{"id":12283,"date":"2024-01-07T02:32:11","date_gmt":"2024-01-07T10:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/?p=12283"},"modified":"2024-01-07T15:28:09","modified_gmt":"2024-01-07T23:28:09","slug":"cultural-relativisms-smart-stupid-and-dire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/?p=12283","title":{"rendered":"Cultural Relativisms — Smart, Stupid, and Dire"},"content":{"rendered":"

The term cultural relativism<\/q> gets used for more than one concept.<\/p>

The term can refer to the practice<\/em> of attempting to adopt the perspective of another culture in viewing that other culture, in viewing one's own culture, or in viewing some third culture. This practice is a healthy one. One should not simply presume<\/em> that any deviation from one's own customs is deficient<\/em>, nor even that one's own culture does everything at least equally as well as does any other culture. And, even in cases in which one's own culture is doing something<\/em> better than does another, it is good to develop an understanding of why things seem as they do to people not from one's own culture.<\/p>

But cultural relativism<\/q> is also used to refer to the doctrine that every culture is every bit as reasonable as is every other culture. The rejection of presumption<\/em> of superiority of one's own culture is replaced by a presumption<\/em> of equality of cultures. This doctrine is madness, as is swiftly shown by exposing the self-contradiction in claiming that cultures that reject that very doctrine are every bit as reasonable as those cultures that embrace it.<\/p>

Indeed, a cultural relativist of that sort could not even find logical<\/em> standing to disagree with a single person who rejected cultural relativism. A culture<\/span> is a set of customs<\/em>, broadly conceptualized, of some group of persons who, if more than one person, are connected by interaction. A sub<\/em>culture is itself a culture, of a group contained within some large cultural group. When we say group<\/q>, we naturally think of a set with more than one member, and some people might insist that the term culture<\/q> cannot properly refer to customs peculiar to just one person; that insistence would be just a matter of arbitrary taxonomy<\/em>; the customs of a group of two are no more magically different from the customs of single person than the customs of three are magically different from the customs of two.<\/p>

Often times, people who advance that second notion of cultural relativism employ something of a motte-and-bailey argument<\/span>. The motte<\/span> is the earlier point, that one should not simply presume<\/em> that any deviation from one's own customs is deficient<\/em>, or even that one's own culture does everything at least equally well as any other culture. The bailey<\/span> is that every other culture is just as good<\/em>, overall or perhaps even in each particular. Of course, most of these cultural relativists will look-away from those cultures that make the relativists or their audiences uncomfortable. Mind you that a significant share of these relativists are not consciously<\/em> employing a motte-and-bailey argument<\/span>, and many of them are not conscious that they are averting their gazes from self-contradictions and from the cases of cultures that almost no one wants to defend. Most of these relativists just got thoughtlessly swept up<\/em> and psychologically over-committed<\/em>.<\/p>

When the bailey<\/span> that every other culture is just as good<\/em> is unchallenged, it often is treated as a motte<\/span> for a new bailey<\/span> that is still worse. The idea that every other culture is just<\/em> as good is quietly replaced with the idea that every other culture is at least<\/em> as good, and then it is argued that some cultures are in some<\/em> ways better than our own. Indeed some cultures are in some<\/em> ways better than our own, if not necessarily in just any way that a particular critic might claim. But, coupling that point with the spurious<\/em> proposition that these other cultures are in every other<\/em> way at least<\/em> as good, these relativists arrive at a conclusion that ours<\/em> is necessarily an inferior<\/em> culture — no better in any<\/em> way, and worse<\/em> in some.<\/p>

Thus, the practice of seeking to free oneself from cultural presumption is perverted first into a new and foolish presumption, and thence into a sophistic attack on our culture.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The term cultural relativism gets used for more than one concept. The term can refer to the practice of attempting to adopt the perspective of another culture in viewing that other culture, in viewing one's own culture, or in viewing some third culture. This practice is a healthy one. One should not simply presume that […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,117,4],"tags":[1567],"class_list":["post-12283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-communication","category-public","tag-cultural-relativism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12283"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12297,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12283\/revisions\/12297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}