Editor,
In his letter published in the Daily Lobo on Friday, Benjamin Sanchez correctly pointed out that "there is a large-scale breakdown of basic reason in the minds and behavior of many Americans." Sure, point taken, but let's get down from our horses and, with our feet on the ground, look at the issue again.
Sanchez calls moral relativism a primary cause of this breakdown in basic reason, but I think he puts the cart before the horse. More appropriately, isn't the breakdown the cause of moral relativism? Sanchez claims that "essence of moral relativism is a denial of the human ability to discover the truth about the world." What if the essence of moral relativism is not that we can't know the truth, but rather that there is no truth to know but only various competing truths? Without some final, grounding truth, reason might eventually break down and bite its own tail. A lot hinges on this.
Right and wrong, good and evil, us versus them - thinking in terms of binaries and absolute values is such an easy habit to fall into. Too often, these evaluations spring from some anthropomorphic versions of God or truth or nature. But let's call a spade a spade. For us, these terms are rhetorical strategies. They've worked for 2000 years because dirty bodies make us uncomfortable. While our lust-filled bodies wander through the salty ambiguities of earthbound eroticism, employing these strategies fills us with a sense of moral righteousness and intellectual security. Their proof is in their
potency.
We'll believe in anything so long as that belief transports us. It feels good to be taken to those moral heights where, in purity and piety, we might look down upon the water-closet cruisers. Moral beliefs create a distance between good people and Sen. Larry Craig. We need a certain distance between us and those bad people in order to justify cruelty, and the transport of our moral beliefs easily supplies us with such a distance.
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But if we can reason away God, truth and nature, we may soon have to reason away reason itself. Let's just admit what we already know - even our appeal to reason is just one rhetorical strategy amongst others. Yes, there's been a breakdown in reason, but this breakdown began the moment we overextended reason in an attempt to enforce and reinforce our moral values. Nonetheless, we must be on guard against those who use reason unreasonably. This requires that we call out those who in one public moment loudly praise reason and act its steward and then, in the next, try to derive an "ought" from an "is" - commit the naturalistic fallacy - claiming to be logical while illogically claiming that homosexuality is unreasonable. Reason just doesn't care about sexual
orientation.
For the time being, though, we must learn to get along with each other - at least publicly - even if this requires learning how to politely decline a lavatory pass from an Idaho politician. We simply have to grow up, get out of our bubbles and learn to be comfortable in an uncomfortable world.
David J. Burns
UNM student
