cultural relativism

Franz Boas

is at times also disavowed by individuals who are eager to share in the benefits of industrialization and for whom it is preferable to see themselves as temporarily backward rather than permanently different.

Contemporary anthropology thus finds itself in a paradoxial situation. For it is out of a deep respect for cultures other than our own that the doctrine of cultural relativism evolved... and it now appears that this doctrine is deemed unacceptale by the very people on whose behalf it was upheld, while those ethnologist who favour unilinear evolutionism find unexpected support from peoples who desire nothing more than to share in the benefits of industrialization, and who prefer to look at themselves as temporarily backward rather than permanently different' (Levi-Strauss 1966:125)

is not to imply moral relativism, but rather is intended to warn against universalizing western categories.

not moral relativism but warns against universalizing our to evaluate other categories.

is the idea that no warrior has been shaken in his patriotism by the idea that he might have been born on the other side of the border.

No warrior has been shaken in his patriotism by the idea that, had he been born on the other side of the border, his heart would have beaten for the other side. (Veyne 1993: 3)

is the idea that reason is nothing other than that which the community in question determines it to be.

Cultural relativism is variously represented as the view that 'no point of view is more justified or right than any other...'5 the belief that 'reason is whatever the norms of the local culture determine it to be...'6 and the doctrine that truth should be defined ''in terms of the agreement of one's 'cultural peers.''7'5 RTH, p. 1196 Putnam, 'Why reason can't be naturalized', RR, p. 235.7 Putnam, Representation and Reality (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1988), p. 110.

is 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.

Franz Boas defines cultural relativism 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.'

cultural relativism, n.Definitions

cultural relativism