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Originally Posted by TM875
Culture is relative. It may seem okay for us to wear jeans and worship the pop singer on that magazine cover, but the rest of the world may not see it that way. Many find how we live our lives and how we treat other people (yes, even women in our culture) as disgusting. Whose to say who is right?
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Everybody. I have the absolute right to say that beating someone who is weaker than I or less powerful, to maintain my power, is wrong. Not all systems and societies are healthy just because they exist. If you don't honestly believe that some things are absolutely wrong, then you don't really believe in anything. If wanting to protect the weak makes me an elitist in your eyes, well.... I just don't know.
For example, many of the people you're defending in the name of moral relativism would _absolutely condemn you_ for some of the things that you do. They'd think your own moral relativism was shameful.
Am I going to go overseas and force men to stop beating their wives? No. Am I going to agitate for the government to force them to stop? No. You can't impose cultural change. You _can_ incite change by being an example: the U.S., with its relatively good (not the best) record on women's rights floods the world with media that shows women who make their own decisions and have dignity to themselves, and do you think that this message starts to sink in after a while? You bet, in the places that are ready for it. And any country that wants to be part of the modern world economy as anything other than a supplier of raw materials and low-grade manufactured goods, probably is.
In _this_ country, however, if an African or Pakistani beats his wife just like in the old country, I'm calling the cops. Screw cultural sensitivity. Some things are just wrong, and I do believe that the religious writings of those other cultures would say so as well. I haven't read it, but I really doubt that the Koran has good things to say about wife beating.