How to Use relativism in a Sentence

relativism

noun
  • King thinks that the reason for this was the rise of anti-relativism.
    — Louis Menand, The New Yorker, 19 Aug. 2019
  • At the very least, a certain measure of moral relativism was at play this past week.
    — Dana Milbank, Washington Post, 14 June 2024
  • Our ambiguous slide into moral relativism has left us all at sea.
    — Dallas News, 16 July 2019
  • To rank a decade’s worth of champions is to embark on a task of relativism and hair-splitting.
    — Dan Greene, SI.com, 2 Oct. 2019
  • To be a conservative is, among other things, is thus to reject moral relativism.
    — Josh Hammer, MSNBC Newsweek, 22 Oct. 2025
  • The second pitfall is a form of relativism borne out of a lack of confidence in the very existence of truth.
    — Liv Grjebine, Scientific American, 9 Oct. 2020
  • Such relativism often breeds nihilism, something of which Ball has been accused.
    — Ellie Robins, latimes.com, 9 Mar. 2018
  • But what is more important than the relativism of age is the curiosity that is lodged by doing the play a second time.
    — Nancy Coleman, New York Times, 18 June 2021
  • This relativism carries clear dangers.
    — Christopher Beha, New Yorker, 14 Feb. 2026
  • Morals, on the other hand are individual and in my opinion, moral relativism has become the norm.
    — Joe Kinsey Outkick, FOXNews.com, 1 June 2026
  • Pope Benedict saw relativism as the core challenge facing the Catholic Church.
    — Jacqueline L. Salmon, Washington Post, 31 Dec. 2022
  • Though there was no mention of his personal disgrace, the first segment of the set seemed like a defiant exercise in moral relativism.
    — James Sullivan, BostonGlobe.com, 11 Dec. 2021
  • Luke's optimism and unshakable belief in the absolute and rejection moral relativism came to life for me in that line.
    — Chris Quinn, San Antonio Express-News, 4 May 2021
  • Furthermore, the aggressive rise of moral relativism has muddied the moral waters by casting doubt on the sheer existence of right and wrong.
    — Jeff Cimmino, National Review, 19 July 2017
  • The danger of this district-by-district relativism, of course, is that the party offers up a thousand messengers but no message.
    — Ben Austen, New Republic, 7 Sep. 2017
  • Belief in objective truth is necessary to pursue the higher things and to protect against relativism and nihilism.
    — The Editors, National Review, 16 Oct. 2023
  • This is the basis of moral relativism, which is the exact opposite of Christianity.
    — Jeffrey Peters, baltimoresun.com/maryland/carroll, 30 Aug. 2019
  • The pioneers of cultural relativism were working against centuries of racist ideas and prejudices.
    — Patrick Iber, The New Republic, 14 Aug. 2019
  • And as is the case with its cousin martyrdom, reflexive moral relativism intensifies with the gravity of the issue at hand.
    — Chris Stirewalt, Fox News, 19 June 2017
  • This relativism in itself was nothing less than an assault on Western civilization.
    — Mike Gonzalez, National Review, 5 Oct. 2020
  • The pernicious philosophy of relativism teaches that there is no objective truth.
    — WSJ, 18 Sep. 2018
  • If divine truth is single and universal, then multiplicity and relativism are the signatures of evil.
    — Hari Kunzru, Harper’s Magazine , 22 June 2022
  • The idea that objectivity might be poisonous seems to open the way to a kind of brain-melting relativism, the end of the possibility of knowledge itself.
    — Hari Kunzru, Harper’s Magazine , 22 June 2022
  • Yet Oyeyemi sometimes seems to go further, endorsing a relativism so deep that even provisional consensus is out of reach.
    — Katy Waldman, New Yorker, 18 Aug. 2025
  • For many years now, societies have been living with moral relativism, which asserts the essential subjectivity of all value systems.
    — Francis Fukuyama, Harper’s Magazine , 27 Apr. 2022
  • Some might blame the truth-disparaging theories that have long been incubating in certain corners of the academy, which go by the names of relativism and postmodernism.
    — Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, WSJ, 15 Mar. 2018
  • Perhaps Garber’s earlier relativism was a luxury for less desperate times.
    — Charlie Tyson, The Atlantic, 27 Apr. 2026
  • Such rote, nakedly procedural appeals inherently reek of moral relativism to the extent they are not grounded at all in any substantive conception of good and bad, or right and wrong.
    — Josh Hammer, MSNBC Newsweek, 22 Oct. 2025
  • Critics on the right, like philosopher Allan Bloom, once complained about the flaccid relativism of progressives who preached tolerance as the highest virtue.
    — Michael S. Roth, Washington Post, 27 Apr. 2023
  • None of this is to support political relativism; the United States is not, as some dictators like to suggest, as unfree as many other countries.
    — Justin Sherman, Wired, 9 June 2020

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'relativism.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: