That said, I don't for a second believe that there's any reason for us to accept that all cultures are worth saving, or that some cultural norms should not be actively fought. However I see that as an entirely orthogonal issue to the first.
> That said, I don't for a second believe that there's any reason for us to accept that all cultures are worth saving, or that some cultural norms should not be actively fought.
The question is who has the right to fight them and how. It's one thing to critique another culture. It's something else to go out to try to force them to see the error of their ways. The problem is that the latter is usually just an exercise of nationalism if we define nationalism as hating other national/cultural groups.
The question is, how sure should an outsider be of the context of an action? Or is this better left for the members of the culture to navigate and evolve as meets their needs? I side generally with the latter unless it involves conflict between cultural groups. That's different and poses different problems.
Is it more abusive to subject children to a single coming-of-age ritual designed to teach them to think, or to allow children to transition to adulthood physically unharmed yet full of ideas designed to hold them back from full enjoyment of their faculties?
It seems that the Hopi would be entirely justified in saying that all other Americans are guilty of child abuse.
Which brings me back to my point. Who gets to make the rules?
Isn't the greatest justice served and the greatest abuses of power prevented by keeping these decisions as local as possible?
That's federalism, not nationalism.
Nationalism is "Deutschland Uber Alles"