Relativist tolerance of incommensurable life-worlds surrenders reason and enables authoritarianism

Evidence

But where does this attack come from? Fundamentally, four interrelated positions: authoritarianism, mysticism, egotism and relativism. … Far from being equivalent to authoritarianism, as the postmodern liberal doxa would have it, dogmatism is the only effective alternative to authoritarianism. Authoritarianism and postmodern “forms of life” entail one another. The familiar PoMo relativist insistence that it is neither possible nor desirable to arbitrate between the different ethical and ontological claims of “incommensurate” “language games” surrenders reason to mysticism. Unlike rationalist systems, which proceed from stateable axioms or principles, these “forms of life” are unable to point to any reasoning which founds them. The sheer existence of these “discursive communities” is held to be the justification for any traditions and beliefs to which such communities might subscribe. It should come as no surprise that Spinoza was feared and reviled by the authorities of all established religions, since Spinoza used reason alone to prove that the core belief upon which traditional theism was based — that there is a personal, transcendent God who performs miracles and has free will — was irrational nonsense. In other words, it was Spinoza’s dogmatism that allow him to overthrow the “authority” of the Torah. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 2399

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A dense inversion: the thinker who fights tyranny is the dogmatist who pits stateable universal reason against self-justifying ‘forms of life’ — the ground argument recast as an epistemic-moral program.
• XREF: connects to: Dogmatism grounded in stateable principles uniquely opposes authoritarianism and relativism — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 2400; Dogmatism is unjustified certainty, distinct from authoritarianism — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 2622; Authoritarianism is a property of belief-change triggers, not belief content itself — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology: Key Readings, 680 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Dogmatism grounded in stateable principles uniquely opposes authoritarianism and relativism #responds-to (0.85) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 2400
• Agonistic pluralism rejects the ideal of a fully inclusive rational consensus #corroborates (0.82) — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 327
• Authoritarianism is a property of belief-change triggers, not belief content itself #complicates (0.78) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 680
• Dogmatism is unjustified certainty, distinct from authoritarianism #qualifies (0.76) — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 2622