“Hottentot morality”*: “If he steals my cow, that is bad. If I steal his cow, that is good”


*“Hottentot morality” is a derogatory, racist, and historically inaccurate phrase popularized in the 19th–20th centuries by European colonizers to describe a supposed moral code of the Khoekhoe (historically called Hottentots) people of southern Africa — and it is now recognized as offensive and false.
In colonial discourse, some European settlers and scholars claimed that Khoekhoe culture was “moral” in a way that contrasted with their own, often using the phrase “Hottentot morality” to mean a set of rules such as: “If he steals my cow, that is bad. If I steal his cow, that is good”.

🤔However, metaphorically the term can be applied to the West's double standards in international politics.