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What IS that? Is it when I eat Mexican food, and speak Spanish to the waitress? Is it when I say hello to my Muslim neighbor instead of telling him to get fucked?? Is it when I see my black friends, and say, waaasssss up, dude? Is it when I think my gay friends ought to get the same rights I have???
Clearly, I don't know what it is.. I'm sure it's much less complicated than I've outlined..
According to what I was taught decades ago in Cultural Anthropology 101, it is understanding and judging a culture according to its own values and assumptions.
The idea is based on the observation that there is no universal standard. All our ideas (about right, wrong, polite, rude, sensible, foolish, obvious, etc.) are culturally taught. If we apply our values and assumptions to a different culture, we are likely to make the following "errors"
- misunderstand social cues and relationships.
- misunderstand the experience of people who live within the culture.
- judge or evaluate the people or practices in the culture "unfairly" (more positively or negatively than people in the culture would.)
- have unrealistic expectations of behavior and events.
- think we and our culture are better than people in other cultures think we are.
I am sure you can see it has very limited applications, but the most important one is not behaving like an ass when traveling abroad.
the most important one is not behaving like an ass when traveling abroad.
Hello again, marcus:
Then it IS eating Mexican food and speaking Spanish.. I jest, of course, but only a little bit.. After all, I learned to love Mexican food and speak Spanish when I IMMERSED myself into the Mexican culture..
Admittedly, much of that immersion was forced upon me when the chief of police discovered a couple hundred pounds of pot in my airplane, but I went with it. So, if you wanna get immersed, that's the way to do it..
It sounds a lot worse than it actually was. One of their cultural norms that WE should adopt, is that they don't think it's their job to make their prisoners lives miserable.. It's their job to KEEP them there. However they want to live while in jail is up to them.. So, if you can afford it, you eat well, you smoke the BEST pot, and you screw the prettiest girls..
In terms of corrections, they're sooo far behind us, they're WAY ahead. I wrote a book about it..
excon
PS> Lest anyone think the girls I refer to aren't really girls, think again.. If a prisoner is from outta town, when his family visits, they move right INTO the jail for a few days.. Your visitors can spend the night if they wish.. Suffice to say, the jail was full of women, and children all the time.
Like I said, they're SOOOO far behind us, they're WAYYY ahead..
I do.. Why wouldn't I? I say that to everybody. I also call 'em Dude. You DO notice that I call lots of people Dude, don't you? Do you think it's disrespectful? As I said, these are my FRIENDS.. They're NOT casual acquaintances.. I'm REAL with my friends. They're not gang bangers after all..
Cultural relativism is just an idea, a way to think. Ideas, like hammers, are only dangerous when people use them without thinking, apply them to problems they are ill suited to, or use them to do stupid or dangerous things.
Like most ideas, it is subject to people's tendency to syncretize it with other ideas, or to apply it selectively.
For example, applying the principles of cultural relativism is invaluable when marketing products. Not only does it help the company to shape the product to the needs and strategies of the particular market, but it enables the marketers to communicate about the product in terms that are meaningful to the consumers in that market.
By contrast, cultural relativism is useless when evaluating a treaty to decide whether to participate in it. Evaluating and validating a culture according to its own values cannot tell you whether your needs will be met by the terms of the treaty. The other culture's concepts of right and wrong do not change what your requirements are.
Great post. I agree 100% and appropriate the tool analogy.
One of the ways in which cultural relativity is misused is in moral arguments as merely an aspect of moral relativism. When used in this way, all cultures are presumed good by virtue of the fact that they are cultures. They must be good in their own terms or they would not persist as culture. When used this way, it is a tool used to paint an opponent as a bigot or a racist. I find that people misusing cultural relativism in this way can be corrected by pointing out that the Nazis had their own culture. Though it is only occasional that this makes people receptive to perspectives concerning matters such as a culture of poverty in inner cities and rural slums.
Do you mean that it's a misapplication of cultural relativism to (a) observe that morality is relative to culture; or (b) thereby conclude that we have to respect other cultures' values at the expense of our own? If you mean the latter then I'd agree that's over-extended from cultural relativism, and not very defensible either. Otherwise, I'd disagree
I mean that cultural relativism is often used interchangeably with moral relativism. This is a misapplication because cultural relativism has moral relativism included only as a small part of the concept and is often not even what is meant by cultural relativism. It is a misuse when it is employed to shut down an argument because of the unsupported supposition that no judgment can be made.
As for moral debates, you and I have had several very long threads on the matter over the years, and we disagree on some fundamental levels. I’d rather not repeat the topic again because you always seem to forget what was said between us in the past.
Thanks for the clarification. I agree there's no need to rehash old ground; my memory serves me well enough to know that's not going to be productive at this point (though it does me poor service on the particulars). I was just trying to better understand the distinction you were making in your original comment, so thanks for the elaboration on that point.
You’re welcome. For what it’s worth we came around to a very similar conclusion concerning “ought” but from a precisely opposite fundamental premise. This opposite premise causes us to disagree on many particulars of the subject, which is why the similar conclusion was noteworthy.
I don’t believe either you or I will be swayed from our fundamental premises.
(a) observe that morality is relative to culture; or (b) thereby conclude that we have to respect other cultures' values at the expense of our own?
Actually both are misapplications of cultural relativism.
Option a) is close. Concepts of morality are relative to culture. The moral concepts of most cultures are similar, but the small differences are important. There are some variations that are radically different. The only point of this is that if we assume everyone everywhere has the same idea of right and wrong, we are likely to misunderstand a lot of the people in the world.
The concept/practice of cultural relativism originally was developed in the field of cultural anthropology. Anthropologists (from Euro-American culture) realized that in order to understand other cultures, it was important to acknowledge that they do not hold the same sets of assumptions, values, beliefs, etc. as those of the anthropologists. Therefore, to draw conclusions about non-Western cultures based on Western assumptions and patterns of thinking would result in misunderstandings (which would completely nullify the whole point of studying other cultures.)
The addition of not judging other cultures by our own standards, or respect their values at the expense of our own is a perversion of the whole concept. It would make no sense to learn about anything (including a culture) and then make no evaluations or judgments about it.
Neither would it make any sense to automatically and without reasoned consideration respect any one culture over another.
I know what cultural relativism is, and it's conceptual history; I would maintain that (a) is accurate because morality only exists conceptually. Like unicorns and Santa. At any rate, I was just asking to make sure I understood Amarel's particular usage and argument.
Incidentally, your last two observations seem at odds with one another. It can't both be sensible to judge other cultures from your own inculturated perspective and insensible to respect any one culture over another, because the former fundamentally engages in the latter.
Incidentally, your last two observations seem at odds with one another. It can't both be sensible to judge other cultures from your own inculturated perspective and insensible to respect any one culture over another, because the former fundamentally engages in the latter
Not really. The important words in my last statement are "automatically and without reasoned consideration".
It is totally consistent to say that we should learn about cultures and understand them before judging them, and we should understand cultures before deciding how much to respect them.
The perversion of cultural relativism was when it attempted to go beyond being a tool to aid understanding, and drifted into being a pseudo-morality.
Hm. Fair point. I glossed over that qualifier, and you're right that it makes a significant difference.
Although I'm not quite clear how one can make a deliberate and reasoned consideration that is not ultimately grounded in the cultural values one has already learned; our acculturation seems like an inescapably automatic and unreasoned precondition on our deliberations and reasoning. But if it were possible, then those observations are compatible.
Curious to know what you mean by "pseudo-morality"? What makes it not really morality?
When used in this way, all cultures are presumed good by virtue of the fact that they are cultures. They must be good in their own terms or they would not persist as culture. When used this way, it is a tool used to paint an opponent as a bigot or a racist.
That is an obvious misuse of the tool. The point of the cultural relativism is to suspend assumptions in order to aid in understanding, not to invalidate judgments or evaluations.
What is ironic about this argument strategy is that it does not deal with the culture of the opponent (the one painted as a bigot/racist) in terms of cultural relativism.
The general tendency in this argument strategy is automatic invalidation of one's own culture in the face of a different culture. Because cultural relativism is a product/aspect of Western/Euro-American culture, other cultures cannot be required to apply the same principle when dealing with other cultures, including Western culture.
The problem many people have is that cultural relativism is useless when making evaluations of a culture, because when applied to any culture, the culture is automatically "good".
No evaluation can be conducted without a rubric of some sort, whether explicit or implied. For example, evaluation for technological innovation will rate some cultures higher/better than they would be rated if the standard were continuance of traditions, or linguistic stability and continuity.
I keep waiting for the folks who demand cultural relativism across contemporary cultures to apply the principle across time.
The Antebellum agrarian culture of the Southern states was different than that of modern urban Northern states.
What happens when a privileged liberal Harvard or Yale ethnic studies grad applies cultural relativism to white slave-owners like Thomas Jefferson or Robert E. Lee?
People’s reluctance to apply relativism in this way indicates a tendency toward an objective view of morality, though it is typically only applied when doing so is of personal benefit. This commonly inconsistent application of concepts would normally lead to cognitive dissonance, but only if a given person examines their own thoughts or beliefs.
the correct word is "appreciate", not "appropriate"
about your post: Great post. I agree 100% and appropriate the tool analogy.
It makes sense both ways. I thought you were trying to communicate that you agreed with the idea to the extent that you were choosing to take the analogy for yourself, and therefore using appropriate as a verb.
In this case I had fat fingered the text. I like to give Nom props when he is correct about something, even if it is only ever in matters of grammar.
xMathFanx posts are littered with the precise same atypical language problems, so I personally have no idea why you keep pretending to be different people.
A lot of what you think are language problems are just people using the English language in a more detailed and nuanced way than you do.
It is actually common among educated people, for example, to use more than just the first or second definition listed for a word. It is actually common for people to pun. It is extremely common for people to make use of connotative definitions as much or more often than denotative ones.
marcusmoon (to Nomenclature): A lot of what you think are language problems are just people using the English language in a more detailed and nuanced way than you do.
It is actually common among educated people, for example, to use more than just the first or second definition listed for a word. It is actually common for people to pun. It is extremely common for people to make use of connotative definitions as much or more often than denotative ones.
Exactly. I have attempted to explain this to Nom before but to no avail. A prime example of this is when he criticized your use of the word "conceit" in a literary context simply because he is uneducated in Literature and therefore unfamiliar with the definition of the word in that context.
Furthermore, as I have stated before, it is interesting that Nom (who is a Journalist) finds any written language over that of a Freshman Undergraduate in College to be "confusing" and indicative that such a person must be resorting to a thesaurus left-and-right in order to get the grammatical structure correct (or semi-correct). In fact, it is evidence that Nom has a Reading Level on par with a first year Undergrad and becomes incredibly frustrated when frequently confronted by people who are above his Reading Level.
Also, if you haven't already, I would recommend taking the time to read brontoraptor's article on "Grammar Bullies" as it makes a strong case
You have claimed that Amarel/xMathFanx/Fascism/Marcusmoon/WinstonC/and others(?) are all the same person even though all of us have disagreements with each other and have corrected you about this many times before.
And you don't think that you are a serial Conspiracy Theorist?
Lol. Exactly. Just wait, you will be more people as well before you know it
You know full well GoodListener is a FactMachine alt account because FactMachine is your only political ally on this entire website; aside from perhaps bronto. Lies and deception simply drip from you like water drips from a leaking tap.
Your alt accounts are Amarel and Fascist. MarcusMoon is a probable alt. Winston is not one of yours.
You began doing that after I exposed your deception, you delusional Israeli fascist
I have been active on CD for a month and a half. Some others you accuse me of being have been active for up to years on CD. Any disagreements we have clearly did not "just start" in the manner you are claiming
I have been active on CD for a month and a half. Some others you accuse me of being have been active for up to years on CD.
@Amarel
The problem is that you are just not intelligent enough to be this dishonest. For example, you try here to create a fake reason why you cannot be these other people, immediately after you accuse me of being Quantumhead, who was posting here several months before I even joined!! You are displaying radical double standards in your attacks, which explicitly implies that you are being dishonest.
I don't think you are one of his. He's deliberately ignoring the sarcasm in a a sarcastic allegation I made when he linked a thread about The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene.
Using the word "appropriate" instead of "appreciate" is a language problem you dopey fuck.
Both words are verbs. Both words have clear and sensible meaning in the context of both the sentence and the conversation. He may have typed an unintended word, but it did not result in a language problem.
Shut up you retard.
This sentence actually has a language problem. You need a comma after the up.
You ought to put more work into your insults. The prepubescent shallowness of your insults indicates either personal immaturity or lack of facility with the English language.
Why do you go out of your way to project such an unflattering persona?
It depends on what you mean by dangerous: it certainly can cause people to suspend judgement on harmful activity and as a result not take action to prevent such activities.
Cultural relativism is usually used to better understand the motivations and actions of individuals in other cultures, however it is often misapplied to attempt to prevent evaluations of the relative merit of cultures and their practices. If we can make relative merit judgements on certain practices of a culture, such as female genital mutilation or slavery, why is it not possible to make a relative merit judgement of a culture as a whole?
The only thing more dangerous than cultural relativism is cultural indifference. Because it's indifference that allows people to kill and screw the hell out of each other without being deterred by empathy or guilt.
