can and is being deployed in a cynical manner to further ends that have more to do with flattening debate internally and shifting the center of it away from the exercize of power.
for myself, i do not think that all arguments are equal simply because they are arguments. but it does not follow from that that there needs to be anything absolute about any particular argument. but what i do think is that criteria for evaluating arguments are a good thing--that they can and should be debated in themselves.
the kind of cheap relativism i see working at the core of conservative ideology (the machinery of which is pretty obvious--i am referring to that, not to particular positions that might be held by anyone who thinks themselves conservative) is about something else...disabling meaningful debate...in the interest of enabling a kind of impunity in the exercize of material power--one which would obtain only for conservatives themselves, of course.
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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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