Relativism and Bullying

R.R. Reno’s column this week examines the paradox of liberalism :

We’re happiest, the present-day liberal presumes, when we can make up our own minds about what makes life worth living—or even if life is worth living.

The commitment to freedom seems complete, yet paradoxically this liberalism tends toward an anti-democratic authoritarianism. The promise of freedom stems from the fact that we’re not to be constrained by objective moral truths. It’s a form of freedom that comes with a very strong disciplinary warning—you are not to impose your view of moral truth on anyone. Thus the paradox: the dictatorship of relativism.

And in today’s second On the Square feature, Brian Raum explains the hidden agenda behind federal anti-bullying legislation :

Many of the proposed policies have less to do with protecting students and much more to do with advocating for the normalization of homosexual behavior. Under the guise of guarding against student intimidation, these proposals label all debate about homosexual activity “bullying” and seek to eradicate it.

Schools should be safe places, but they should not be sanitized and scrubbed of all differences of opinion. A school is the quintessential marketplace of ideas, yet our schools are at risk of becoming social engineering laboratories that only inculcate the teachings of the elite left.