Steven Hale
2 min readJul 23, 2020

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I'm a perspectivist (not a pluralist or a relativist or an absolutist). I believe everyone has a different perspective on any particular issue, based on personal experience, cognitive ability, etc. If we look at multiple perspectives, we can often assemble a view of an issue that is more complete and accurate than any single perspective, as in the parable of the 5 blind men and the elephant.

What if one of the 5 men was a liar and said that what was in his hand felt like an ice cube? His false perspective wouldn't add to our overall understanding of the elephant, but it would still contribute to an understanding of the real world, since after the other 4 men compared notes, they would presumably realize that the 5th man was a liar.

So it's worthwhile to preserve all perspectives (statements), because each one reveals something, even if it's the fact that the speaker is a liar (or has some sort of perceptual disability, etc.).

But that doesn't mean that all perspectives should be included in every forum or any particular forum. If I submit a "proof" that the earth is flat to a peer-reviewed journal of earth science, their rejection of my article does not prove that the journal is trying to impose some sort of repressive cultural hegemony.

To the best of my knowledge, no one is seeking to eliminate all performances and scores of "Deutschland Uber Alles" from the world, but that does not mean that singing the anthem at a reunion of Holocaust survivors is acceptable. And yes, it is up to the Holocaust survivors, not the singer, to determine if the song is acceptable at their reunion or not. Their perspective that the performance is harmful to them outweighs his view that he has a right to sing it wherever he wishes.

To return to your original point: yes, pluralism is probably unenforceable in any consistent way. As a perspectivist, I don't see the point in attempting to do so. Whenever there are paradoxes or contradictions, it is probably useful to point them out, as you do with Hoppe. But a pluralist argument still reveals something, even if the only thing it reveals is the limitations of natural language as a medium for argumentation.

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Steven Hale
Steven Hale

Written by Steven Hale

Music: Discovering the lost and forgotten. Politics: Exposing injustice. Screenwriting: Emotional storytelling.

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