The Principle of Cultural Relativism

Huiyu Wang

Prof. Lamb

Anthropology 1a

20 September 2014

                         The principle of Cultural Relativism

Nowadays, Globalization is having a great influence in the world. Although we live in a place which is consisted of 196 countries, each country is connected with each other strongly and tightly. As Renato Rosaldo says, “cultures are not separate, and they exist side by side in the same space” (2000: 33). Therefore, for now, it is significant for us to focus even more on the principle of cultural relativism in order to adapt this environment. Cultural Relativism definitely does not belong to the easy topic category to discuss because it has been a controversial subject for years. Every group has different definition and perspective on it. Despite its difficulty, from my own point of view, cultural relativism is a valuable perspective.

To examine the principle of cultural relativism, we need to figure out what is cultural relativism first. It is a principle that “all cultural systems are inherently equal in value and, therefore, that each cultural item must be understood on its own terms” (ACA: G-2). However, cultural relativism neither means nor includes ethical relativism to me. When some culture practices are threatening or endangering other cultures, the problems should be elevated to an ethical level, rather than a cultural level. If ethical relativism is part of cultural relativism, then “Human differences, which ideologies such as Nazism attributed to race, should be understood as cultural” (Rosaldo 2000: 1). The “core notions of cultural relativism”, as Rosaldo concludes, “are the urgency of studying and learning from other cultures and the belief that because somebody has a different form of life, they are not deranged, or evil” (2000，3-4).

The perspective of cultural relativism is often generated by anthropologists when they are experiencing different cultures. In Rosaldo’s work, he uses his own fieldwork experience to illustrate his understanding of cultural relativism. In the late 1960s, he lived with a Filipino tribe which was full of headhunters. He was afraid of them at first, but something happened changed his view completely. During the Vietnam war, he was called for draft. Before he shared the news to the headhunters, he thought they would think better of him since he was going to kill people. However, the result was totally reversed, showing that they felt sorry for him and promised to protect him. As headhunters note, to them, it was unacceptable for a commander in a war to “tell others to give up their lives, to put themselves so at risk that it's highly likely they'll lose their lives” (Rosaldo, 6). Another work, written by Fuambai Ahmadu, also shows the similar perspective of cultural relativism.Ahmadu is an African woman who is grown up in the U.S. Through the entire essay, she uses the voice of a insider and her own experience to interpret a controversial practice---female genital mutilation. Most assertions of FGM from common westerns are “based on the alleged physical, psychological and sexual effects ” rather than “the indigenous Kono cosmology, culture, and society” (Ahmadu 2000: 284). However, after Ahmadu experiences the whole process of the ritual, she understands the meaning of it. To the FGM practitioners, “only children are natural”, and they “view humans as naturally androgynous beings who must later undergo rebirth to be made female and male in order to be cultural” (Ahmadu 2000: 295). Meanwhile, most young women have begun to honor this practice since they were young under the influence of their culture. Thus, they choose to practice this ritual rather than being forced by men and their parents.