Totalitarianism and Relativism

The Sequence :
Rejection of the Spiritual Authority of the Church by the Protestant Revolution.
Rejection of the Spiritual Authority of the Bible.
Rejection of the Ten Commandments as binding on humanity.
Rejection of Spiritual Truth as an absolute.
Rejection of Spiritual Truth as originating in God.
Acceptance of Relativism.
Acceptance of Personal Autonomy whereby each individual establishes his own spiritual Truths : where man will believe what he wants to believe, what permits and conforms to his chosen lifestyle.

Professor Roberto Mattei, Italian historian, in a talk given to the prestigious and secular Washington Cosmos Club in February 2000, discussed the relationship between Totalitarianism and Relativism.
He referred to one thesis, which he rejected, that held that the essence of Totalitarianism lay in its pretension to impose a truth, a system of absolute values based on blood or class as in Nazism and Communism. The same thesis also classified the Church as totalitarian in that She seeks to impose a universal Faith. It follows that this thesis holds that the only antithesis to such Totalitarianism is a Relativism that dissolves Truth which then becomes demoted to mere opinion where all opinions are welcomed and treated with equal respect, where opinion polls establish Truth.
The essence of Relativism is the denial of an absolute, transcendental Truth, of a Natural Law, of a Divine Revelation, of a true Religion. There is no attack on religion as such. What is attacked by Relativism and those who espouse it, is the idea of a single true religion, of a single true Church, of a single true God.

Now, if Relativism was the real antidote to the Totalitarianism of the Nazi and Communist varieties, how can it be that this same philosophical and moral Relativism comprised the essence and basis of these two major Totalitarian regimes.
The common point between them is precisely Relativism.
Nazism was Social Darwinism – Evolutionist and Relativist
Communism was Historical and Dialectic Materialism – also Evolutionist and Relativist.

“By their fruits you shall know them” We have seen the horrifying fruits of these systems – the Auschwitzes of Nazism and the Gulags of Communism.
Lest the West take false comfort in being different from them, let us consider the nature of our own modern society which is in fact no less totalitarian than the Nazi and Communist societies.
Our democratic, liberal civilization born of the French Revolution and the so-called Enlightenment, is also characterized by philosophical and moral Relativism no different from that of the Nazis or Communists and like them bearing bad fruit, the bad fruits of legalized abortion, legalized homosexuality, legalized divorce with remarriage, legalized pornography, unbridled personal expression and widespread corruption, crime, immorality and recurring and ever more destructive wars.
In truth, the Liberal Democracy model of the West was rightly characterized by Pope John Paul as Totalitarian Democracy as opposed to Totalitarian Dictatorship.

Communism:
Promotes a system of values based upon Class.
Rests upon a tripod formed of
1 - Historical and Dialectic Materialism
2 - Evolutionism
3 - Philosophic and Moral Relativism

Nazism :
Promotes a system of values based upon Race.
Rests upon a tripod formed of
1 – Social Darwinism
2 – Evolutionism
3 – Philosophic and Moral Relativism

Totalitarian Democracy :
Promotes a system of values based upon the French Revolution and the so-called Enlightenment.
Rests upon a tripod formed of
1 - Democracy
2 - Evolutionism
3 – Philosophic and Moral Relativism.

Christianity :
Promotes a system of absolute values based upon Philosophic and Moral Absolutism and Christian Revelation. It rests upon a tripod formed of
1 – Monarchy
2 – Creationism
3 – Philosophic and Moral Absolutism