Charlie Sykes

For years, Republicans have effectively outsourced their thought leadership to the loudmouths at the end of the bar. But perhaps the most extreme example of that trend has been the issue of guns, where the party has ceded control to a gun lobby that has built its brand on absolutism.

American

Adrienne Rich

I want to gesture toward a poetry of ourselves and others under the conditions of twenty-first-century absolutism, making us dimensional in a time when the human concrete is continually erased by state and religious violence and by disingenuous jargon serving state power.

American Poet

Andy Serkis

If I hear someone say something, and they're 100 per cent about it, then it's almost inevitable that I'll take the opposite view. I guess I feel at odds with things like society. Absolutism is always a trigger for me.

English Actor

Kevin de Leon

Unlike Washington, the California legislature has proved that cooperation is both possible and essential to successful policymaking, while stubborn absolutism will have you trailing head lice in popularity polls.

American Politician

Murray Rothbard

Philosophically, I believe that libertarianism - and the wider creed of sound individualism of which libertarianism is a part - must rest on absolutism and deny relativism.

American Economist

Christopher Hitchens

George Bush made a mistake when he referred to the Saddam Hussein regime as 'evil.' Every liberal and leftist knows how to titter at such black-and-white moral absolutism.

American Author

Thomas Cochrane

Relativity must replace absolutism in the realm of morals as well as in the spheres of physics and biology.

English Politician

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

All parties without exception, when they seek for power, are varieties of absolutism.

French Economist

Lajos Kossuth

The principle of evil in Europe is the enervating spirit of Russian absolutism.

Hungarian Lawyer

Understand 'absolutism' often refers to historical periods, like the reign of Louis XIV.

Historical Context

'Absolutism' is rare today but can describe some current governments critically.

Not Modern

The term often implies abuse of power or a lack of democracy and freedom.

Negative Connotation

'Absolutism' suggests someone ruling without legal or moral limits.

Power Abuse

People might hyperbolically use 'absolutism' to criticize strong authority.

Hyperbolic Usage

'Absolutism' in philosophy often pertains to universal, unchanging truths.

Philosophical Term

Absolutism can spark debates, as people argue over subjective versus objective truths.

Debate Trigger

Don't confuse philosophical absolutism with total power; in philosophy, it's about truth.

Misunderstood in Philosophy

 And I believe that's what most of us want. So what I see happening online today is especially heartbreaking and a much harder problem to tackle. We are being manipulated by the current information ecosystem entrenching so many of us so far into absolutism that compromise has become a dirty word.

Dear Facebook, this is...

 the moral importance of lying. Suppose a murderer were hunting Carey down. If the killer asked you about Carey’s whereabouts, it seems odd to say that you must tell the truth at the cost of your friend’s life. From this perspective, absolutism seems too rigid.