Last spring, in one of the best courses I’ve ever taken at Stanford, our ethics in society professor asked the class what we thought about female genital mutilation, or FGM.
He didn’t sugarcoat it for us. He explained that FGM, which is practiced worldwide but is most prevalent in northeastern Africa, involves the forcible excision of the external female genitalia, most commonly the clitoris; that it is generally performed on infants, without anesthesia, with scissors or unsanitized knives; and that its purpose is often to inhibit or restrain the woman’s sexual desire later in life, or to keep her “pure” for her future husband. Unsurprisingly, he continued, FGM frequently leads to sexual dysfunction and disease, and complications can range from painful infection to death.
Our professor then asked us what we thought about the morality of FGM — whether we considered the practice right, wrong or something in between. A student sitting near the front raised her hand. “Oh, I’m a total relativist,” she said brightly. “If that’s just what they do there, then I’m completely fine with it.”
Relativism, roughly speaking, is the idea that what’s ethically wrong in one place, in one culture or in one era may be ethically right or permissible in another, and that we therefore ought to refrain from criticizing objectionable practices that occur outside our nation, our culture or our time period. Sometimes relativism is precise and philosophical, flowing from deep and thoughtful moral convictions about cultural sovereignty or group rights. More often, it springs from the rudimentary idea that everyone ought to “mind his own business” and direct his moral energies toward solving his own problems rather than those of others. Occasionally, it simply flows from a reflexive inability to criticize — the paralyzing illness of the chronically kind.
But wherever the new relativism comes from, however popular it becomes and whatever it might look like, I stand as opposed as I did that day in class last spring.
I believe this for many reasons. The first and most general of these is that relativism is too often racist. Take the popular relativist argument that certain groups and peoples — say, the Chinese — are unfit for democratic government and that we therefore ought to abstain from advocating that it be given to them. The idea seems to be that Chinese people are genetically unable to think or vote for themselves or that Chinese culture is inherently autocratic and tyrannical. Either way, it’s an insulting argument, whether it is applied to the Chinese or the Iranians or the Zimbabweans. (Besides being racist, it also makes very little sense: one wonders why, if the Chinese so truly dislike democracy, Beijing is so afraid to let them say so at the ballot box.) It consigns those who look and act and speak differently to a sphere of lesser moral worth, less deserving of attention and thought than people like “us.” It says that other peoples do not have the same basic aspirations, basic needs for respect or basic humanity that “we” do.
Relativism also has a short memory. Its modern adherents seem to forget too easily, for instance, that their “leave us alone” and “mind your own business” arguments were once used to defend slavery.
Relativists often urge that we embrace cultural or national relativism because its alternative is Western imperialist military intervention. But this is simply poor reasoning. One may criticize a practice without advocating that force be used to stop it; a doctor may seek to cure a disease without prescribing toxic chemotherapy that kills the patient.
Lastly and most strongly, I oppose relativism because it acts as a sort of morphine for the pain centers of the moral mind — a tranquilizing drug to dull the senses and induce an anodyne ethical torpor. I worry about how effective a painkiller it is when administered to liberals, once the most ardent defenders of individual freedom. Feminists who (quite rightly) throw a fit when American women are paid 70 cents for every dollar earned by men fall embarrassingly silent when confronted with the predicament of Saudi women being forbidden to drive. Civil libertarians who (quite rightly) rail against religious influence in government meet the Iranian theocracy with a halfhearted shrug. LGBT advocates for marriage equality at home politely refrain from criticizing the stoning of homosexuals abroad. Liberals seem willing to drop our liberalism at any international airport, thrown in the trash along with the detritus from our pockets and any carry-on liquids weighing more than 3 ounces.
It may be argued that this is only an appropriate tolerance and respect for competing ideas about what is right and just. If that is the case, then I am happy to be called intolerant and disrespectful; of tyranny, of theocracy, of gender inequality and of everything else I think it important to fight against, both at home and abroad.
Do you think it’s all relative? Then let Miles know at milesu1 “at” stanford “dot” edu.