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class="mw-usertoollinks">(<a href="/wiki/User_talk:Kalki" class="mw-usertoollinks-talk" title="User talk:Kalki">talk</a> | <a href="/wiki/Special:Contributions/Kalki" class="mw-usertoollinks-contribs" title="Special:Contributions/Kalki">contribs</a>)</span> <span class="comment">(<span class="autocomment"><a href="#Quotes">→<bdi dir="ltr">Quotes</bdi></a>: </span> add 2 by <a href="/wiki/Robert_Anton_Wilson" title="Robert Anton Wilson">Robert Anton Wilson</a>)</span></div><div id="mw-revision-nav">(<a href="/w/index.php?title=Absolutism&diff=prev&oldid=1534903" title="Absolutism">diff</a>) <a href="/w/index.php?title=Absolutism&direction=prev&oldid=1534903" title="Absolutism">← Older revision</a> | <a href="/wiki/Absolutism" title="Absolutism">Latest revision</a> (<a href="/w/index.php?title=Absolutism&diff=cur&oldid=1534903" title="Absolutism">diff</a>) | <a href="/w/index.php?title=Absolutism&direction=next&oldid=1534903" title="Absolutism">Newer revision →</a> (<a href="/w/index.php?title=Absolutism&diff=next&oldid=1534903" title="Absolutism">diff</a>)</div></div></div></div></div> <div id="mw-content-text" class="mw-body-content"><div class="mw-content-ltr mw-parser-output" lang="en" dir="ltr"><p>The term <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolutism" class="extiw" title="w:Absolutism">Absolutism</a></b> may refer to philosophical stances which promote notions of <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_truth" class="extiw" title="w:Absolute truth">absolute truth</a></b>, involving contentions that in particular realms of thought, all statements in that domain are either absolutely true or absolutely false; in <a href="/wiki/Ethics" title="Ethics">ethical</a> <a href="/wiki/Philosophy" title="Philosophy">philosophy</a> such can include forms of <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_absolutism" class="extiw" title="w:Moral absolutism">moral absolutism</a></b>, asserting that there are absolute standards against which moral questions can be judged, and that certain actions are either <a href="/wiki/Goodness" title="Goodness">good</a> or <a href="/wiki/Evil" title="Evil">evil</a>, regardless of the context of the act, or <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graded_absolutism" class="extiw" title="w:Graded absolutism">graded absolutism</a></b>, the view that a moral absolute, like "Do not kill," can be greater or lesser than another moral absolute, like "Do not lie." In social theories it can refer to <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autocracy" class="extiw" title="w:Autocracy">autocracy</a></b> (also known as "political absolutism"), involving political theories which argue that one person should hold all power, thus including systems of <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_monarchy" class="extiw" title="w:Absolute monarchy">absolute monarchy</a></b>, forms of government where the monarch has the power to rule their land freely, with no laws or legally organized direct opposition in force, and <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/enlightened_absolutism" class="extiw" title="w:enlightened absolutism">enlightened absolutism</a></b>, the policies of absolute rulers who were influenced by the Enlightenment of eighteenth and early nineteenth century Europe. It can also indicate ideas of <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_space" class="extiw" title="w:Absolute space">absolute space</a></b>, in theories holding that space exists absolutely, in contrast to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationalism" class="extiw" title="w:Relationalism">relationalism</a>, which holds that space exists only as relations between objects, as well as to the <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_idealism" class="extiw" title="w:Absolute idealism">absolute idealism</a></b> of ontologically <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monism" class="extiw" title="w:Monism">monistic</a> philosophies, such as that attributed to <a href="/wiki/Georg_Wilhelm_Friedrich_Hegel" title="Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel">Hegel</a> in his accounts of how being is ultimately comprehensible as an all-inclusive whole. In rational and political contexts, many absolutist assumptions and stances are generally most vigorously opposed by the <a href="/wiki/Relativism" title="Relativism">relativist</a> assessments and arguments of <a href="/wiki/Absurdism" title="Absurdism">absurdism</a> and <a href="/wiki/Anarchism" title="Anarchism">anarchism</a>. </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Quotes">Quotes</h2></div> <ul><li><b>Every country has its own constitution; ours is absolutism moderated by assassination.</b> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Anonymous" title="Anonymous">Anonymous</a> Russian, as quoted in <i>Political Sketches of the State of Europe, from 1814-1867</i> (1868) by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/de:Georg_Herbert_zu_M%C3%BCnster" class="extiw" title="w:de:Georg Herbert zu Münster">Georg Herbert Münster-Ledenburg</a>, p. 19</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><b>Relativity must replace absolutism in the realm of morals as well as in the spheres of physics and biology.</b> This of course does not involve the denial of the principle of continuity in human affairs. Nor does it mean that each generation must repudiate the system of values of its predecessors. It does mean, however, that no such system is permanent; that it will have to change and grow in response to experience. <ul><li><i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Association_of_School_Administrators" class="extiw" title="w:American Association of School Administrators">American Association of School Administrators</a></i>, Yearbook, Vol. X (1932), <i>Character Education</i>, Ch. 1 : Analysis of American Life from the Viewpoint of Character Education, p. 11</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><b>There is absolute <a href="/wiki/Truth" title="Truth">truth</a> in <a href="/wiki/Anarchism" title="Anarchism">anarchism</a> and it is to be seen in its attitude to the sovereignty of the state and to every form of state absolutism.</b> ... The religious truth of anarchism consists in this, that <a href="/wiki/Power" title="Power">power</a> over man is bound up with <a href="/wiki/Sin" title="Sin">sin</a> and <a href="/wiki/Evil" title="Evil">evil</a>, that a state of perfection is a state where there is no power of man over man, that is to say, anarchy. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_God" class="extiw" title="w:Kingdom of God">Kingdom of God</a> is <a href="/wiki/Freedom" title="Freedom">freedom</a> and the absence of such power... the Kingdom of God is anarchy. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Nikolai_Berdyaev" title="Nikolai Berdyaev">Nikolai Berdyaev</a>, in <i>Slavery and Freedom</i> (1939), p. 147</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><b><a href="/wiki/Relativism" title="Relativism">Relativism</a> is not indifference; on the contrary, passionate indifference is necessary in order for you not to hear the voices that oppose your absolute decrees</b> … Relativism is neither a method of fighting, nor a method of creating, for both of these are uncompromising and at times even ruthless; rather, it is a method of cognition. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Karel_%C4%8Capek" title="Karel Čapek">Karel Čapek</a> "On Relativism" (1925)</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><b><a href="/wiki/George_W._Bush" title="George W. Bush">George Bush</a> made a mistake when he referred to the <a href="/wiki/Saddam_Hussein" title="Saddam Hussein">Saddam Hussein</a> regime as "<a href="/wiki/Evil" title="Evil">evil</a>." Every liberal and leftist knows how to titter at such black-and-white moral absolutism.</b> What the president should have done, in the unlikely event that he wanted the support of America's peace-mongers, was to describe a confrontation with Saddam as the "lesser evil." This is a term the Left can appreciate. Indeed, "lesser evil" is part of the essential tactical rhetoric of today's Left, and has been deployed to excuse or overlook the sins of liberal Democrats, from President <a href="/wiki/Bill_Clinton" title="Bill Clinton">Clinton</a>'s bombing of Sudan to <a href="/wiki/Madeleine_Albright" title="Madeleine Albright">Madeleine Albright</a>'s veto of an international rescue for Rwanda when she was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Among those longing for nuance, moral relativism — the willingness to use the term evil, when combined with a willingness to make accommodations with it — is the smart thing: so much more sophisticated than "cowboy" language. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Christopher_Hitchens" title="Christopher Hitchens">Christopher Hitchens</a>, as quoted in <i>Christopher Hitchens and His Critics : Terror, Iraq, and the Left</i> (2008) edited by Thomas Cushman and Simon Cottee</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><b>It is possible that the distinction between moral relativism and moral absolutism has sometimes been blurred because an excessively consistent practice of either leads to the same practical result — ruthlessness in political life.</b> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Richard_Hofstadter" title="Richard Hofstadter">Richard Hofstadter</a>, in <i>The Age of Reform: From Bryan to F.D.R.</i> (1955), Introduction, p. 16</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><b>In the light of absolute values (religious or ethical) man himself is judged to be limited or imperfect, while he can occasionally accomplish acts which partake of perfection, he, himself can never be perfect.</b> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/T._E._Hulme" title="T. E. Hulme">T. E. Hulme</a>, in <i>Speculations</i> (1924)</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Japanese_War" class="extiw" title="w:Russo-Japanese War">Russo-Japanese War</a> now gives to all an awareness that even war and peace in Europe – its destiny – isn’t decided between the four walls of the European concert, but outside it, in the gigantic maelstrom of world and colonial politics. <br /> And its in this that the real meaning of the current war resides for social-democracy, even if we set aside its immediate effect: the collapse of Russian absolutism. This war brings the gaze of the international proletariat back to the great political and economic connectedness of the world, and violently dissipates in our ranks the particularism, the pettiness of ideas that form in any period of political calm. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Rosa_Luxemburg" title="Rosa Luxemburg">Rosa Luxemburg</a>, in <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1904/05/01.htm">"In the Storm" in <i>Le Socialiste</i> (1 - 8 May 1904), as translated by Mitch Abidor</a></li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><b>All parties without exception, when they seek for <a href="/wiki/Power" title="Power">power</a>, are varieties of absolutism.</b> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Pierre-Joseph_Proudhon" title="Pierre-Joseph Proudhon">Pierre-Joseph Proudhon</a>, as quoted in <i>Crown's Book of Political Quotations : Over 2500 Lively Quotes from Plato to Reagan</i> (1982) by Michael Jackman, p. 160</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Bertrand_Russell" title="Bertrand Russell">Bertrand Russell</a>, in <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/russell8.htm">"Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic?"</a> <i>A Plea For Tolerance In The Face Of New Dogmas</i> (1947)</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Bertrand_Russell" title="Bertrand Russell">Bertrand Russell</a>, in "Unpopular Essays" (1950), Ch. 2: Philosophy for Laymen, p. 43</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><b>We designate by the term "State" institutions that embody absolutism in its extreme form and institutions that temper it with more or less liberality.</b> We apply the word alike to institutions that do nothing but <a href="/wiki/Aggression" title="Aggression">aggress</a> and to institutions that, besides aggressing, to some extent protect and defend. But which is the State's essential function, aggression or defence, few seem to know or care. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Benjamin_Tucker" title="Benjamin Tucker">Benjamin Tucker</a>, Address to Unitarian Ministers (1890)</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><b>ONLY THE MADMAN IS ABSOLUTELY SURE.</b> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Robert_Anton_Wilson" title="Robert Anton Wilson">Robert Anton Wilson</a>, in <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Illuminatus!_Trilogy" class="extiw" title="w:The Illuminatus! Trilogy">The Illuminatus! Trilogy</a></i> (1975) (co-written with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Shea" class="extiw" title="w:Robert Shea">Robert Shea</a>), Part I : The Eye in the Pyramid p. 176 of 1988 edition</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><b>Following <a href="/wiki/Alfred_Korzybski" title="Alfred Korzybski">Korzybski</a>, I put things in probabilities, not absolutes...</b> My only originality lies in applying this <a href="/wiki/Skepticism" title="Skepticism">zetetic</a> attitude outside the hardest of the hard sciences, physics, to softer sciences and then to non-sciences like politics, ideology, jury verdicts and, of course, conspiracy theory. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Robert_Anton_Wilson" title="Robert Anton Wilson">Robert Anton Wilson</a>, in an interview in <i>High Times</i> (2003)</li></ul></li></ul> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="External_links">External links</h2></div> <div class="noprint" style="clear: right; border: solid #aaa 1px; margin: 0 0 1em 1em; font-size: 90%; background: #f9f9f9; width: 250px; padding: 4px; spacing: 0px; text-align: left; float: right;"> <div style="float: left;"><figure class="mw-halign-none" typeof="mw:File"><a href="/wiki/File:Wikipedia-logo-v2.svg" class="mw-file-description" title="Wikipedia"><img alt="Wikipedia" src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/80/Wikipedia-logo-v2.svg/50px-Wikipedia-logo-v2.svg.png" decoding="async" width="50" height="46" class="mw-file-element" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/80/Wikipedia-logo-v2.svg/75px-Wikipedia-logo-v2.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/80/Wikipedia-logo-v2.svg/100px-Wikipedia-logo-v2.svg.png 2x" data-file-width="103" data-file-height="94" /></a><figcaption>Wikipedia</figcaption></figure></div> <div style="margin-left: 60px;"><a href="/wiki/Wikipedia" title="Wikipedia">Wikipedia</a> has an article about: <div style="margin-left: 10px;"><i><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolutism" class="extiw" title="wikipedia:Absolutism">Absolutism</a></b></i></div> </div> </div> <div class="noprint metadata" style="clear: right; border: solid #aaa 1px; margin: 0 0 1em 1em; font-size: 90%; background: #f9f9f9; width: 250px; padding: 4px; spacing: 0px; text-align: left; float: right;"> <div style="float: left;"><figure class="mw-halign-none" typeof="mw:File"><a href="/wiki/File:Wiktionary-logo.svg" class="mw-file-description" title="Wiktionary"><img alt="Wiktionary" src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ec/Wiktionary-logo.svg/50px-Wiktionary-logo.svg.png" decoding="async" width="50" height="47" class="mw-file-element" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ec/Wiktionary-logo.svg/75px-Wiktionary-logo.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ec/Wiktionary-logo.svg/100px-Wiktionary-logo.svg.png 2x" data-file-width="370" data-file-height="350" /></a><figcaption>Wiktionary</figcaption></figure></div> <div style="margin-left: 60px;">Look up <i><b><a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Special:Search/Absolutism" class="extiw" title="wiktionary:Special:Search/Absolutism">Absolutism</a></b></i> in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiktionary" class="extiw" title="w:Wiktionary">Wiktionary</a>, the free dictionary</div> </div>    </div><noscript><img src="https://login.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:CentralAutoLogin/start?type=1x1" alt="" width="1" height="1" style="border: none; position: absolute;"></noscript> <div class="printfooter" data-nosnippet="">Retrieved from "<a dir="ltr" href="https://en.wikiquote.org/w/index.php?title=Absolutism&oldid=1534903">https://en.wikiquote.org/w/index.php?title=Absolutism&oldid=1534903</a>"</div></div> <div id="catlinks" class="catlinks" data-mw="interface"><div id="mw-normal-catlinks" class="mw-normal-catlinks"><a href="/wiki/Special:Categories" title="Special:Categories">Categories</a>: <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Category:Philosophy" title="Category:Philosophy">Philosophy</a></li><li><a href="/wiki/Category:Themes" title="Category:Themes">Themes</a></li></ul></div></div> </div> </main> </div> <div class="mw-footer-container"> <footer id="footer" class="mw-footer" > <ul id="footer-info"> <li id="footer-info-lastmod"> This page was last edited on 15 February 2013, at 01:34.</li> <li id="footer-info-copyright">Text is available under the <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="//creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License</a>; additional terms may apply. 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