I know that every culture has different thought process, and each culture has their own reason for thinking what they think and doing what they do, and I shouldn’t pass judgement on them because I’m not from that culture and I don’t have the full context. And I also know full well the horrible consequences of that, because horrible things happened throughout history just because of that very reason.

But then we have cultures that think it’s ok to be cruel to animals because they are inherently lesser than humans, cultures that approve abuse toward women and children, cultures that force people to bride before anything can be done, cultures that practice barbaric executions while the crowd cheers…

I was kind of inspired to ask this question when reading through comments on this video. Long story short: there is a Korean Youtuber that eats sea animals alive and basically just kills them slowly on camera. Apart from comments that called her a psychopath, people also discussed Korean culture and how to look at that. Some people were like “some cultures deserve to burn in a fire” while some people felt like they had no right to judge a culture. While it’s been proven that the woman isn’t representative of Korean culture and she is just doing that for views, I just can’t help but wonder… what if what she was doing was actually part of Korean culture? What if she was actually a celebrated Youtuber in Korea and they approved of the way she ate? Would that mean Korea culture deserves to be burned in a fire?

This is a dilemma that I still don’t have an answer for. How should I behave around a tradition that doesn’t align to my own moral code? Should I just suppress my feeling because I’m just an outsider looking in?