Universalist moral claims inevitably produce visible double standards in practice.

Evidence

Non-Westerners also do not hesitate to point to the gaps between Western principle and Western action. Hypocrisy, double standards, and “but nots” are the price of universalist pretensions. Democracy is promoted but not if it brings Islamic fundamentalists to power; nonproliferation is preached for Iran and Iraq but not for Israel; free trade is the elixir of economic growth but not for agriculture; human rights are an issue with China but not with Saudi Arabia; aggression against oil-owning Kuwaitis is massively repulsed but not against non-oil-owning Bosnians. Double standards in practice are the unavoidable price of universal standards of principle. — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 491

Categorization

• APHORISMS: The closing line is a genuinely paradoxical, quotable life-wisdom: that professing universal standards necessarily incurs selective application.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in how moral panics and political signaling layer class and identity concerns onto stated principles.