relativism

Just a thought that came to mind tonight.

Back when I was frequenting a certain pagan community site *cough*, the boyfriend and I would get into discussions about objective truth in magick.  A lot of people on the site have a very "if it works for me, it must work" attitude.  I think in a lot of cases this can be true.  Your mind is your most powerful tool.  Simple unwavering belief can go a long way towards making something happen.  Sometimes it's all you need really, so the physical trappings become rather obsolete anyway.  Who cares which color candle you put out as long as it's the one that gets your mind thinking the right thoughts?

But as to the converse - well, allow me to use an example from Moral Philosophy to illustrate.  During a class on moral relativism my professor used this example to highlight a major problem with this theory.  Imagine that we are to accept every cultures' morality and make no judgments.  How can we as outsiders?  Now imagine a culture that takes babies, throws them up in the air, and catches them on bayonets for fun.  It's not a ritual sacrifice, or population control - at least not primarily.  Sometimes they just do this when they're bored.  So what do you think?  Are some things, at least under certain circumstances, universally wrong?(1)

Or try this angle - Can you fit a square peg into a round hole?  (And don't give me any BS about "well if the hole was big enough..."  You know the point I'm getting at, smartypants.)  There are some truths out there that I hope we would all agree on.  We live on this planet.  We have a sun and a moon.  I, or someone, has to pay my credit card bill every month.  If I want to make scrambled eggs, I have to crack open some eggs and find a suitable heated surface.  Sometimes that's the way it is with magick.  You can't make scrambled eggs in your freezer (and if you can, why haven't you made these godly powers known yet, huh?).  Sometimes you need to follow the damn recipe.  Sure, you can add your own flair (I like mine with cheese!) or substitutions, but you can't go and replace the eggs with pickles no matter how much those slimy green things call to you and your soul.  You're just not going to get the result you were shooting for.




1. I want to put a little footnote here for those unfamiliar with this particular philosophical debate.  It's very, very hard to work up an airtight argument for universal wrongs as well.  Take a gander at some stuff about Kant trying to universalize his maxims and arguments responding to it.  It can be hard to say something general is universally wrong without tacking a bunch of conditions on it.