cultural relativism

Examples of cultural relativism in the following topics:

• Ethnocentrism and Cultural Relativism

  • Ethnocentrism, in contrast to cultural relativism, is the tendency to look at the world primarily from the perspective of one's own culture.
  • Cultural relativism can be difficult to maintain when we're confronted with cultures whose practices or beliefs conflict with our own.
  • This approach is known as "cultural relativism."
  • Cultural relativism is the principle that an individual person's beliefs and activities should be understood by others in terms of that individual's own culture.
  • Examine the concepts of ethnocentrism and cultural relativism in relation to your own and other cultures in society

• Ethnocentrism & Cultural Relativism

  • Ethnocentrism is the tendency to look at the world primarily from the perspective of one's own culture.
  • Many claim that ethnocentrism occurs in every society; ironically, ethnocentrism may be something that all cultures have in common.
  • Cultural relativism is the belief that the concepts and values of a culture cannot be fully translated into, or fully understood in, other languages; that a specific cultural artifact (e.g. a ritual) has to be understood in terms of the larger symbolic system of which it is a part.
  • An example of cultural relativism might include slang words from specific languages (and even from particular dialects within a language).
  • There is not a clear English translation of the word, and in order to fully comprehend its many possible uses a cultural relativist would argue that it would be necessary to fully immerse oneself in cultures where the word is used.

• Cultural Universals

  • A cultural universal is an element, pattern, trait, or institution that is common to all human cultures worldwide.
  • There is a tension in cultural anthropology and cultural sociology between the claim that culture is a universal (the fact that all human societies have culture), and that it is also particular (culture takes a tremendous variety of forms around the world).
  • The idea of cultural universals—that specific aspects of culture are common to all human cultures—runs contrary to cultural relativism.
  • Cultural relativism was, in part, a response to Western ethnocentrism.
  • Discuss cultural universals in terms of the various elements of culture, such as norms and beliefs

• Material Culture

  • Material culture consists in physical objects that humans make.
  • People's relationship to and perception of objects are socially and culturally dependent.
  • This view of culture, which came to dominate anthropology between World War I and World War II, implied that each culture was bounded and had to be understood as a whole, on its own terms.
  • The result is a belief in cultural relativism, which suggests that there are no 'better' or 'worse' cultures, just different cultures .
  • They constitute an increasingly significant part of our material culture.

• Cultural Evolution

  • Although more inclusive, this approach to culture still allowes for distinctions between civilized and primitive, or tribal, cultures.
  • For instance, the high culture of elites is now contrasted with popular or pop culture.
  • In this sense, high culture no longer refers to the idea of being cultured, as all people are cultured.
  • Most social scientists today reject the cultured vs. uncultured concept of culture.
  • The result is a belief in cultural relativism, which suggests that there are no "better" or "worse" cultures, just different cultures.

• Language and Perception

  • The crucial question is whether human psychological faculties are mostly universal and innate, or whether they are mostly a result of learning, and, therefore, subject to cultural and social processes that vary between places and times.
  • The Universalist view holds that all humans share the same set of basic faculties, and that variability due to cultural differences is negligible.
  • The relativist position, which basically refers to a kind of Cultural relativism, sees different cultural groups as having different conceptual schemes that are not necessarily compatible or commensurable, nor more or less in accord with the external reality.

• Introduction

  • For that, we need culture.
  • Yet, examples of culture do not, in themselves, present a clear understanding of the concept of culture; culture is more than the object or behavior.
  • For instance, the high culture of elites is now contrasted with popular or pop culture.
  • In this sense, high culture no longer refers to the idea of being cultured, as all people are cultured.
  • The result is a belief in cultural relativism, which suggests that there are no "better" or "worse" cultures, just different cultures.

• Culture and Society

  • Culture is what differentiates one group or society from the next; different societies have different cultures.
  • Different societies have different cultures; however it is important not to confuse the idea of culture with society.
  • Material and nonmaterial aspects of culture are linked, and physical objects often symbolize cultural ideas.
  • For instance, the high culture of elites is now contrasted with popular or pop culture.
  • In this sense, high culture no longer refers to the idea of being "cultured," as all people have culture.

• High and Low Culture

  • High culture most commonly refers to the set of cultural products, mainly in the arts, held in the highest esteem by a culture.
  • Gellner's concept of a high culture extended beyond the arts; he used it to distinguish between different cultures (rather than within a culture), contrasting high cultures with simpler, agrarian low cultures.
  • However, this definition of popular culture has the problem that much "high culture" (e.g., television dramatizations of Jane Austen) is also "popular. " "Pop culture" is also defined as the culture that is "left over" when we have decided what high culture is.
  • A postmodernist approach to popular culture might argue that there is no longer a clear distinction between high culture and popular culture.
  • Discuss the roles of both high culture and popular culture within society

• Cultural Sociology: Researching Culture

  • How do sociologists study culture?
  • One approach to studying culture falls under the label 'cultural sociology', which combines the study of culture with cultural understandings of phenomena.
  • Cultural sociologists look for how people make meaning in their lives out of the different cultural elements that surround them.
  • Not surprisingly, cultural conflict is an optimal scenario for the exploration of culture and cultural interaction.
  • First, he found a cultural border that presented cultural conflict.