 It is true that some people sometimes express the view that no judgments of taste are really better than others. They say, “There is no right and wrong about matters of taste”. Others will express the same thought by saying that beauty is “relative” to individual judgment or preference, or that it is “socially relative”. Such relativism is part of the intellectual air in in certain parts of the humanities. In particular, many intellectuals have expressed dislike of the idea that judgments of taste really have any normative claim, as if that would be uncouth or oppressive. However, if we are describing our thought as it is, not how it ought to be, then there is no getting away from the fact that normativity is a necessary condition of judgments of taste or beauty. Two points should embarrass the relativist. Firstly, people who say this kind of thing are merely theorizing. In the case of judgments of beauty, relativist theory is out of step with common practice, especially their own practice. As with moral relativism, one can almost always catch the professed relativist about judgments of beauty making and acting on non-relative judgments of beauty—for example, in their judgments about music, nature and everyday household objects. Relativists do not practice what they preach. Secondly, one thing that drives people to this implausible relativism, which is so out of line with their own practice, is a perceived connection of relativism with tolerance or anti-authoritarianism. This is what they see as attractive in it. But this is upside-down. For if “it is all relative” and no judgment is better than any other, then relativists put their own judgments beyond criticism, and they cannot get it wrong. Only those who think that there is a right and wrong in judgment can modestly admit that they might be wrong. What looks like an ideology of tolerance is, in fact, the very opposite. Thus, relativism is hypocritical and it is intolerant. 