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Cultural Relativism

Entry 2318, on 2024-01-22 at 18:14:37 (Rating 4, Philosophy)

Cultural Relativism is the doctrine that the merit and efficacy of a belief or tradition can only be evaluated in the context of that culture.

For example, we cannot say that democracy is the best form of government just because it has worked fairly well in the West, because there are countries where monarchy or even dictatorship might be more effective. And we cannot condemn some Islamic societies who force women into wearing traditional coverings, because every society has dress codes and who is to say which is right and wrong? And maybe traditional native customs of cannibalism and inter-tribal warfare are entirely reasonable within the context of the culture at the time, and judging those negatively isn't justified.

You might be surprised to learn that I partially agree. I don't believe in objective morality. In other words there are no absolute rights or wrongs. I don't entirely go along with utilitarianism either, in case you were wondering, because my thoughts on this are based around pragmatism.

So I don't think there is absolute right and wrong, but I do think some things are more right than others, and I think that, given a chance to offer an honest opinion, the vast majority of people would agree.

For example, if people were offered the opportunity to return to a traditional culture where warfare, slavery, and cannibalism existed, and if they gave an honest answer, as opposed to trying to justify that previous activity, they would choose modern society instead, which is relatively peaceful and has eliminated cannibalism and slavery.

So I would say that you could make a case to say that having no slavery is better than having slavery, although I could probably think of some situations where I could justify it. Slavery has been a feature of almost every society in the past, and it was primarily the British who helped eliminate it from "modern" societies.

Note that there is no fundamental objective principle or law which makes slavery undesirable; its rejection is simply an inevitable outcome of any person living in a cooperative community (that is, all of them) where relatively benevolent interaction with others is essential.

Also note that there will always be some who will not agree with the majority. Psychopaths and extremists exist in every society, and they might disagree, but I'm talking about the opinions which are relatively acceptable and widely held. And I know this is close to a "majority rules" situation, and there are well known problems with that, but what are the alternatives?

I guess we could have a technocratic society as advocated by Plato (if I remember correctly) where a group of "experts" (of course, in Plato's case, philosophers) ruled over the rest. Sounds great in theory, but should it be philosophers? What about political scientists, or sociologists, or management experts? Obviously, this rapidly descends into a nightmare situation!

So here in New Zealand we might be tempted to say that imposing Western values onto Maori cannot be justified, but ask Maori people, and those of them who give an honest answer (hopefully most of them, minus the radicals) would admit they would rather have an iPhone than a taiaha, they would rather live in peace than with the threat of invasion from the neighbouring tribe, and they would rather eat KFC (sorry about that stereotype) than cousin Rangi's head.

And I'm not so sure about the situation in Israel (since I don't live there) but I suspect if the people of Gaza could be separated from the hateful rhetoric of Hamas for long enough, they might admit that life under the Israeli government is far better than life under Hamas. Before the latest conflict, hundreds of thousands (again, if I remember correctly) of them crossed the border to work in Israel every day. How many Israelis did the opposite? That's right: none!

I think in both of these cases there is one culture which is greatly superior to the other, not by divine proclamation, or by some higher law, but by the fact that the vast majority of people, given a free choice and fair information, would choose one over the other.

The woke mob claiming all cultures are equal, or even that "primitive" cultures are superior, are really the cause of massive delusion and failure to progress for so many. Cultural relativism has some merit, but as is so often the case, it goes too far and is taken too seriously by people who have trouble thinking for themselves.

Comment 1 (7559) by Anonymous on 2024-01-23 at 19:26:01:

Yes, cultural relativism is nice (because it is inherently respectful), but it is not what we practically need now; it becomes counterproductive if it leads to letting everyone live in their own (cultural) fashion. Friedrich the Great of Prussia is supposed to have said: “in my empire everyone can be happy after their own fashion” – probably as long as they observed his laws. Infinite tolerance and cultural liberalism does not work. Popper’s dictum: “only intolerance should not be tolerated” doesn't work either because it isn’t nuanced enough. Total tolerance can only work if people can separate themselves or culturally distinct groups can withdraw from others and have no interaction. (Also bear in mind the wisdom: Freedom ends where others’ freedom begins, expressed by eminent minds in many different versions.)

This discursive possibility of cultural relativism and the respect and liberty it entails has a space dimension. Practically it ends when it is no longer possible to secrete oneself away and live one’s own isolated life. On a grander scale it stops with globalisation. (In the early part of it, dominant Western nations dictated their standards to the rest of the world.) Modern reason dictates that compromises (as in cosmopolitanism) or better still universal rules, laws, conventions, norms and standards, ethics and values be found, or evolved, and given global reach – so as to make it possible for all of humanity to live and interact peacefully together, avoiding constant friction. It needs voluntary agreement of course. Humanity has reached that point where simply everybody’s rules and traditions cannot be equally respected and allowed to be applied willy-nilly. That’s why humanity tries to have a functioning UN, a ICJ, Human Rights, and other international institutions and laws and conventions etc. – which then alas are mostly ignored and ridiculed. (e.g. because it is inconvenient to be accused of genocide and it is so rewarding to beat the enemy to a pulp.) Or the global sheriff, the US, has other ideas.

Comment 2 (7560) by OJB on 2024-01-23 at 21:50:39:

Yes, cultural relativism seems superficially nice, just like a lot of other poorly considered ideas (equity, Marxism, affirmative action, etc) all seem good until they are actually put into action.

I think we should have tolerance for alternative cultures, because people should have maximum freedom to do what they want, and maybe they have some good ideas we could learn from. But some cultures seem to have very little redeeming merit, at least according to those "free thinking rational majorities" I mentioned above. I would put Islamic culture in this category, for example.

I'm not so convinced that large, bureaucratic, out of touch (?) institutions like the UN, ICJ, etc can make much contribution to making the world better. As you said, the "global sheriff" tends to override anything they want to do anyway. Luckily the US, despite its obvious flaws, is probably about the best "global sheriff" we can reasonably expect to have.

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