I am usually the Vocabulary King, but I can’t find a word for something.
What do you call a system of belief in which people are judged by their race or class or other group membership rather than their actions, i.e.., the same thing done by a member of one group is good and by another is bad.
Examples: A white man beating a black man is appropriate because he’s punishing a lower caste member; a black man beating a white man is committing a crime. Or: a black person who commits a street crime is legitimized as a revolutionary acting out “class rage” but a white person who does the same thing is a criminal. Or: American soldiers who blow up someone’s house to teach them a lesson are heroes, but Islamic guerillas who do the same thing are terrorists.
The opposite being a system of morality in which an action is judged independently of the group membership of the actor: you get a ticket for going 100 mph no matter who you are; anyone who beats a child is arrested for assault; any person who becomes an apostate from the religion is put to death, etc.
Is there a word for that difference, or a word for either system?
Be My Blog 
Fascinating question!
Is it a “tip of your tongue” word, or is it a case where we might need a new coinage?
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From a sociology-of-deviance perspective you’re looking at relativist and absolutist definitions of deviance, but I think you might be trying to find something more specific than that.
“Definitions” is important there, though — someone inside the religion that puts apostates to death might consider the fine-grainedness of “apostate” to be relativist even though it looks absolutist from outside.
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My sociological dictionary has gone wandering, but these from a set of online course notes seem accurate if awkwardly phrased:
Those don’t exactly correspond to your examples (particularly the white/black example) but I suspect they might correspond to what you’re after even though the examples might not fit.
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class-o-cratic
I think the one is called “the way things are, for better or worse” and the other is “you wish, man”.
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Re: class-o-cratic
There are parts of every society where the second, group-agnostic system is used though. So even in a very prejudicial society with a lot of stratified casts and communal hatred there are bits that are blind to it. I’m just looking for a good way to define the difference.
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i think you call it capitalism… but i could be totally wrong.
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why you little troll, you! :*
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do i get a cookie, because i really want a cookie… and i’m white, so technically i deserve a cookie…
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Uh, they’re not “Islamic guerillas”, they’re terrists.
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YALALALALALALALALALALALAL
Our “authoritarian” allies only use “interrogation methods” on “terrorist suspects”. I like “pie”.
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It’s called Hypocracy.
(Sorry….)
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that was totally my second guess…
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Right, but it’s not considered hypocrisy when the entire society buys into it. Hypocrisy is what we call it when someone behaves that way without being permitted to do so by the rest of us.
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close
Hypocrisy is what you call it when someone does that on their own instead of following the local social conventions, so we’re pretty close! 🙂
I wish there was a simple single word for that type of situation, though, where the powers that be or society as a whole permits a kind of institutional hypocrisy that’s widely accepted, particularly as applied to privileged or hated groups.
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Re: close
I’ve always called that “moral relativism,” although a quick drive through Wikipedia makes me think that “ethical subjectivism” might be closer to the point.
But perhaps I’m confused. Are you looking for a word that means “there is no universal morality” or one that means “I’m sad to be surrounded by people who do not believe in a universal morality?”
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Re: close
Neither! I meant a word or words that differentiate a moral system in which principles are applied universally and one in which different social groups are held to different standards a priori.
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Re: close
“Hypocrisy is what you call it when someone does that on their own instead of following the local social conventions….”
I know; I just wanted an excuse to use that all-too-popular speling malapropism. 8^)
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i know there are words for these two different things.. cause i remember learning about it in a class but not thinking it was important enough to write down cause it was common sense. haha.
i think it’s like if a society is actions or status oriented or something along those lines.
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My attempts
My attempts:
tribalism
ingroup entitlement
triumphalism
inegalitarianism
noncommensurability (noncommensurism?)
partiality
parity
essentialism
unprincipled
privilege
partisanship
unscrupulous
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Re: My attempts
oops parity => imparity.
Also: clannishness
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Re: My attempts
Exceptionalism
Ethnic infallibility
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My first thought was caste, specifically definitions 2 and 3.
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+1. That is caste.
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In common parlance, “double standard”.
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