If you're right about relativists' thinking that objective aesthetic judgments are too self-centered, it certainly shows up a contradiction, because they're being equally self-centered, as you point out, in dictating relativism. I think their attitude comes from a desire on liberals' part to believe that they represent all that is nice and good and peaceful and all-accepting. (As Dylan said in 1964, "I'm liberal, to a degree/ I want everybody to be free/ But if you think I'm gonna let Barry Goldwater move in next door, marry my daughter/ You must be crazy.") They're blind to the passive aggression in that stance. And it flummoxes them when you point out that relativism must admit its opposite as a possible "take".
Fortunately, though, we're beating a dead horse. Postmodernism has been on its way out for a decade, and before long college students will be reviling their pomo professors as hidebound reactionaries and demanding to know why that crap has been shoved down their throats.
Another commenter added this, which I think is very problematic:
I guess I am a person who accepts the complexity of life, attitudes, points of view, beliefs. I hate the destruction of war and struggle against the oppressive patriarchal system we are all victims of - men and women. I am suspicious of "purism" and abhor labels.
So, as you describe it, I might be considered a "relativist," even though the term seems to cause me some discomfort.
It seems to me that that's just not getting at what "relativism" really means. By the same token, I don't see what my dad's support of affirmative action even if it's counter to his self-interest has to do with relativism.
The opposite of relativism is not "being selfish" or "being close-minded" or "not taking unfamiliar viewpoints into account" or "disrespecting other cultures."
In fact, the very fact that I do think it's vital to understand foreign cultures and appreciate the views of people who disagree with me is why I can't be a relativist. Relativism, taken seriously, is incompatible with the idea that someone in the United States should stop and think, "Hey, maybe certain values that are unpopular here but are prevalent in other countries are actually better than mine." If relativism is true, then the only value that matters is adhering to the values that are internal to your own culture/community (whether that's your country, locality, religion, etc.)
I'm not the first person to point this out: if you adhere to that principle, then you can't recognize the goodness of a society making transformative moral progress. And that means that the theory shouldn't count Harriet Tubman or Martin Luther King, Jr. as great Americans. After all, they were deviating from the prevailing values of their time and culture, so by the standards of relativism, weren't they acting wrongly? That's why I consider relativism "wrong" in both senses of the word: not just incorrect but also evil.
And I know that some people will think, "Oh, he's making a straw-man argument by just attacking a really extreme version of 'relativism' that's not what most relativists actually believe." Well, I know there are millions of people who would call themselves relativists but disagree with the conclusion that it's impossible for a society to make radical moral progress. But I simply think they're being internally inconsistent and should resolve the inconsistency in favor of making judgments based on standards that are universal/objective rather than local/relative.
IN THE COMMENTS: Quibbling.
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