With the start of Pride Month and the upcoming Juneteenth holiday, I'm reminded more than ever of the victimhood narrative and sense of entitlement that has festered in our society over the past 15 years.

Experts consider our current philosophical, especially ethical, era to be characterized by a new form of relativism.  Where philosophers such as Aristotle and Plato were once working toward finding the objective truth of the reality we are all a part of, now, people are assigning whatever "truth" they want and calling it "fact."  Some go so far as to say facts don't exist at all; truth is subjective.  Hence the rise in popularity of the term "my truth."

This idea can be applied to any field.  In science, people deny that objectivity exists.  This was clearly evident throughout the pandemic.

In history, there is no longer any agreement concerning the story of our founding — just look at the 1619 Project. 

Teachers love advocating for the idea that "there are no wrong answers.  Just wrong explanations."  Yes, two plus two can equal five if you believe it to be.  In other words, unequivocal facts have taken a backseat to feelings. 

While I believe that the strength of an explanation is important, I don't agree with the blanket statement that nothing can be wrong as long as it is argued in the right way.  This kind of mindset extends beyond the classroom when it is being pushed onto impressionable children.  Now we are seeing the consequences clearer than ever before.

If I believe I'm always right, doesn't that imply that anyone who disagrees with me is always wrong?  And if there is no objective baseline to establish truth, then anything goes.

This is the foundation for the hatred perpetuated by the left.  Being a member of Gen Z myself, I understand firsthand how my peers discuss social issues.  It is always rooted in the perspective that they are right and the world owes them something.  This could be welfare money from the government or celebration of their ideas.  Either way, the world is never doing enough for them.  And time-tested ideas and institutions mean nothing.

As then-president John F. Kennedy eloquently put it in 1961, "ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."  In JFK's time, "country" could have been replaced with community, family, friends, church, or any other institution.  It should not be about getting as much as you can from those around you.  As obvious as that sounds, that sentiment is not practiced or cherished by today's youth.

Black Lives Matter (BLM) and the LGBT pride movements are the inevitable consequence of this way of thinking.  In a postmodern society, everybody is right, and we have to agree on that.  The damage this does is predominantly on our sense of community on a micro or macro scale.  If I truly believe that I am right just because I believe it, then I'm not going to feel very connected to my peers.  This belief sucks you into an individual echo chamber, where there is no hope of understanding because we're both correct.

Loneliness is another consequence of this idea.  The mental health crisis of the next generation is coinciding with the mindset of leftist relativists.  In fact, LGBT members are 2.5 times more likely to experience a mental-health disorder in their lifetime compared to a heterosexual man or woman.

Everybody is psychologically grappling with the conflicting ideas that he is correct in everything he does, but he is also alone.  We've been raised to value rugged individualism, but it isn't natural.

We are social beings who have benefited from thousands of years of collaboration and challenges to the facts we hold to be true.  The entire point of the Enlightenment was to move beyond a world in which subjectivity reigned supreme and replace it with a world built on objectivity.  For instance, before the Enlightenment, most people accepted the notion of the divine right of kings until reason, logic, and objective truth triumphed in the form of the U.S. Declaration of Independence.

There is a reason Jefferson began by stating, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Postmodern relativism rejects truth, which is why it can last only so long before the stagnation in ideas is so overwhelmingly harmful that something has to change.

Kate Venis (kvenis@highpoint.edu) is an editorial intern with The Heartland Institute.

Image: Pixabay, Briam-cute.