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The magnitude of the difference in punishment is not relevant, nor is whatever may or may not happen in the west. We can say that sending someone to jail for pu

The magnitude of the difference in punishment is not relevant, nor is whatever may or may not happen in the west. We can say that sending someone to jail for putting Buddha on a flyer is objectively bad, without regard to frame of reference or our own background. Doing so does not carry an implicit hidden second meaning of "... and our culture is by implication better." What our culture (or any other) does is not relevant. (again, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque) Your position seems to amount to "hey, I personally think it's bad, but I wouldn't impose my views on them; if they think it's so terrible as to jail someone, who am I to say they shouldn't?" This is cultural relativism, which suffers from the problems I outlined in my previous post.

parennoob 12y ago
> We can say that sending someone to jail for putting Buddha on a flyer is objectively bad I don't think this is 'tu quoque'. I have not heard a lot of people (on HN or otherwise) saying that castigating Matt Taylor for wearing a racy shirt is objectively horrible. This would make me think that it is a cultural thing -- i.e. I am alone in thinking it is objectively bad; and therefore probably culturally un-attuned. Therefore, my belief in its objective badness must be wrong. Hence, I believe that putting people in jail for showing a Buddha with headphones, might also be a culturally okay thing to do for the Burmese (just as shaming Matt Taylor for wearing a racy shirt till he cries on TV is culturally okay in the US).