reflections in my old age

Lately, I've realized a few things that have been long-running in my life. Where long running means since I was little. I see this in my sense of humor: It was at about 10 years old that I realized that deliberately making fun of people for something that I myself also did (where they knew this too) was very funny. Tonight, when I was at Barnes and Noble, I realized that since I was about 10 years old, I've appreciated moral ambiguity in stories. No simple lines between good guys and bad guys, no moral stereotypes. What a good little post-modernist I was. Who knows, maybe it even began before that, but that's the first example that I can clearly remember. I'm sure my parents could tell me more.

It's funny, I used to be very much a non moral relativist, and now I feel very drawn to relativism. But the whole time, I have been fascinated with subjectivity, and over this time my views have not changed significantly. In other words, what I would have told you about moral relativism is probably the same now that it was then: some things are subjective, other things are not. Which makes me an objectivist still. Oh well, I still think of myself in a lot of ways as a relativist. Maybe now I just have a greater sensitivity towards relativism, and a greater understanding, and I'm away from some of the panicked reactions to moral relativism. It isn't just about doing what feels good, because sometimes doing what's right is doing what everyone else thinks is wrong and feeling shitty and frightened about it at the same time. It isn't a form of self-justification. I think it's a way of staying sane, among other things, and this is very important.

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