How twitter can teach us about Absolutism

But before we go into that, What the heck is Absolutism?

Absolutism is a theory where unlimited, complete power is held by a centralized sovereign individual, with no checks or balances from any other part or person what so ever

The word Absolutism came from From Latin absolutum: which means detached, independent, and completed.

There are basically 2 types, religion where the doctrine that one’s salvation is predestined and determined solely by the will of God, uninfluenced by causes such as one’s deeds or intentions; more commonly called the doctrine of predestination.

And politics where the doctrine that a sovereign or government ought to possess absolute power over individuals and society; an older and less common term for totalitarianism.

The ancient Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle believed in a kind of Absolutism or Universalism, opposing the Moral Relativism of the Sophists.

Immanuel Kant was a prominent promoter of Moral Absolutism, and his formulation of the deontological theory of the Categorical Imperative was essentially absolutist in nature.

Moral Absolutism has been favoured historically largely because it makes the creation of laws and the upholding of the judicial system much simpler and manifested itself in outdated concepts such as the Divine Right of Kings

The most common idea of Absolutism comes in a form of monarchs who had ‘the divine right of kings,’ which derived from medieval ideas of kingship.

This claimed that monarchs held their authority directly from God, that the king in his kingdom was as God in his creation, thus giving them an extra layer of legitimacy,

In modern day we can see a specific flavour of absolutism – The Moral Absolutism

In this extrovert age of Social media, we are always Judging everyone on some standard of ethical belief and whenever there is an Ethical belief, there comes absolute standards against which moral questions can be judged, and that certain actions are right or wrong, regardless of the context of the act.

Thus, actions are inherently moral or immoral, regardless of the beliefs and goals of the individual, society or culture that engages in the actions. It holds that morals are inherent in the laws of the universe, the nature of humanity, the will of God or some other fundamental source.

The inherent problem of this so called moral judgment, though how much moral might it seems, any form of absolutism will always bring in intolerance as there will always be strong disagreements about which moral principles are correct and which are incorrect.

Reality is a dynamic, ever changing set of precepts, concepts and forms that are based on a sound and enduring set of universal principles or what can be called the structure upon which all bodies, minds and lives are formed and live.

Or in other words…

In reality, there is nothing absolute or relative for that matter.  All things are the seeds for the new things which grow from them.  And, this dynamic process continues until the end of this cycle of life and then becomes the seeds for the next new cycle of life…