Relationships are Not Relative

To mention the philosophical theory of relativity is to cover old ground in relationship to the very real, which is the common ground we all share, not anything worldly or delusional, with God as the nexus. Relativity is to question all of that and to split it up, as was the atom, into distinctive private realities and unique existences that disallows absolutes. Realism in its twentieth century understanding warranted the believe in the literal subdivision of reality through acts of physics of space and time giving ground to the relative character of Existentialism that focus on the individual and assigns meaning and truth only to the individual and not an institution. But we shall not cover that territory again. We shall speak of relativity in its pre twentieth century specific ideology. 

The word used traditionally before assigned certain twenty first century contexts has different meanings and purposes. The world relativity has as its root the word relate which is also the root for relation, relationship and relational, these words being entirely free of any twentieth century Existentialist paradigm context. The word “relate” is to strike a chord, to breech and to mingle through cognitive meaning and difference. In the simplest terms it means to connect. As two individuals relate there becomes a relation, a relation based upon assigned meaning and difference adhered to through agency. From this relation of meaning and difference can begin a relationship. This relationship, essentially founded on commonly assigned meaning and difference grounded in the power of free agency to choose like meaning and difference, this relationship has so chosen to be, giving rise to the relational character of truth that is the substance for the great institutions of this world. 

Those religions that have been successful including the Latter-Day Saint religion are grounded upon this by relational truths adhered to through established relationships that are chosen on the ability to relate through the agency of meaning and difference. This is not what the Existentialist might consider the blind thinking of the “other” or the “chatter” of “the they,” no, this is a cohesive collective of truth arrived at through the mutual freedom to relate. 

Other successful institutions are the family, whose more apparent roots create the strongest physical blood relationship but whose shared truths create an essence of each family and a closeness created through relating. The product is built as each member, relational to each other to truth, creates a strong sense of character for the family built upon physical roots and established truths. (More on the Family in future post). Other institutions apply to the reality of this paradigm such as many scholastic institutions, lines of heritage, patronage, tradition, and solid foundations among nations based on integrity. This is the context of the word “relate” when applied to Mormon Existentialism that builds community and truth. 

When applied to worldly Existentialism it creates a fragmented relativism based upon a worldly delusional reality that does not believe in the kind of individualism as did the Humanist of the Greeks- Man being the measure of all things- but the kind of individualism that is separate, alone, angst ridden, with truth that cannot be measured, displaced and without commonality, so afraid is it of the possibilities and reality of the “other.”