right or wrong?
As far as I'm concerned, if you're going to make things right and wrong you can never even talk about fulfilling your bodhisattva vows. ~ Pema Chodron; No Right or Wrong , an online interview published on Tricycle I am no moralist. My doctoral thesis explored the reasons why women in various countries endorsed the practice of female circumcision. The thesis called for cultural sensitivity and was, in a sense, an apologetics more than a dissertation. Even if the tradition of circumcision appeared to me as harmful and senseless, I argued, there is no absolute right or wrong, no absolute moral standard, by which I, as a cultural outsider, can judge this practice or the people who endorse it as intrinsically “bad”. Moral values and judgments are relative to our cultures and traditions. Far be it from me to declare any action universally wrong even if I may see it as wrong myself. I stand by this argument. What I cannot stand i...