Plurality v. Pluralism
In a hole in the ground there lived 5 hobbits. Each hobbit had different opinions regarding the answer to the question: "What does 2 + 2 add up to?" Only one of the 5 vouchsafed the number 4. The rest offered varying opinions ranging from from 0 -100. The most stubborn of all the hobbits swore an oath on his mother's grave that 2 + 2 was certainly equal to 44. The humble hobbit who offered the correct answer, "4," repeated his answer against a din of contention. This is plurality. Finally, the stubborn hobbit said, "It doesn't matter. 2 +2 is equal to whatever you think it is." That is pluralism.
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"WHEN the old Liberals removed the gags from all the heresies, their idea was that religious and philosophical discoveries might thus be made. Their view was that cosmic truth was so important that every one ought to bear independent testimony. The modern idea is that cosmic truth is so unimportant that it cannot matter what any one says. The former freed inquiry as men loose a noble hound; the latter frees inquiry as men fling back into the sea a fish unfit for eating. Never has there been so little discussion about the nature of men as now, when, for the first time, any one can discuss it. The old restriction meant that only the orthodox were allowed to discuss religion. Modern liberty means that nobody is allowed to discuss it. Good taste, the last and vilest of human superstitions, has succeeded in silencing us where all the rest have failed."
~G.K. Chesterton ("Heretics")
"IT IS foolish, generally speaking, for a philosopher to set fire to another philosopher in Smithfield Market because they do not agree in their theory of the universe. That was done very frequently in the last decadence of the Middle Ages, and it failed altogether in its object. But there is one thing that is infinitely more absurd and unpractical than burning a man for his philosophy. This is the habit of saying that his philosophy does not matter, and this is done universally in the twentieth century, in the decadence of the great revolutionary period."
~G.K. Chesterton ("Heretics")
In a hole in the ground there lived 5 hobbits. Each hobbit had different opinions regarding the answer to the question: "What does 2 + 2 add up to?" Only one of the 5 vouchsafed the number 4. The rest offered varying opinions ranging from from 0 -100. The most stubborn of all the hobbits swore an oath on his mother's grave that 2 + 2 was certainly equal to 44. The humble hobbit who offered the correct answer, "4," repeated his answer against a din of contention. This is plurality. Finally, the stubborn hobbit said, "It doesn't matter. 2 +2 is equal to whatever you think it is." That is pluralism.
***
"WHEN the old Liberals removed the gags from all the heresies, their idea was that religious and philosophical discoveries might thus be made. Their view was that cosmic truth was so important that every one ought to bear independent testimony. The modern idea is that cosmic truth is so unimportant that it cannot matter what any one says. The former freed inquiry as men loose a noble hound; the latter frees inquiry as men fling back into the sea a fish unfit for eating. Never has there been so little discussion about the nature of men as now, when, for the first time, any one can discuss it. The old restriction meant that only the orthodox were allowed to discuss religion. Modern liberty means that nobody is allowed to discuss it. Good taste, the last and vilest of human superstitions, has succeeded in silencing us where all the rest have failed."
~G.K. Chesterton ("Heretics")
"IT IS foolish, generally speaking, for a philosopher to set fire to another philosopher in Smithfield Market because they do not agree in their theory of the universe. That was done very frequently in the last decadence of the Middle Ages, and it failed altogether in its object. But there is one thing that is infinitely more absurd and unpractical than burning a man for his philosophy. This is the habit of saying that his philosophy does not matter, and this is done universally in the twentieth century, in the decadence of the great revolutionary period."
~G.K. Chesterton ("Heretics")
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