Cultural Relativism --- A Critical Tool

By Xiaoqiu Fu

Shen, the first colleague I met on my first day of work

in Hainan Normal University, told me she had a sister who

was eight years younger than her. I was very surprised to

hear that, because born in the era of strict family plan

of China in the early 1980s, both Shen and I could hardly

expect any siblings under our parents. But she continued

that, to my greater surprise, her parents had falsified

their nationality into Li ethnicity in order to be

permitted to bear another child who was supposed to be a

boy. And now married for 3 years, she herself also feels

the burden of bearing a boy under both of her parents and

parents-in-law. Compared with my peers of inland China,

such prefer-boys-over-girls idea is condemned as one of

the “feudalistic ideologies”. But shall I blame, like the

others, such an unreasonable tradition and ascribe the

underdevelopment of Hainan to their lagged minds? I

brought the question to my students of the first grade,

the reaction was distinct between two groups— one that

took it for granted were mostly the local residents, the

other that were similarly shocked like me were from

inland China. Later, I consulted another colleague who

had a 12-year-old younger brother, and she gave me a

fairly reasonable explanation of the tradition.

Originally, the inhabitants of Hainan Island lived on

farming in mountainous areas. When the daughters married

into other villages far away from the parents, they

seldom came back to their parents except for some

specific festivals or situations. So the parents could

only depend on their sons to take care of them when they

were getting old. And traditionally, for once a year’s

ancestral ceremony, only male descendants were allowed to

join in. The family having the most male descendants

would always be admired for having the biggest

ceremonies. Bearing sons, therefore, has become a

historically bestowed responsibility for the woman in a

family. Now, can I simply categorize these Hainan local

inhabitants as “backward” or “primitive” just because

they think or behave differently from what I have taken

for granted to be natural and normal?

Such a question resounds with the recurring theme of

cultural relativism: what is right and normal in one

culture may be abnormal or unreasonable in another

culture, and vice versa. The basic tenet of cultural

relativism is that culture is reared in its specific

historical context, and is incomparable in isolation from

such a context. Accordingly, any categorical or

judgmental words like "backward" and "primitive" shall

not be used to label certain culture just from the

perspectives of one's own culture. Therefore, when we

intend to blame the traditional bearing-a-boy's duty of

women in Hainan, or the preference of boys over girls, we

need to hold a minute and ask ourselves before giving any

judgmental comments, why and how they are different from

us.

1. Overview of (postmodern) cultural relativism

Epistemologically, cultural relativism can be traced to

German Enlightenment of which the most representative

figure is Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) who founded the

"critical philosophy" and created the concept "conditions

of possibility" both of which can be found to permeate in

the cultural relativism actually developed by Franz Boas

in the early 1900s. The critical philosophy was initiated

by Kant to reconcile the philosophical disputes between

empiricism and rationalism----the knowledge comes through

experience or reason. He argued that experience needs to

be processed by reason which, in turn, also needs to be

applied to experience, and that our knowledge about the

external world is based on both experience and a priori

concepts. These a priori concepts, which therefore, need to

be understood first as the basis to make any things,

knowledge or ideas possible, are the conditions of

possibility. Kant has a profound influence in philosophy

in that he proposes a critical view towards the way we

approach to knowledge and the knowledge we have gained,

and also offers a relativistic perspective to our

perceptions. He was cited to have achieved a "paradigm

shift".

Rooted in Kant's critical philosophy, cultural relativism

emerged and developed under specific historical dynamics.

In the early twentieth century, the emergence of

Relativity and Quantum Mechanism invoked the skepticism

towards the normal science and the relativity and

uncertainty on people's common knowledge about the world.

Such a tremendous "paradigm shift" eventually resulted in

the revolution of science in all aspects. People began to

cast doubt upon the validity of cultural universalism

prevalent before the 1920s. It was mostly criticized on

its assumption of the universality of human culture

development and common core values. The mainstream

cultural studies in Europe were then criticized on its

Western ethnocentrism. The ethno-relativism, from very

beginning, became the mission of cultural relativists. In

this way, the opposition to cultural ethnocentrism is the

second dynamic to the emergence of cultural relativism.

The third historical dynamic is postmodernism, as the

product of World War Two, becoming a great push to the

post-war development of cultural relativism. And some

assumptions of postmodernism and post-war cultural

relativism overlap. Postmodernism is mainly characterized

by a refusal of the predominant dichotomy in Western

metaphysics and humanism. Postmodernism denies the

universally valid claims for all groups and cultures, but

focuses on the individually relative truths.

Interpretation is ubiquitous in postmodernism. In the

postmodern understanding, culture is indefinable, because

every individual has his own understanding of culture.

The prevalent truth or reality doesn't exist.

Postmodernism, as an extreme critical tool, when

incorporated with cultural relativism, actually

transformed the latter to deviate from the conventional

principles that the Boasian anthropologists has

established.

From the perspective of its origin, cultural relativism

is started in anthropology. The aforementioned Franz Boas

(1858-1942) is the one who first established "cultural

relativism" as a principle for anthropological research

and first illuminated the idea in his Museums of Ethnology

and Their Classification (1887): "...civilization is not

something absolute, but ... is relative, and ... our

ideas and conceptions are true only so far as our

civilization goes." Franz Boas is a German-American

anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology who

has been entitled "the Father of American Anthropology"

and "the Father of Modern Anthropology". His multi-

disciplinary background has great influence on his

anthropological research. He received training in physics

and geography during his doctoral and post-doctoral work,

which in turn bestows him with the application of

scientific method in his study of human cultures and

societies, which can be presented in The Mind of Primitive Man

(1911), in which he gives out statistic figures on the

brain weights and stature variability among different

races. And his geographical background has particularly

trained him to consider detailed factors of specific

historical context in the shaping of any cultural

phenomenon. According to Boas (1963:149), culture is

defined as

the totality of the mental and physical reactions and

activities that characterize the behavior of the individuals

composing a social group collectively and individually in

relation to their natural environment, to other groups, to

members of the group itself, and of each individual to himself.

The incommensurability and diversity are the two key

concepts permeating in cultural relativism. There is no

common standard to measure culture, and culture is

diversified, free of ranking categorization.

Cultural relativism's contribution to anthropology is

mainly on its methodological attitude and tool. The

principle of cultural relativism encourages

anthropologists to find out creative ways trying to avoid

ethnocentrism and advocates ethnological tool to approach

cultures. Its another important contribution is in that

it has provided a critical view to culture-related

researches. It has also made far-reaching influence on

other studies, like linguistics, translation, culture and

intercultural studies.

2. Critiques on and defense for cultural relativism

Cultural relativism is criticized for that it negates

some fundamental truths universally accepted in the human

world and denies the possibility of shaping the world in

a better way. Thus it may be used as a good excuse for

some universally cursed inhumane behaviors like genocide,

racism. Its critiques are also on the incommensurability

which precludes the possibility of any cross-cultural

understanding or dialogue, for the cultural or national

boundary clarification has become analytically and

methodologically impossible. Its refusal of universality

invokes the worries on the possible nihilism, especially

with the incorporation of postmodernism. Because it

negates the common problems that all cultures confront in

the world.

The critiques on cultural relativism concentrate on its

implied moral relativism (Tilley, 1998, 2000): "different

cultures are subject to different moral standards" or

"the moral standards of one culture do not apply to

others". Accordingly, cultural relativism is criticized

to have underlain "many effort to resist modify, or

influence international human rights agreements."

(1998:276) Such misinterpretation of cultural relativism

resulted from its popularity after WWII, especially with

the incorporation of postmodernism. Cultural relativism

is "developed more as a doctrine, or position, than as a

method." (Marcus & Fischer, 1986:20) Consequently, it is

understood to imply that the value systems of any culture

are different but equally valid, and cultural relativism

ultimately amounted erroneously to moral relativism.

Moral relativism, however, needs to be distinguished from

cultural relativism. Generally, three kinds of relativism

are distinguished from each other as to approaching

cultural relativism: descriptive, normative, and

epistemological (Monge, 2009:109). Moral relativism

usually falls in one of the divisions of normative

relativism. Moral relativism holds that "any evaluative

statements that we make should be judged aesthetically

and ethically in terms of the culture in which they are

produced." (ibd.) Therefore, many anthropologists,

especially applied anthropologists, regardless of any

anti-relativistic accusations, tend to disassociate

oneself from moral relativism. Such disassociation can be

reflected from the two tenets of conventional cultural

relativism. For the first, the differences inherent in

the values and behaviors among people in different

cultures are formed in its specific historical contexts.

Because of the first tenet, for the second, there is no

universal measure standard applied to all cultures. It is

essential for anthropologists to approach culture from

its inner logic meanings.

The mission of countering racism and ethnocentrism since

its emergence has actually shed light to the inherent

humanistic concerns of cultural relativism. The moral

relativism is actually deviant from its original purpose

which is to separate race and cultural stages: "cultural

stage is essentially a phenomenon dependent upon

historical causes, regardless of race." (Boas, 1911:244)

So, despite all the criticisms or accusations, cultural

relativism needs to be viewed more as a methodology or a

critical account of the world to help escape from one's

own prejudices and stereotypes than simply a relativist

description.

3. Cultural relativism as a paradigm to studying culture

The dispute between cultural universalism and cultural

relativism has led to different ontological and

epistemological stance and hence different methodological

approach. The emic/etic dichotomy is the product of such

differentiation on the approach to culture. The emic/etic

distinction was initiated by linguistic anthropologist

Kenneth Pike (1954) for linguistic study on phonemics and

phonetics. Phonemics studies the meanings of phonemes

dependent on different contexts. While phonetics studies

the universal sounds regardless of the meanings in any

specific language. Derived from the different approaches

to sounds and meanings, emic study, standing by the side

of cultural relativism, approaches culture from intrinsic

characters and meanings interpreted by the culture

insiders, while etic study, embracing cultural

relativism, tries to find out universal meanings shared

across cultures. The researchers taking a cultural

relativist approach with an emic stance tend to use

culture-specific concepts and ethnographic methods to

make a qualitative research. Whereas, the researchers

taking a cultural universalist approach with an etic

stance tend to use culture-general concepts and

scientific methods to make a quantitative research.

Though the two approaches have their methodological and

interpretive biases, they are all the same important to

culture studies as they can inform each other and

complement one another. As what Kant has resolved to

reconcile the rationalism and empiricism, today's

cultural anthropology and psychology are also able to

reconcile the two paradigms especially in cross-cultural

studies. Edward T. Hall, the founder of intercultural

communication is a pioneering practitioner. He goes

beyond the traditional anthropological approach of

studying one culture at a time to comparing different

cultures simultaneously, trying to find out the

variabilities on certain common cultural facets, like the

time and space. His followers, Kluckhohn and Strodbeck

developed value orientations based on five universal

problems that all humans in different cultures have to

deal with.

Cultural universalism, by casting light on the

knowableness of the world, and cultural relativism, by

highlighting the particularity and advocating respect on

differences, are both necessary to culture study. And

cultural relativism's initial purpose is not to be put on

the polar to universalism, whereas to suggest that "one

needs to suspend the habit of evaluation when approaching

the study of a culture, and to try to understand the

culture in its own terms, in relation to its own values

and beliefs". (Sikka, 2012:4) The cultural relativism as

a paradigm to culture study, therefore, shall be viewed

as complementary to other approaches. The integration of

both emic and etic, anthropological and psychological,

qualitative and quantitative research is by all means the

most favorable.

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