UNDERSTANDING CULTURE, SOCIETY & POLITICS

UNDERSTANDING
CULTURE, SOCIETY &
POLITICS

Luanne C. Salise
College of Arts and Sciences

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 UNDERSTANDING CULTURE, SOCIETY & POLITICS

The Importance of Cultural Relativism in Attaining

Cultural Understanding

MELC:

Explain the importance of cultural relativism in attaining cultural understanding.

At the end of the module, you should be able to:

1. Define cultural relativism

2. Demonstrate a holistic understanding of culture and society
3. Value culture and express pride of place without being ethnocentric

This module allows the learner to know about cultural relativism and ethnocentrism. We live in a
rapid world with various cultures and different people interacting with each other. This interaction
can be positive or negative depending on the level of sensitivity and respect people have for other
cultural groups.

It becomes natural for us to read the behavior of others in terms of our own standards. But, what
may be right to you may be wrong to them and what may be wrong to you may be right to them.
It is just a matter of respect and deeper understanding.

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Cultural relativism is a principle that an individual person’s beliefs and activities should be
understood by others in terms of that individual’s own culture.

It was established and accepted in anthropological research by Franz Boas in the first few
decades of the 20th century and later popularized by his students.

It refers to not judging a culture to our own standards of what is right or wrong, strange, or
normal. Instead, we should try to understand cultural practices of other groups in its own
cultural context. In other words, right and wrong are culture specific. What is considered
moral in other society may be considered immoral in another, and since no universal standard
of morality exist, no one has the right to judge another society’s customs to be correct or
incorrect.

Cultural relativism is an attempt to judge behavior according to its cultural context (Baleña,
et.al,2016). It is a principle that an individual person‘s beliefs and activities should be
understood by others in terms of that individual‘s own culture. This concept emphasizes the
perspective that no culture is superior to any other culture (Arcinas, 2016) because:

(a) different societies have different moral code;

(b) the moral code of a society determines what is right or wrong within the society;
(c) there are no moral truths that always hold for all people;
(d) the moral code of our own society has no special status, it is but one among many; and
(e) it is arrogant for us to judge other cultures, so we have to be tolerant to them.

ETHNOCENTRISM

Ethnocentrism, in contrast to cultural relativism, is judging another culture solely by the values
and standards of one’s own culture.

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According to William G. Sumner, ethnocentrism is defined as the “technical name for the view
of things in which one’s own group is the center of everything, and all others are scaled and
rated with reference to it.” He further characterized it as often leading to pride, vanity, beliefs
of one’s own group’s superiority and contempt of outsiders.

Ethnocentric individuals born into a particular culture that grow up absorbing the values and
behavior of the culture will develop a worldview that considers their culture to be the norm
(standard). They judge other group or culture specially with concern to language, behavior,
custom religion etc.

The pictures below briefly describe the cultures that exist and are practiced and honored by
some groups of people respectively. It couldn't be denied that the world suffers from cultural
differences due to a lack of acceptance leading to discrimination and racism that greatly
affects the well-being of an individual. Like for examples; these unique tribes particularly in
Suri/Mursi, Ethiopia where their women's beauty is determined by how large their lip plate is;
while the Kayan near Loikaw District, Kayah State, Myanmar, for them, wearing traditional
brass coil neck rings has been a standard of beauty in their tribe. To sum it up, cultural
relativism is the practice of viewing the beliefs, values, and practices of a culture from its own
viewpoint rather than being ethnocentric and viewing the beliefs, values and practices from
your own viewpoint.

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Agbo (2018) Dayton (2020)

Another example is a racial discrimination of a black girl in school. She was judged by the color
of her skin. During the exploration period, the discrimination against black and white was a major
controversial issue. They believed that the darker a person is, the dirtier and impure they are. That is
what an ethnocentric person would say but a cultural relativist believes that there are no ugly women
per se.

(JSY Blog 2019)

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How Cultural Relativism Mitigates Ethnocentrism

It is widely believed in the field of sociology that ethnocentric behavior may be
mitigated through the recognition and application of cultural relativism. A person can practice
cultural relativism by recognizing that our culture shapes what we consider to be beautiful,
ugly, appealing, disgusting, virtuous, funny, and abhorrent and that this should not be the
basis for evaluating other culture. Cultural relativism shapes our understanding of different
issues in the society as to why certain religion believe in this and other not, or how come this
group eat this type of dish, wear this weird clothing, sing and dance along with music while
others prefer not to. What we need is an open heart and unbiased and critical mind, exposure,
education, and involvement in activities, programs supporting and recognizing the uniqueness
and beauty of every culture for us to truly grasp what cultural relativism means.
https://www.slideshare.net/victorsinangote/323989810-ucsphandoutshttps://www.slideshare.net/victorsinangote/323989810-ucsphandouts

Cultural relativism leads to the view that no culture is superior to another culture in
terms of systems of morality, beliefs, values, law, politics, etc. We should not assume that all
of our preferences are based on some objective moral standard. It’s a good idea to keep an
open mind when we encounter practices different from our own.

Ethnocentrism, Xenocentrism and Cultural Relativism as Orientations in

Viewing Other Cultures

Cultural variation is the differences in social behaviors that different cultures exhibit around
the world. What may be considered good etiquette in one culture may be considered bad
etiquette in another. In relation to this, there are important perceptions on cultural variability:
ethnocentrism, xenocentrism and cultural relativism.

Ethnocentrism is a perception that arises from the fact that cultures differ, and each culture
defines reality differently. This happens when judging another culture solely by the values and
standards of one‘s own culture (Baleña, et.al,2016).

This is the tendency to see and evaluate other cultures in terms of one‘s own race, nation or
culture. This is the feeling or belief that one‘s culture is better than the rest.

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Examples of Ethnocentrism
• Judging Other Countries' Diets.
• Expecting Others to Speak English.
• Chopsticks vs Western Cutlery.
• My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
• Thinking you Don't have an Accent (And Everyone else Does!)
• Judging Women's Cultural Outfits.
• Colonial Imperialism.

Whereas xenocentrism is the opposite of ethnocentrism, the belief that one‘s culture is
inferior compared to others. People are highly influenced by the culture or many culture
outside the realm of their society. This could be one of the effects of globalization. Exposure to
cultural practices of others may make one individual or group of individuals to give preference
to the ideas, lifestyle, and products of other culture.

Filipinos, for example, prefer to buy imported items from other countries, such as
America, since they believe those products are superior to their own.

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