Value relativism serves authoritarian purposes

The intellectual fashion of value relativism—the claim that all moral and aesthetic judgments are equally valid—presents itself as enlightened tolerance. In practice, it operates as one of authoritarianism’s most effective weapons.

──── The neutralization strategy

Value relativism doesn’t eliminate hierarchies. It neutralizes the language needed to criticize them.

When everything is “just an opinion,” systematic oppression becomes impossible to name. Economic exploitation transforms into “different economic preferences.” Cultural destruction becomes “cultural change.” Propaganda becomes “alternative perspectives.”

The relativist framework doesn’t create equality—it creates immunity for those with power to impose their values while denying others the moral vocabulary to resist.

──── Who benefits from “no universal values”

Examine who promotes relativistic thinking and who benefits from its adoption.

Authoritarian states love relativism because it delegitimizes international human rights criticism. “Democracy and autocracy are just different governance preferences.” Corporate entities embrace relativism because it neutralizes ethical challenges to profit maximization. “Environmental destruction and preservation are equally valid approaches to resource management.”

The pattern is consistent: those with the power to impose their values enthusiastically support the philosophical position that no values should be imposed.

──── The marketplace of ideas fallacy

Value relativism relies on the “marketplace of ideas” metaphor—the notion that truth emerges through competition between equally weighted perspectives.

This metaphor obscures a fundamental reality: ideas don’t compete in a fair market. They compete in a rigged system where resources, platforms, and institutional backing determine visibility and acceptance.

When the Catholic Church had monopoly power, it didn’t need to argue for relativism. When tech platforms control information flow, they don’t need philosophical justification for their censorship decisions. When economic elites shape educational curricula, they don’t require theoretical backing for their value systems.

Relativism only becomes useful when power faces challenge—as a way to muddy the waters and prevent coherent resistance.

──── The tolerance trap

Relativism presents itself as tolerance, but functions as its opposite.

True tolerance requires distinguishing between what deserves tolerance and what doesn’t. A tolerance that cannot discriminate between oppression and freedom, between truth and falsehood, between justice and injustice, tolerates everything—including intolerance itself.

This creates the familiar paradox: relativistic tolerance ultimately serves intolerant power structures by refusing to make the value judgments necessary to oppose them.

──── Cognitive dissonance management

For individuals, relativism serves as a psychological defense mechanism against recognizing uncomfortable power dynamics.

If all values are equal, then participating in destructive systems becomes morally neutral. The corporate employee doesn’t need to confront their role in environmental destruction—it’s just one valid approach among many. The citizen doesn’t need to examine their government’s violence—democracy and authoritarianism are simply different organizational methods.

Relativism allows people to maintain their self-image as good actors while participating in systems they would otherwise recognize as harmful.

──── The academic apparatus

Universities, particularly in humanities departments, have become primary producers and distributors of relativistic thinking.

This isn’t accidental. Academic institutions depend on funding from exactly the power structures that benefit from relativism. State universities serve government interests; private universities depend on corporate and wealthy individual donors.

The intellectual framework that “all interpretations are valid” serves institutional interests by preventing students from developing the analytical tools needed to challenge the systems that fund their education.

──── Historical precedent

Every authoritarian system eventually adopts some form of relativism to defend itself.

Soviet communism claimed capitalist and communist values were historically relative. Nazi ideology positioned Jewish and Aryan values as irreconcilably different—neither superior to the other, just incompatible. Colonial powers argued that indigenous and European approaches to land use were simply different cultural preferences.

The common thread: relativism emerges when power needs philosophical cover for practices that would be condemned under universal moral standards.

──── The liberation alternative

Genuine human liberation requires rejecting relativism in favor of universal principles that can critique power regardless of its cultural packaging.

This doesn’t mean imposing Western values globally—it means developing analytical frameworks that can identify oppression and exploitation regardless of their local manifestations.

Economic systems that concentrate wealth while impoverishing masses are destructive regardless of their ideological justification. Political systems that silence dissent are authoritarian whether they call themselves democratic, socialist, or traditional. Cultural practices that systematically subordinate groups based on arbitrary characteristics are oppressive regardless of their historical origins.

──── The practical test

The test of any value system isn’t its theoretical elegance but its practical results: Does it increase or decrease human flourishing? Does it concentrate or distribute power? Does it enhance or diminish individual and collective capacity for self-determination?

These questions have discoverable answers. They don’t depend on cultural perspective or historical context. They depend on observable outcomes.

Value relativism serves authoritarian purposes precisely because it prevents these questions from being asked—or answered.

──── The hidden universalism

The deepest irony of relativism is that it operates according to its own universal principle: the universal validity of relativism itself.

Relativists don’t argue that their position is merely one perspective among many. They argue that relativism is universally correct—that everyone should adopt relativistic thinking.

This reveals the authoritarian core of relativistic philosophy: it demands universal acceptance of the principle that no universal principles exist.

──── Recognition and resistance

Understanding relativism’s authoritarian function doesn’t require adopting rigid dogmatism. It requires developing the intellectual courage to make discriminating value judgments based on observable consequences rather than theoretical abstractions.

Some values genuinely do serve human flourishing better than others. Some social arrangements genuinely do distribute power more equitably than others. Some truth claims genuinely do correspond to reality more accurately than others.

Recognizing these distinctions isn’t oppressive—it’s liberating. It provides the foundation for rational resistance to systems that depend on confusion and moral paralysis for their survival.

The choice isn’t between relativism and fundamentalism. It’s between systems that serve power and systems that serve human development. Making that distinction requires exactly the kind of value judgment that relativism seeks to prevent.

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Value relativism presents itself as sophisticated tolerance while functioning as sophisticated tyranny. Its primary achievement is convincing people that they lack the moral authority to oppose obvious injustice.

In a world where power increasingly operates through confusion rather than force, the ability to make clear value distinctions becomes itself a form of resistance.