Briefly Reviewed: October 2024

The New Relativism: Unmasking the Philosophy of Today’s Woke Moralists

By Karlo Broussard

Publisher: Catholic Answers Press

Pages: 176

Price: $16.95

Review Author: Mary Brittnacher

Are you frustrated by the bogus truth claims of today’s transgenderists, climate alarmists, and other woke ideologues? Does their insistence on the absoluteness of their ideas irritate you? If so, Karlo Broussard’s new book provides ammunition for salvos against these popular deceptions. He reveals the relativism behind the political correctness that has long burdened once-Christian America and transformed it into a different kind of society.

Broussard’s The New Relativism: Unmasking the Philosophy of Today’s Woke Moralists means to dissolve the seemingly invincible arguments for the authenticity of woke principles. With closely reasoned objections, Broussard puts weapons in the hands of thinkers who know wokeism is wrong but find it difficult to refute. To convey his intricate arguments, the book is arranged into digestible segments. Its three main parts deal with different kinds of relativism — total/intellectual, moral, and cultural — with refutations at each section’s conclusion.

The relativism Benedict XVI excoriated, in his first address after becoming Pope, as the most dangerous and pressing issue of the time was subsequently defanged by simple reasoning. Proclaiming that absolutes do not exist is itself an absolute. Case closed. But, Broussard explains, the old relativism has become the “new” relativism — and it is still a threat to logic and common sense. Purveyors of political correctness came up with new absolutes and changed the meaning of words. To counter the new claims, the author declares, “It’s time that we re-establish two of the fundamental absolutes that have been around since the dawn of human existence and that express our nature as rational animals: ‘Thou shalt think’ and ‘Thou shalt be sane.’”

A few examples will impart the flavor of Broussard’s work. Woke believers in the falsehoods of white supremacy have cast doubt on the principle of objectivity, which in the study of mathematics underlies the basic precept that some answers are right and others wrong. Woke relativists reject this. Of course, Broussard pokes holes in their “faux logic.” Calling out this blatant erasure of truth, he argues that if no subjective person can aspire to objectivity, then there is no such thing as objectivity.

Another illustration of an illogical woke absolute is “tolerance.” For decades now, it has meant that all viewpoints and behaviors are the same; none has more value or credence than any other. In 1986 the national Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity summed it up well: “The definition of the new tolerance is that every individual’s beliefs, lifestyle, and perception of truth claims are equal. There is no hierarchy of truth; your beliefs and my beliefs are equal.” But this proposition, taken to its end to mean you must agree with two opposing viewpoints, runs up against the principle of noncontradiction. It cannot be right, for example, that God exists and God does not exist. It is not possible for the human mind to accept that a fact can be true and false at the same time. The theory of relativistic tolerance does not work in reality.

A woke canard recently deployed ad nauseam is the admonition that to be contra the scientific pronouncements of “established experts” is to be “anti-science.” Obviously, the many accomplishments of science in communication, transportation, and medicine (to name a few) cannot be denied. But the purported consensus that man-made climate change, the efficacy of masks in stopping viruses, the unprecedented mandatory quarantining of healthy people, and so on, is “settled science” is another story. Denying these statements is not to deny science but to oppose the promoted absolutes of the designated powers that be. Not only that, these conclusions are not strictly science but are actually policy items. Failure to toe the line, Broussard states, leaves one condemned and marginalized as an anti-science dinosaur. But real science is based on the scientific method, which consists of a premise, a derived theory, and a conclusion from consistent experimental results.

Though Broussard’s writing is clear and understandable, the book is thick with argumentation and philosophy and, therefore, is not the easiest read. But the more people are alerted to the real meaning of woke commandments as compared to their superficial meanings, the better.

The Devil-ution of Society: From a Civilization of Life to a Culture of Death to an Age of Insanity

By Paul Murano

Publisher: En Route Books & Media

Pages: 140

Price: $14.95

Review Author: David D. Jividen

Just as Washington Irving did in his short story “Rip Van Winkle,” Paul Murano in his slender book The Devil-ution of Society uses the literary device of a character returning after being frozen in time to highlight generational changes. Unlike Irving’s title character, who, after a 20-year absence, still recognizes his town’s societal and familial norms, Murano’s Catholic protagonist, Danny, is thrown off balance by the seismic societal changes in the moral fabric of the United States during his time away.

Through gripping dialogue reminiscent of Peter Kreeft’s apol­ogetic “meeting” books, such as Socrates Meets Jesus, Mu­rano uses Danny’s “Rip Van Winkle” experience to highlight the familial, political, and educational differences in the United States between the span of 1965 to 1999, and then between 1999 and 2024, when Danny’s friend Joe has a similar experience. The book paints a stark and unsettling contrast between the condition of American society in these eras and gives the reader, to paraphrase the poet W.B. Yeats, the reasons why the blood-dimmed tide was loosed everywhere the ceremony of innocence was drowned.

The Devil-ution of Society also makes clear what compounds the societal tragedy. In conversation with his friend, Danny declares that besides the expanding culture of death (in 1999), what baffles him “is the acceptance and lethargy of people like you, Catholics, who know the truth. Why aren’t Catholics and other Christians, as well as all people of good will, deeply alarmed about this?” Joe simply replies, “Well, I just don’t know.”

By the time 2024 rolls around, Joe shares Danny’s concern. He realizes that if “Catholics were Catholic, the world would be transformed,” and, failing that, “Catholics will probably be judged most harshly on judgment day.” Still, hope is kept alive as Joe hears that “there are still converts entering the Church every Easter vigil,” and “despite all the real corruption and negative propaganda, converts are still coming home to the Catholic Church.”

By the last page, readers may thank Murano, as I did, for reminding us how we, like the proverbial frog in the slow-boiling pot, arrived at our current post-Christian era. Danny is puzzled by his country, where vice is celebrated as if it were virtue, and the virtuous are on the FBI’s terrorist watchlist. The Devil-ution of Society should not leave us puzzled but rather contrite and retrospective as we recognize how we, through our beliefs, actions, and inactions, got here.

I agree with Kreeft’s endorsement that this is “a delightful thought experiment and a deeply disturbing book.” I would go further. If Catholics are to have a second springtime and help prevent the United States from slouching toward her demise, then this book is a must-read for all who would otherwise suffer the consequences of our further moral deterioration.

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