Moral Relativism

I am a Moral Absolutist. However, I am not one whom you have met before. I do not believe in talking and talking and talking, so much so that, happily, time runs out, the bell rings, and we escape the classroom without actually having to act morally. Case in Point: go look at 3 Quarks Daily http://3quarksdaily.blogs.com/3quarksdaily/2007/10/post.html In Memory of Iman Al-Hams, On the Third Anniversary of Her Murder October 08, 2007 This is another of what I call my Palestinian bookmarks; a picture of a child shot dead that I use to spot articles on Palestine when I am scanning RSS feeds written in Arabic. Since my Arabic walks on one leg, I use these bookmarks to speed things up: see some skirmishing, you might have an article about Palestine, but it could also be about Egypt or Iraq or some other country; see a dead kid being carried in the street by a weeping parent, you have an article on Palestine!

It works quite well for me, and I am able to zero right in on the Palestinian articles without a hitch. Now the really, really interesting part of this is not the article itself. We have all read about children being shot, right? It is the comments that are precious. In the face of The Immoral, there should be no room for quibbling and casuistry, one would think. But no, the truly Immoral seems never to be able to be confronted, so we never are able to shut up and save our breath for condemnation. There is an unending flow of the various shades of meaning and justification and injunctions to read the truly true and the really real. If the Immoral can never be confronted and be known for what it is, then the Moral can never be confronted and known. Hence, there can be no knowledge of Absolute Morality. How can anyone believe in absolute moral standards when one is always chattering on like a magpie about them? People who present themselves as moral absolutists and condemn the lax values of so-called moral relativism are people who will talk while children die and they will give speeches while genocide is perpetrated. As I said before, I am a Moral Relativist, but I am one whom you have never met before.