Who is “we?” What are the boundaries of “how far?” What do you mean by “excuse?”
Nations, including the US, have gone to war over these things. The US (we, for me) has invaded Iraq and Vietnam and Bosnia in the name of stifling those people’s expression of their cultures.
Do we use “culture” as an excuse to not “do the right thing?”
To answer this we have to know how we know what “the right thing” is, and how we give ourselves permission to say that our “right thing” is so right that we allow ourselves to go to war to bring this “right thing” to other people. There’s cultural imperialism, for you.
So, are there basic international human rights that we should leap to defend wherever they are offended? If so, do we have an obligation to defend rights of all people, or can we choose to defend only those peoples’ rights where we have other interests?
I think rights have little to do with it. I think it’s all about power and the expression of power. People use their power until others rise up against it. Everyone is both egocentric, and cultural-centric to one degree or another. To the degree you are egocentric or cultural-centric, you give yourself permission to interfere in other people’s and other culture’s lives. Righteousness plays a role in this, too. We dress up our imperialist behavior by saying we are doing it to protect the rights of oppressed people.
Are they oppressed? Do they want our “help”? Are we really altruistic? Or are we doing these things out of other motives? Finally, should the likelihood of being successful in our efforts play a role in our decision to engage in the effort?
This country has made an enormous number of mistakes in our history with respect to expressing our power outside the country in the name of protecting others. We’ve also had some successes.
Personally, I think that gifts enable oppression. The only rights that matter to people are rights that have been earned. We can be concerned and we can hate what is happening, but we still have to be patient and let other people solve their own problems.
I believe that when we do interfere, it is with hypocrisy. We are really out for our own good, but we dress it up as if we are being altruistic. If we really were altruistic, we would have intervened in the Congo and in East Timor and in Burma and in Sri Lanka and on and on. So, obviously, we are not altruistic.
The best we can do, I think, is to refuse to deal with people whose habits we don’t like. If they oppress women, we don’t trade with them. If they engage in ethnic cleansing, we don’t trade and we urge others not to trade, either. We do everything we can to make them aware of our disapproval of their ways, without violence.
This doesn’t mean we are right or wrong. It’s just a less hypocritical way of expressing our power. If our interests are actively being hurt, then we use military force, but without offering any justification other than we are expressing our own interests. We shouldn’t pretend we actually are using this policy to care for other people. It is far too clear that we don’t actually care about other people. We only care about trade and making money.