Cultural relativism seemd convincing as long as it was based on both a vague and a low view of culture. The low view was implicit in the term culture itself: relativists could plausibly argue that the Western habit of eating potatoes was no better than the Asian habit of eating rice… But it was far […]

The early Muslim geographer, Mas’udi, found the Franks and Slavs of Europe to be the ultimate barbarians, and they became paler, grosser and dumber the further north one went. He blames this on the absence of the sun’s heat. Perhaps tiring of temperature as an explanation, another Muslim traveler of the period attributes the stupidity […]