Absolutism Vs Relativism: An Unfinished Collation -

Quite recently, an acquaintance who I wouldn’t incline to refer to as close, but nonetheless for whom I harbor great respect, took the daggers out against ‘relativism’ as a concept.

Because the comment was made informally and in passing, amid a ‘non-agendered’ chit-chat, I do not recall the precise words he employed, but what he said effectively equated relativism to escapism - a post-modernist world-view whose proponents seek an easy way out of the responsibility of taking moral stands on societal essentials, especially paired-categories like good/bad, life/death, rich/poor, moral/immoral, acceptable/unacceptable amongst many other such dualities; effectually allowing themselves the license of gallivanting without sufficient check, in the libertarian whirlwind of life.

The interlocutor in question happens to be a fellow of the literary sodality to which I subscribe – the Kampala-based Lantern Meet of Poets.

While, as is my wont, I would be quick to disagree with this acquaintance on several counts; I will remember my manners and spare the reader the anguish of my usual direct, even impudent contentiousness.

I will instead, in response to my friend, attempt to explain a few other social realities within the conundrum of absolutism vis-a-vis relativism, in an attempt to make a case for the latter ahead of the former.

Additionally though, whether, in the context of the discourse we had - my friend's remedy to this identified malaise of ‘relativism’, would be the equally contentious concept of ‘absolutism’, is a claim whose certainty I cannot establish; since we didn't talk long enough to respectively defend diametrically opposed positions.

I will now begin my arguments.

I have up to this point in the revolutionary journey of my life, invariably come across as radically oriented - a fire-breathing, implacable proponent for my point of view; whether the issue under contention be as mundane as whether the sky is blue or clear; or as elevated as our society requiring cultural conscientization, ahead of political healing.

It would be helpful, at this point, for the record, and also to bring it to the reader’s attention, in a bodacious show of my ‘copious’ modesty, to reveal that I have almost always not-quite-won those bouts of contention.

But I digress – and must return to the main issue of the article; let the ignominy of my erstwhile mishaps, remain a non-issue.

As I was saying, I have for long, hitherto, been a strong-headed champion of absolutist ideas – believing that things in life are, indeed must be, quite clear-cut and categorical.

It is this understanding of the world as a black and white affair, which has been, hitherto, the guiding principle of my approach to life; and that has informed the bulk of my conclusions.

Employing the phrase ‘hitherto’ should also implicitly signal a sense of transition, as far as my ideological campus is concerned.

I would thus hedge my bets by saying that mine is a  mentality in en-route, this transience providing the encasement for the mind-set that puts forward this article.

As I have said above already, absolutism, in my mind’s thinking, trumps relativism as a healthy and progressive life concept.

For, the question needs arise - why must we dilly-dally about anything in life?

Why must we have our cake, and concomitantly seek to eat it?

                - Unfinished on account of extenuation -