Judgement
Another gem from this Steyn book:
In a more culturally confident age, the British in India were faced with the practice of “suttee” — the tradition of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. Gen. Sir Charles Napier was impeccably multicultural:
“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks, and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”
For years, I’ve been trying to find a way to express the notion that unwillingness to judge another culture was just a form of intellectual moral cowardice. If’n I were better read, I wouldn’t have to work half so hard at getting the right words out. Thanks, General Napier.