Cultural relativism in sociology

Learning Outcomes • Describe and give examples of ethnocentrism and cultural relativism Despite how much humans have in common, cultural differences are far more prevalent than cultural universals. For example, while all cultures have language, analysis of particular language structures and conversational etiquette reveal tremendous differences. In some Middle Eastern cultures, it is common to stand close to others in conversation. North Americans keep more distance and maintain a larger “personal space.” Even something as simple as eating and drinking varies greatly from culture to culture. If your professor comes into an early morning class holding a mug of liquid, what do you assume she is drinking? In the United States, the mug is most likely filled with coffee, not Earl Grey tea, a favorite in England, or Yak Butter tea, a staple in Tibet. The way cuisines vary across cultures fascinates many people. Some travelers pride themselves on their willingness to try unfamiliar foods, like the late, celebrated food writer Anthony Bourdain, while others return home expressing gratitude for their native culture’s fare. Often, people in the United States express disgust at other cultures’ cuisine and think that it’s gross to eat meat from a dog or guinea pig, for example, while they don’t question their own habit of eating cows or pigs. Such attitudes are an example of ethnocentrism, or evaluating and judging another culture based on how it compares to one’s own cultural norms. ...

Cultural relativism is the view that ethical and social standards reflect the cultural context from which they are derived. Cultural relativists uphold that cultures differ fundamentally from one another, and so do the moral frameworks that structure relations within different societies. In international relations, cultural relativists determine whether an action is 'right' or 'wrong' by evaluating it according to the ethical standards of the society within which the action occurs. There is a debate in the field on whether value judgments can be made across cultures. Cultural relativism should not be confused with moral relativism, which holds that moral absolutes guiding individual behavior do not exist as a matter of principle. Cultural Relativism and Universal Human Rights Donnelly's 1984 article attempts to answer the question: how can the competing claims of cultural relativism and universal human rights be reconciled? He details the relationship between relativism and universalism offering an approach to reconcile their tension. 1. Can you think of examples of universal values that supersede the particularities of cultures? What are the challenges associated with determining international standards for morality within cultural relativism? 2. Societies and aspects of their moral frameworks change with time. How is social progress possible within cultural relativism theory? Who are the agents of change? 3. What are the main contributions of cultural relativist thought ...

Cultural relativism and ethnocentrism in sociology are popular terms. These are terms that are learned in introductory sociology courses, but I want to reflect on my own travel experiences through the lens of these terms as an example. First, I should define what these terms mean. What is Cultural Relativism in Sociology? What is Ethnocentrism in Sociology? Sociology teaches cultural relativism as an ideal, but what does it mean to live what we teach? Teaching Cultural Relativism and Ethnocentrism As a professional sociologist, I have taught undergraduate Introductory Sociology courses at Purdue University and other places for several years. Throughout these courses, I find myself repeatedly emphasizing to students the importance of having a cultural relativistic (as opposed to ethnocentric) perspective. Horace Miner’s “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” (1956), as well as through in-class activities examining cultural variations in things like beauty standards, artistic styles, and food preferences. Again and again, I come back to this theme throughout the course because it connects to a core tenet of the discipline of sociology: making the familiar strange. As Peter Berger wrote in “Invitation to Sociology” (1963), Much of the time the sociologist moves in sectors of experience that are familiar to him and to most people in his society. He investigates communities, institutions and activities that one can Peter Berger Stepping Outside our own Context By stepping outside of ...

[ "article:topic", "authorname:openstax", "cultural imperialism", "cultural relativism", "Cultural universals", "material culture", "nonmaterial culture", "xenocentrism", "license:ccby", "showtoc:no", "transcluded:yes", "source[1]-socialsci-565", "program:openstax", "licenseversion:40", "source@https://openstax.org/details/books/introduction-sociology-3e", "source[1]-socialsci-164447" ] Figure 3.2 How would a visitor from a rural region act and feel on this crowded Hong Kong train? (Credit: Eric Chan/flickr) Take the case of going to work on public transportation. Whether people are commuting in Egypt, Ireland, India, Japan, and the U.S., many behaviors will be the same and may reveal patterns. Others will be different. In many societies that enjoy public transportation, a passenger will find a marked bus stop or station, wait for the bus or train, pay an agent before or after boarding, and quietly take a seat if one is available. But when boarding a bus in Cairo, Egypt, passengers might board while the bus is moving, because buses often do not come to a full stop to take on patrons. In Dublin, Ireland, bus riders would be expected to extend an arm to indicate that they want the bus to stop for them. And when boarding a commuter train in Mumbai, India, passengers must squeeze into overstuffed cars amid a lot of pushing and shoving on the crowded platforms. That kind of behavior might be considered rude in other societies, but in Mumbai it reflects the daily challenges of g...

\( \newcommand\) • • Learning Objectives • Discuss cultural universals in terms of the various elements of culture, such as norms and beliefs The sociology of culture concerns culture—usually understood as the ensemble of symbolic codes used by a society—as it is manifested in society. The elements of culture include (1) symbols (anything that carries particular meaning recognized by people who share the same culture); (2) language (system of symbols that allows people to communicate with one another); (3) values (culturally-defined standards that serve as broad guidelines for social living; (4) beliefs (specific statements that people hold to be true); and (5) norms (rules and expectations by which a society guides the behavior of its members). While these elements of culture may be seen in various contexts over time and across geography, a cultural universal is an element, pattern, trait, or institution that is common to all human cultures worldwide. Taken together, the whole body of cultural universals is known as the human condition. Among the cultural universals listed by Donald Brown (1991) are abstract speech, figurative speech and metaphors, antonyms and synonyms, and units of time. First-Cousin Marriage Laws in the U.S.: In states marked dark blue, first-cousin marriage is legal. Light blue signifies that it is legal but has restrictions or exceptions. Pink signifies that it is banned with exceptions; red signifies that it is banned via statute, and dark red signi...

Cultural relativism—‘though truths exist, they are always relative to some cultural placement’—has been much more successful in resisting attacks from defenders of hard truth of various stripes. Its defenders have ranged over a vast diversity of arguments. Some have moved dangerously close to utter skepticism by implying, but never stating, that whatever any given culture claims is true must be true, even if it entails mass genocide or the ritual torture and murder of the innocent. At the opposite extreme, some have labeled our ‘scientific,’ ‘rational,’ ‘antisuperstitious,’ ‘intellectual’ culture as inherently, self-evidently superior to all the naive, primitive, ‘believers’ in claims that violate scientific convictions. As Shweder describes the way too many rationalists, including professed cultural relativists, have viewed the world: Nature is mindless, objective, and visible. It is empty of such unseen, unobservable, meta-physical things as god, sin, obligation, value, morality, and so on. If such things exist at all, they exist only as reality-posits in the mind. And if they exist only in the mind, they are not objective and thus ought not be (sic) allowed to be constraining. If human beings feel constrained by such things, it is only because, not yet realizing their essential nature (self-determination), they do not distinguish between truth and poetry, confusing, quite irrationally, external reality with what exists nowhere else but in their minds (Shweder 1989, p. 1...