Can We Make Moral Judgments About Other Cultures?

Recently, during an interview with the BBC, U.K. Conservative Party’s newly minted leader Kemi Badenoch stated bluntly, “We cannot assume that all cultures are equally valid.” She then rattled off examples of cultures that embrace practices like child marriage and misogyny, before concluding, 

I actually think it’s extraordinary that people think that’s an unusual or controversial thing to say. Of course, not all cultures are equally valid. I don’t believe in cultural relativism. I believe in Western values, the principles that have made this country great. And I think we need to make sure that we continue to abide by those principles. 

Though a moral proclamation like that would spark outrage here in the States, patriotism in the U.K. is even more a four-letter word. This is because cultural relativism may be the only assumed absolute among the enlightened, except, of course, when it comes to critiques of the West. As Douglas Murray pointed out in his book The War on the West, it is only the Western world that is morally wrong and guilty of oppression, no matter the facts. Case in point, Badenoch is the first black woman to lead her party in Great Britain, thus making her one of the most powerful black women in the world. 

In truth, non-Western societies have their own long lists of discrimination, slavery, and mistreatment of women, children, and minorities. And the West’s history cannot be reduced to simply “white supremacy,” as many claim. After all, it was the British who banned widow-burning in nineteenth century India, and it’s difficult to put Chinese foot-binding and contemporary Islamic honor killing on the same level as, say, limiting abortion “rights” of women in the West.  

There’s an obvious reason why the wealthy from the Middle East don’t go to Cairo when they need the best healthcare in the world. They go to a little town in Minnesota to the Mayo Clinic. Outside of pharisaic ivory towers, sharing modern medical or irrigation technologies with impoverished cultures is not considered a form of cultural imperialism.  

In his book The Air We Breathe: How We All Came to Believe in Freedom, Kindness, Progress, and Equality, Glenn Scrivener explores where our most prized and exported ideas came from—ideas like justice, equality, innovation, and even not looking down on other cultures. (Why, though their members may not realize it, are there only “Queers for Palestine” in the West and not in Palestine?) These ideas are the result of a centuries-long project by which the fundamental principles of Christianity changed the world. They’re the fruit of a people, who since ancient days, studied and applied Scripture to living out life. 

Of course, the evil that infects every person and every culture is just as much “here” as it is “over there.” There’s no racial or ethnic superiority to be found in one place versus another. Instead, what makes one culture superior over another is what it recognizes as true about people, and which of our instincts need to be governed and controlled. In this regard, the trajectory of the West is one of serious decline. 

A helpful critique of culture is whether or not human dignity is recognized and valued. Are the powerless, particularly women, the elderly, the poor, and the outcast, given opportunity and protection? Is human ingenuity encouraged in areas such as science, the arts, as well as practical and personal liberties? And are these areas aimed at collective flourishing or at decadence? These chosen areas of analysis do not reflect Western values, but rather eternal truths as applied within particular contexts. These truths make it possible for any society to be not a clone of the West, but the very best version of itself possible. 

Christianity shaped the West because the twin powers of common grace and Scripture offer the insight that help people and entire societies flourish. And that’s why, to borrow a line, it can be said that cultures in which people love their neighbors are always better than cultures in which people eat their neighbors.