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Absolutist vs. Relativist thinking
Why is relativist thinking confined to an un-heard minority of intellectuals? It seems most education is absolutist in nature, i.e people behave according to certain universal principles, or science has well-defined answers to every problem. If relativist thinking is more reflective of the way the world actually works, then why can't it be used to achieve an advantage over absolutist thinkers?
It just makes me cringe each time I hear an "absolutist" talk about how they have the solutions to all the world's problems. They fail to realize their solutions are just generalizations of their own value system imposed on other people.
Or I am too being an absolutist by believing that they are all wrong, and only my relativist thinking is right? How can I better communicate with these people?
In intellectual pursuits, losing is not the opposite of winning, because coming to a mutual difference, or stalemate is. I say this because, in an intellectual pursuit, the goal is knowledge. If I win or lose, I am still smarter than when I started. Either I know the answer now, or the thing I have believed is affirmed to me with higher confidence. So, now I win even if I lose. If, at the end of debate, neither side has won or lost, then everyone loses because the exchange was pointless. Now, what this has to do with absolutists should be evident. If you presuppose an absolutist universe, then someone will eventually have to be right. Even if it takes an infinite number of monkeys to eventually bang out a final theorem.