Relativism versus universalism obscures the real question of justified violence.

Evidence

My discussion of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King is intended in part to show how closely intertwined the two languages—the culturally specific language of prophecy and the universalist language of human rights—have become in the global moral project of America. This needs to be stressed because pitting “relativism” against “universalism” is not, I think, helpful for understanding human rights. Of course everybody generally has an opinion about the customs and beliefs of other people (“other cultures”), regarding them as good, bad, or indifferent. But in my view that fact is less interesting than the question of the kind of violence (moral, legal, military) that judgments justify. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 715

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Reframes the whole relativism/universalism debate: the interesting question is not whether your judgments are culture-bound but what violence they license. A paradigm-shifting reframe, not merely a point.