Against the Robots

Relativism proves to be a gentle companion. Relativism is like Father Donissan's horse dealer. One can travel in his company. He is never boring, he stays in his place, and he demonstrates unfailing empathy. However, he knows nothing of compassion. Is this a problem? Rather, it's an advantage; he doesn't contradict me, he agrees with me. With precision, he anticipates my agreement, sometimes even conceiving it before I've had a chance to think about it. Relativism gives the impression of dominating all certainties and has thus become the religion of our time; it is an emanation of the Republic, which is itself an emanation of the Monarchy. Relativism is therefore a natural child of secularism, and for this reason—it is his duty!—he keeps almost all religions on guard, somewhat less so those that can manipulate him, and forcefully those that would like to reconnect with a lost past. Relativism doesn't offer help; it's content with its role as a witness. It acts and acquiesces; it's a technician, an administrator, a statistician. It isn't docile, nor does it feel the need to be. It isn't humble, even if it sometimes manages to pass itself off as such, but unlike humility, relativism doesn't compel self-reflection. It certainly provides reassurance, fueled by egotism and the desire for immediate gratification. While humility leads to confessing one's faults, relativism excuses all transgressions by invoking the double standard, which, as its name suggests, can serve both sides . Where humility is an apprenticeship in the law to access the spirit, the horse trader proposes forgetting both law and spirit in order to live . To live fully, or to experience a kind of fullness. Relativism thus brings about death, a slow and gentle process, for it will erase even the presence of ideas within us; it will dehumanize us with absolute certainty. And we will agree with it. We will indeed become robots. We will agree with it because it offers us immediate comfort, the kind we so richly deserve: the comfort of impression, the kind where the impression holds the image with which Narcissus fell in love, gazing at it, forgetting himself, unknowingly hypnotized to the point of self-death. The death that is coming upon us.