Interesting picture and topic. I will agree with Jeff that a practice is not justified just because it is rooted in a culture's traditions and/or belief system. "Cultural relativism" might seem like a fine idea in the rarified air of a university anthropology department or after you've just taken a massive bong hit, but it's an absurd, even dangerous stance to assume. I am a strong believer the improving influences of modernity (and the scientific method). Evidence-based knowledge about how the world works can go a long way towards challenging the beliefs-- superstitions, really--that underlie unwise, anti-social and often barbaric practices in traditional cultures.

There are a dizzying array of examples to choose from of ages-old practices that are inhumane, socially destructive and all-around stupid that nevertheless make sense within theological and ideological framework of a society and, on grounds that they are somehow "essential" elements of a culture that have been in place "forever", have been allowed to persist far too long. The one that springs immediately to mind is the Indian practice of Sati: widow burning. That's right folks, if you were an pre-colonial-era Indian woman whose husband had died, you would be tossed on the funeral pyre with him and burned alive. Of course, this was one of the first things the British outlawed when they colonized India. Yes, the British were imposing their own sense of morality on a foreign culture in contravention of its core principles...but were they wrong to do so? I certainly don't think so. In clear-cut cases like this, a belief-system that invalidates a individual's right to exist should not be tolerated and should be forced to conform its behaviors, in at least this one area, to the consensus understanding of right and wrong, whether or not doing so is intrusive, "disrespectful" to a foreign society's right to make decisions for itself or somehow upsets it equilibrium of values. What matters most is the life and well-being of the individual.

The case of the child's picture with a retic that's capable of eating it is a little less clear cut, but it still falls along the same continuum of intolerably wrong-headed behaviors as Sati. I am unfamiliar with the beliefs of Thais regarding giant snakes, but I don't think I'm going out on a limb to assume that the child's family believes there to be an acceptably low risk involved in having a retic around a child. Perhaps they have been lulled into "trusting" the snake to be a tamed house-pet or believe it to be divine. However, to our eyes--and we should bear in mind that our sensibilities as observers have been honed by empirical evidence, ie our actual experience with big constrictors and our knowledge of their unpredictability and dangerousness--this picture represents an insane risk. Perhaps if the boy's family had the benefit of our wide-ranging experience and knowledge, which any person with motivation and internet access can avail themselves of, they would share the sense of alarm with which we perceive this situation. Their assumption (rooted in ignorance) that the snake is trustworthy would probably be dispelled by the abundance of hard evidence that there is no such thing as a trustworthy snake and that no bond, supernatural or otherwise, exists between a retic and its keeper that will override a retic's potentially deadly instincts. If the family were aware, as we are, of a reticulated python's unpredictability, I'd be willing to bet they would not expose their child to such grave danger.

This is child endangerment any way you slice it. I cannot blame the child's parents because they probably don't know any better. I can, however, lay the blame for their unwise decisions on ignorance and superstition. But I'm certainly not going to blame my "cultural insensitivity" for allowing me to recognize that this picture represents incredibly bad judgment, whether the parents know it or not, and a stupidly dangerous situation.

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