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The Perils of Moral Tourism

漏 David Thompson 2006

Last week, during a conversation about the 鈥榗artoon jihad鈥?uproar, I used the phrase 鈥渆motional incontinence.鈥?This did not go down well. I was promptly told, in no uncertain terms, that I mustn鈥檛 鈥渋mpose鈥?my own cultural values. Apparently, to do so would be a form of 鈥渃ultural imperialism鈥? an archaic colonial hangover, and therefore unspeakably evil. I was, apparently, being 鈥渁rrogantly ethnocentric鈥?in considering Western secular society broadly preferable to a culture in which rioting, murder and genocidal threats can be prompted by the publication of a cartoon.

As the conversation continued, I was emphatically informed that to regard one set of cultural values as preferable to another was 鈥渞acist鈥?and 鈥渙ppressive.鈥?Indeed, even the attempt to make any such determination was itself a heinous act. I was further assailed with a list of examples of 鈥淲estern arrogance, decadence, irreverence, and downright nastiness.鈥?And I was reminded that, above all, I 鈥渕ust respect deeply held beliefs.鈥?When I asked if this respect for deeply held beliefs extended to white supremacists, cannibals and ultra-conservative Republicans, a deafening silence ensued.

After this awkward pause, the conversation rumbled on. At some point, I made reference to migration and the marked tendency of families to move from Islamic societies to secular ones, and not the other way round. 鈥淭his seems rather important鈥? I suggested. 鈥淚f you want to evaluate which society is preferred to another by any given group, migration patterns are an obvious yardstick to use. Broadly speaking, people do not relocate their families to cultures they find wholly inferior to their own.鈥?Alas, this fairly self-evident suggestion did not meet with approval. No rebuttal was forthcoming, but the litany of Western wickedness resumed, more loudly than before.