Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Samuel Gregg: Obama and the Dictatorship of Relativism
Samuel Gregg: Obama and the Dictatorship of Relativism
Mar 18, 2025 3:44 AM

“If there was ever any doubt about one of the Obama Administration’s key mitments,” writes Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg in a new article in the American Spectator, “it was dispelled on Jan. 20 when the Department of Health and Human Services informed the Catholic Church that most of its agencies will be required to provide employees with insurance-coverage for contraceptives, sterilization, and abortifacient drugs: i.e., products, procedures, and chemicals used to facilitate acts which the Church and plenty of others consider intrinsically evil.”

Gregg writes that “modern liberalism has a long history of trying to exclude consideration of the proper ends of human action from public discourse in the name of tolerance. But neither liberalism nor secularism are as neutral about such matters as they pretend.” In fact, that neutrality looks more and more like coercion. Gregg:

And here e face-to-face with the essence of what a certain Joseph Ratzinger famously described in an April 2005 homily as “the dictatorship of relativism.” Most people think of tyrannies as involving the imposition of a defined set of ideas upon free citizens. Benedict XVI’s point was that the coercion at the heart of the dictatorship of relativism derives precisely from the fact that it “does not recognize anything as definitive.”

In this world, tolerance no longer creates the safety for us to express our views about the nature of good and evil and its implications for law and public morality. Instead, it serves to banish the truth as the reference point against which all of us must test our ideas and beliefs. The objective is to reduce everyone to modern Pontius Pilates who, whatever their private beliefs, wash their hands in the face of obvious injustices, such as what the Obama administration has just inflicted upon not only Catholics, but anyone whose convictions about the truth requires them to abstain from cooperating in acts they regard as evil per se.

Of course, modern liberals do have their preferred ends, which (despite all their endless chatter about reason) reflect their profoundly cramped vision of man’s intellect. Here they follow the eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher David Hume. He argued that “reason ought to be the slave of the passions.” Reason’s role, in other words, is not to identify what is rational for people to choose. Instead, reason is reduced to merely devising the means for realizing whatever goals that people, following the profound moral reasoning of a five year-old, “just feel like” choosing.

Read Samuel Gregg’s “Obama and the Dictatorship of Relativism” on the website of the American Spectator.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
The truth about Cuba’s health care system
When Fidel Castro died last week many on the political left embarrassed themselves by praising the despot. A prime example is Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau who was excoriated for saying that Castro was a “legendary revolutionary and orator” who made “significant improvements” to the healthcare system of his country. There are few modern myths the have been debunked as frequently yet have been accepted as incredulously as the idea that Cuba has a superior (or even adequate) health care...
Vouchers: the progressive policy loved by the right and hated by the left
Growing up, I attended a private, Christian school until 4th grade, when my mother couldn’t afford it any more and my brothers and I switched to a blue collar, suburban public school. Academically, I experienced a clear difference. The worst contrast was in math, where I learned basically nothing for three years. The only subject that was probably better at the public school was science, but I’m not even certain about that. Class sizes were larger too. None of this...
What’s next for religious freedom?
Olivier Douliery/Getty Images In a new article for the Catholic Herald, Philip Booth outlines the next battle in the fight for religious freedom. The professor of finance, public policy, and ethics at St. Mary’s University, Twickenham, writes that “liberal elites are paying the prices for sidelining” this important freedom. He argues that while there are definitely threats to religious liberty in the United States, the rights to religious liberty and freedom of association are in far more danger in Europe....
An 89-year-old’s plea for a job shows the dignity of work
Joe Bartley An 89-year-old Englishman has taken out an ad seeking a part-time job, so that he can experience the dignity and independence of work – and get off of public assistance. Joe Bartley, a World War II veteran, caught the UK’s attention after he placed the following advertisement in his hometown newspaper, the Herald Express: Senior citizen 89 seeks employment in Paignton area. 20hrs+ per week. Still able to clean, light gardening, DIY and anything. I have references. Old...
Defending fundamental rights
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are fundamental rights “asserted in the face of oppression and paid for in blood,” argues Declan Ganley. They “have been the cornerstone not only of American democracy but of western civilization.” In a new article for Prospect Magazine, the chairman & CEO of Rivada Networks says that the West “needs to defend [these] shared values.” He argues that these fundamental rights are now under attack: We live in an age where universal values...
Financial deregulation expands opportunity
The Dodd-Frank Act became law in 2010, adding more regulation to a banking industry that was already heavily regulated. The main purpose of this 2,300 page act was to give consumers protection against big profit seeking banks but the unintended consequences prove to be much greater. The regulation was supposed to help the little guy but as Acton Director of Research Samuel Gregg writes at The Stream, it actually hurts the little guy. President-elect Donald Trump claims that he wants...
Lessons from Poverty, Inc.
“An underlying theme in basic economics says, ‘offering a product for free can destroy the local economy’” writes Luis Miranda. Miranda recently watched Poverty, Inc and since seeing the award winning Acton Institute documentary he has shared some of its lessons in an article at The Indian Economist. He begins by explaining how often times aid can harm its recipient more than help them. A farmer in Rwanda goes out of business because he pete against an American church sending...
Kyriarchy and Kuyper
Courtesy Adrian Vermeule at Mirror of Justice, I ran across a word new to me: Kyriarchy. Given the context and my admittedly limited Greek-language skills, I was able to work out the gist of the idea. As Vermeule puts it, “On November 20, the Feast of Christ the King, a coronation ceremony took place at the Church of Divine Mercy in Krakow. The President of Poland and the Catholic Bishops officially crowned Jesus Christ the King of Poland.” Vermeule goes...
Profits and an ‘economy of mutuality’
“Money is often seen as intrinsically bad or perhaps a necessary evil in the world,” says Tom Nelson. “However, we must not forget the important role money plays in wealth creation and in facilitating the efficient exchange of goods and services.” Money and the trade it makes possible further mon good and greatly enhance our ability to love our neighbors — both local and global. Christian philosopher Dallas Willard reminded us, “Business is an amazingly effective means of delivering God’s...
Global elites put Christianity in the crosshairs
Global governance ideology is the intellectual stepchild of Marxist materialist thought, says Robert F. Gorman in this week’s Acton Commentary. The term global governance refers to the political dimension of globalization. Here the question is to what degree governance will be centralized and controlled by international institutions in ways that threaten to diminish national and local governmental capacity. Global governance advocates tend to prefer both transnational regulation of markets and the creation of new human rights norms marked by increased...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved