“The relativism which is not willing to speak about truth but only about ‘what is true for me’ is an evasion of the serious business of living. It is the mark of a tragic loss of nerve in our contemporary culture. It is a preliminary symptom of death.”

—  Lesslie Newbigin

Source: The Gospel in a Pluralist Society

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The relativism which is not willing to speak about truth but only about ‘what is true for me’ is an evasion of the seri…" by Lesslie Newbigin?
Lesslie Newbigin photo
Lesslie Newbigin 9
Christian missionary 1909–1998

Related quotes

Pope Benedict XVI photo

“In a society, in a culture, which all too often make relativism its creed - relativism has become a sort of dogma - in such a society the light of truth is missing; indeed, it is considered dangerous and "authoritarian" to speak of truth, and the end result is doubt about the goodness of life - is it good to be a person? is it good to be alive? - and in the validity of the relationships and commitments in which it consists.Today, more than in the past, the education and formation of the person are influenced by the messages and general climate spread by the great means of communication and which are inspired by a mindset and culture marked by relativism, consumerism and a false and destructive exaltation, or rather, profanation, of the body and of sexuality.”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

In a Speech of Benedict XVI at the Inauguration of the Convention of the Diocese of Rome http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2007/june/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20070611_convegno-roma_en.html, at the Basilica of Saint John Lateran (11 June 2007)
2007

“The fact that people are so willing to disclose (deeply personal issues in their lives) shows you how much we avoid talking about these very serious issues in our everyday lives”

Brandon Stanton (1984) American photographer

CBS News, 2014 [Blogger makes intimate connections with strangers on streets of NYC, http://www.cbsnews.com/news/humans-of-new-york-blogger-talks-connecting-with-strangers/, CBS NEWS, January 2, 2014, January 6, 2014]

Jonathan Maberry photo

“The truth is the truth. What changes is what we know about it and what we're willing to believe.”

Jonathan Maberry book Rot & Ruin

Source: Rot & Ruin

Natalie Goldberg photo

“Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open.”

Natalie Goldberg (1948) American writer

Source: Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

Susan Sontag photo

“The truth is always something that is told, not something that is known. If there were no speaking or writing, there would be no truth about anything. There would only be what is.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

Source: The Benefactor (1963), Ch. 1, p. 1, Farrar, Straus and Giroux ISBN 0-312-42012-9

Georges Duhamel photo

“It is an extraordinary thing that this civilization, which wears out our nerves and exacts an almost painful effort from us in all our doings, should be at great pains to spare the mass of people that intellectual effort which is the only measure of true culture.”

Georges Duhamel (1884–1966) French writer

Source: Défense des Lettres [In Defense of Letters] (1937), p.

Niklas Luhmann photo

“Whatever we know about society, or indeed about the world in which we live, we know through the mass media. This is true not only of our knowledge of society but also of our knowledge of nature.”

Niklas Luhmann (1927–1998) German sociologist, administration expert, and social systems theorist

Source: The reality of the Mass Media (2000), p. 1.

“It's yet another mark of Auden's superiority that whereas his contemporaries could be didactic about what they had merely thought or read, Auden could be tentative about what he felt in his bones.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

'On Auden's Death'
Essays and reviews, At the Pillars of Hercules (1979)

“The worst thing about death is not uncertainty. The worst thing about death is the certainty that humans will be separated from the light of the true truth as a result of their own arrogance and ignorance.”

Titon Rahmawan
Charles Krauthammer photo

“Except for the demented orphan, the living will is quite beside the point. The one time it really is essential is if you think your fractious family will be only too happy to hasten your demise to get your money. That’s what the law is good at — protecting you from murder and theft. But that is a far cry from assuring a peaceful and willed death, which is what most people imagine living wills are about.”

Charles Krauthammer (1950–2018) American journalist

Column, August 14, 2009, "The Truth About Death Counseling" http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/krauthammer082109.php3#.U4GtOcJOWUk at jewishworldreview.com.
2000s, 2009

Related topics