An obvious thought on cultural relativism

Everyone has probably already thought of this, but something just struck me, during my morning coffee, about the post immediately below this one. Forget the bias, cultural relativism … the “upmarket philosophy” behind multi-culturalism … makes a wonderful excuse for laziness. If there is no truth, then there is no point in pursuing it. Since we’re all creating narratives anyway, why not just make things up – it’s easier and more fun and doesn’t challenge any of the ideas we’ve had since childhood. Hence, our media gives us stories like the famous Guantanamo Koran-flushing from Newsweek, which was written apparently without inquiring how that could be done (page by page?) or even if they had flush toilets (I understand they don’t). How much follow-up… work … went into that one? Or how much went into the construction of this poll, which is currently being bandied about? So cultural relativism is a great convenience for people who don’t want to bother. It might even bring back the martini lunch.

UPDATE: Another attack on “cultural relativism” with some famous names.