Convenient Morality:

How the West Judges the World by Standards It Ignores

By: Vix Burgett-Prunty

Think about how often we hear Western nations,especially those with majority white power structures, position themselves as the moral compass of the world. They call out human rights abuses, corruption, and environmental destruction elsewhere, but that outrage tends to fade when the mirror turns back on them. It’s not that their criticisms are always wrong, but the inconsistency tells a deeper story.

Take foreign policy, for example. The US and Europe have a long history of military interventions framed as noble missions—spreading democracy, stopping tyrants, saving people from themselves. But look at the aftermath. Countries left in ruins, puppet governments installed, resources extracted, and then when the chaos erupts, the same powers act shocked. The narrative stays centered on Western intentions being pure, never mind the outcomes. Meanwhile, if a non-Western nation flexes its influence, it’s labeled aggressive or expansionist. Or consider how the West lectures the Global South on pollution and overpopulation while ignoring its own role in the climate crisis. Europe and America industrialized first, burned fossil fuels like there was no tomorrow, and now that other countries are trying to develop, they’re told to stay poor for the planet’s sake. All while Western lifestyles (mass consumption, fast fashion, disposable everything) keep fueling the same problems they shame others for.

Daily record 1919

Then there’s the way knowledge and culture get policed. Western philosophy, science, and art are treated as universal, the baseline for what counts as “civilized.” But when other traditions offer different ways of thinking, they’re often treated as niche, exotic, or less credible. The West borrows freely from these cultures (spiritual practices, music, fashion) while stripping away context and profit off them. But if a non-Western country adapts Western ideas, it’s seen as progress, not appropriation.

Economically, it’s the same game. Western corporations outsource labor to countries with weak worker protections, paying pennies so consumers at home can have cheap gadgets and clothes. When sweatshop conditions get exposed, there’s performative outrage, but nothing changes because the system depends on that exploitation. Meanwhile, back home, gig workers grind with no benefits, and prison labor fills supply chains, but that’s just “how the economy works.”

Underneath all this is an unspoken assumption: the West gets to make the rules, enforce them on others, and then act offended when called out for not following them itself. It’s not just about race in the literal sense, but about power; who has it, who gets to define what’s right, and who gets to ignore their own hypocrisy without consequence.

The real question isn’t whether Western nations have flaws. Every society does. It’s why they keep insisting on their own innocence while setting the terms for who gets judged. That’s the quiet engine of white supremacy: not just who holds power, but how they keep it by pretending they earned it fairly and use it justly.

What’s wild is how fragile that narrative gets when you poke at it. The second someone points out the contradictions, the defenses come up. Claims of being attacked, misunderstood, or unfairly criticized. But that defensiveness just proves the point. If the moral high ground were so solid, it wouldn’t crumble under basic questions.

So what’s the fix? It starts with dropping the double standards. Hold power accountable, no matter where it sits. Acknowledge history without sugarcoating it. And maybe, just maybe, stop assuming the West is the teacher of the world when it’s still got so much homework left to do.