Relativism Poem by gershon hepner

Relativism is a name for serious thought,
Professor Stanley Fish declares,
for one man’s don’t is often someone else’s ought,
and one man’s fears another’s dares.
Since there aren’t any absolutes should we deplore
the crooked that some try to straighten?
John Milton must have known this, showing God the door
by giving more respect to Satan.


Stanley Fish, who made his reputation by deconstruction Milton’s “Paradise Lose” writes an Op-Ed article in the NYT (“Condemnation Without Absolutes, ” October 15,2001) , in which he applauds Susan Sontag for granting courage to the terrorists who destroyed six thousand lives on September 11,2001 and commends Reuters for their refusal to call the perpetrators of the outrages committed on that day “terrorists”. He writes:

That is why what Edward Said has called 'false universals' should be rejected: they stand in the way of useful thinking. How many times have we heard these new mantras: 'We have seen the face of evil'; 'these are irrational madmen'; 'we are at war against international terrorism.' Each is at once inaccurate and unhelpful. We have not seen the face of evil; we have seen the face of an enemy who comes at us with a full roster of grievances, goals and strategies. If we reduce that enemy to 'evil, ' we conjure up a shape- shifting demon, a wild-card moral anarchist beyond our comprehension and therefore beyond the reach of any counterstrategies.

Is this the end of relativism? If by relativism one means a cast of mind that renders you unable to prefer your own convictions to those of your adversary, then relativism could hardly end because it never began. Our convictions are by definition preferred; that's what makes them our convictions. Relativizing them is neither an option nor a danger. But if by relativism one means the practice of putting yourself in your adversary's shoes, not in order to wear them as your own but in order to have some understanding (far short of approval) of why someone else might want to wear them, then relativism will not and should not end, because it is simply another name for serious thought.

10/14/01