What About Relativism III?

The last two posts focused, respectively, on why relativism exists and is a necessary part of life, and what a few of its challenges are. I want to briefly address what may be one of the most sensitive issues among relativists and non-relativists alike---cultural relativism.

Cultural relativism argues that one culture’s morals or norms cannot be judged from the standpoint of another’s. Relativism sees all cultures’ views as having the same value, and one cannot be better than another. Sensitivity to cultural differences is a legitimate concern because judging another culture as deficient may mean denigrating both the culture and its people, and perhaps even taking action against that culture.

Understanding cultural relativism means establishing a context. We know that nothing exists in a vacuum, that everything and every view has a context which helps explain it more fully. The smallest context in human societies is the individual, a culture of one. The following shows increasingly broad contexts (cultures) as we go down the list. The list is oversimplified at the individual level, for just one, since any person actually belongs to many sub-sub-sub cultures simultaneously.

·       Individual

·       Family

·       Neighborhood

·       City/County

·       State

·       Nation

·       World (nations, tribes/clans)

Many relativists say that all critiques within and among the first 6 categories are acceptable, since they are all part of one “culture,” but no individuals or groups within the 6 can critique cultures or societies in the last one. Thus, the members of any culture (really nation for the most part) can critique internally but may not do so externally. The relativists have drawn a line, but in my view there is no logical basis for that line. Internal versus external is as much a matter of geography as anything else. For example, while cultural differences do exist among many developed, Western societies, we might argue that the Western world is becoming more like one big culture, even while national boundaries persist. What is internal then?

However, line or not, even the strongest relativists I know will not hesitate to criticize another nation in a moment, say Israel for not being sensitive enough to the plight of the Palestinians---fair enough. At the same time they will also criticize Boko Haram, an entity not exactly tribal, but in the ball park, for its vicious and barbaric behavior---also fair enough. So, then, what meaning does the view that we cannot judge other cultures have?

To demonstrate what looks to me like a bizarre and confused state of affairs for relativists, let’s ask a few simple additional questions. We assume a New Guinea native is allowed under relativism to critique his tribe, and also to critique his national government. But can a New Guinea native criticize a Rwandan Hutu practice he does not like? May a resident of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (once Belgian Congo) criticize Belgium for its awful treatment of the Congolese while it was a colonial power in the late 19^th century? Further, may a Chiapas (Mexico) peasant criticize honor killings of women who have been raped in Afghanistan? May a Saudi Mullah condemn those? May I?

The “clear” line of relativity is fuzzy if not opaque.

Some relativists think that if a culture believes that what it is doing is right, then it is right for them, even if it looks very wrong to us. Do the motives and justifications that a person has (Hitler for one, who seemed to believe he was doing the right thing for Germany) mean we cannot criticize his actions, or even take action against him? Or, is it the effect on others that matters most? Hitler and his cronies were judged at Nuremberg from the latter view, but relativism may see things from the former view. And likely the leaders of Boko Haram think they are doing good for themselves and their world view. So what meaning does what a person or group thinks have? None by my view.

Among the strong relativists is a small group saying that you cannot judge anyone for anything, what we might call arch-relativism. Naturally, acting this out leads directly and inevitably to anarchy. But, like some other relativists, these extremists are so in name only. They make pronouncements about not judging, but have their own sets of rules regarding who gets judged and who does not, and these will cross all sorts of “lines.”

Lastly, muddying the waters considerably is the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is fully supported by all the relativists I know. The important phrase in the Preamble says that these rights are “…rights of all members of the human family….” This clearly implies a set of judgments about what are human rights, and that those human rights are universal, applying to all nations and tribes/clans. That position further implies a judgment of which states (or other entities) are not abiding by those rights, thus subject to cross-cultural criticism, and perhaps even action. How can a relativist support this view of the human family when he also views the values and behavior of other cultures to be inviolate? Troubling, indeed.