Majorities and Moral Relativism

"The biggest cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid people are so sure about things and the intelligent folks are so full of doubts." ~Bertrand Russell

Anyone know of a retrospective on public opinion regarding people of color in "white" America over the last 100 years? What about a retrospective on public opinion regarding women's rights, mental illness or evolution? I suspect they would show time and again that majority opinion does not equate with any sort of moral absolutism. Instead morality would be shown to be relative.

A few day ago the American Enterprise Institute for public policy research released poll data regarding Attitudes Toward Homosexuality & Gay Marriage, highlighting the period from 1973 to the present in the USA. A January 2000 survey by MORI (Market & Opinion Research International) provides data on British attitudes toward homosexuality.

Morality - for majorities - is ultimately relative to the beliefs of the era. Some beliefs change more quickly than others. For an example of moral relativism and majorities gone bad see 'the history of civilization', or better yet, see PBS's excellent Frontline expose Ghosts of Rwanda. (How could it happen that America and the West stood aside and did nothing to stop the slaughter of 800,000 human beings over 100 days? How could ordinary citizens of Rwanda take up machetes and chop up their neighbors - men, women and children alike. Remember the slogan "Never Again" after the Holocaust? Well it happened again!)

Rationalism (the theory that the exercise of reason, rather than experience, authority, or spiritual revelation, provides the primary basis for knowledge) and Secular Humanism (a way of thinking and living that aims to bring out the best in people so that all people can have the best in life, rejecting supernatural and authoritarian beliefs, affirming that we must take responsibility for our own lives and the communities and world in which we live, emphasizing reason and scientific inquiry, individual freedom and responsibility, human values and compassion, and the need for tolerance and cooperation) are flowering all over the world. But this trend can only be furthered through education and information. Hopefully, religious extremism and racism/ nationalism/ tribalism shall continue to be weakened in all its guises. Ultimately, world government may be the best hope for stability to prevail. The tyranny of the majority shall one day, I envision, be mitigated by a codified world law or bill of rights enforced by a world system of courts protecting those in a minority or not in a position of power.