Some things are just bad

So I’m in a class about ethics, and I’m not really buying it.
Sure, I love the hypothetical discussions of what’s good to do when, but I get so bothered when it all boils down to being relative, when the goodness or badness of something is decided by the context of the culture.
Okay, I get it. You’re so nuanced because you see things in shades of gray.
But some things just have to be bad. Like Crocs.
Imagine this.
You’re a moral relativist in need of a vacation. Looking to relax, you escape to a distant corner of the world.
On a trek through the jungle, you encounter a headhunting tribe who has practiced their headhunting ways for generations.
Though you aim to be friendly, your bright smile and eager wave is culturally interpreted as a vicious insult, which must be punished by death.
While your relativist instinct might insist that you respect the time-tested judgment of their culture, your survival instinct seems a little reluctant to stretch out your neck.
I guess it’s all relative until your own head’s on the stump.
Then, everyone believes in absolutes.
But what, you might ask, if someone volunteers for death?
In 2004, for example, a German man responded to an ad on Craigslist, volunteering himself to be cannibalized by a stranger.
While this may seem to take the legs – and all other body parts for that matter – off my argument, I wonder: What if he’d been stopped by the same headhunting tribe on his way to being eaten?
What if he, happy about his coming dinner date, had likewise waved and smiled to the headhunters, earning a condemnation to death?
Seems to me he’d be a little upset about missing his appointment. He wants to be eaten, not killed by headhunters.
While he’d die either way, I have a nagging feeling that he’d think his run-in with the headhunters was bad.
To me, any loss of human life can never be justified as “relatively” all right. Some things are just bad, and killing is one of them.
I’m sorry for making such a fuss about absolutes. I know they’re not terribly popular anymore.
Once upon a time, most things were defined in clear terms of good or bad, and I’ll admit, for years, such distinctions were abused by those just as guilty as the ones they condemned.
While this might make us feel that seeing things in black in white is simple-minded, there are times I have to believe it’s true.
I have to believe that everyone who sees the homeless on Kirkwood Avenue gets a little uncomfortable after realizing that some people do make a life on the streets.
And I have to believe that everyone who hears about a child that’s been terribly abused gets at least a little upset.
Some things are just bad – especially being killed on your way to being eaten.