Starting below and for several weeks are postings to the discussion board of my Sociology Class - spring semester 2005, Professor Heim at Central Virginia Community College.
This post is about when is it appropriate to judge cultures in their own value system, or, with an ethnocentric view.
What is culture? From our text, we learn that culture is “the values, beliefs, behaviours and material objects that together form a people’s way of life”. While that is an adequate definition of culture, I find it lacking in its depth. A comprehensive definition of culture should include the staid definition above, but it should be expanded to include many other things, both tangible and intangible.
A culture is generally a term used to describe the shared experience of a society or population. The word culture can be restricted to encompass a population of several thousand people or, it can be used to describe the part of shared experience that over 6 billion people on our planet experience. Culture includes such things as symbols, language, mores, folkways, and taboos. Where we get into some problems with defining culture is when we start to take a discerning look at other cultures – within the context of their culture, or, by applying our own cultural values upon a foreign culture.
Cultural relativity is defined by sociology.org.uk as “..... an attempt to understand the cultural development of societies and social groups on their own terms; that is, without trying to impose absolute ideas of moral value or trying to measure different cultural variations in terms of some form of absolute cultural standard. “ In other words, one who attempts to use cultural relativism in their studies should attempt to integrate their way of thinking and belief systems as much as possible into the culture being studied.
A good example of cultural relativism involves an idea of circumstances. In most societies, murder is not an acceptable behaviour, but, within certain contexts, such as war, or capital punishment (I am opposed to capital punishment, I adhere to a consistent life ethic), murder can be considered appropriate even within one culture. Another way of looking at cultural relativism is judging the actions of individuals or groups through the standards that that particular culture accepts.
Is it appropriate to use a cultural relativist approach in all circumstances? No, one can even use varying degrees in ascertaining when a behaviour or belief is acceptable. Take for instance child labour, some cultures rely on child labour for daily needs. If an individual from our culture was to immerse themselves into a culture that accepted and even promoted child labour, they may run afoul of local customs and even laws. One place where it would be appropriate to take a “global value” into another culture can be in something clearly detrimental or harmful to an individual or group. An example, some cultures (maybe subcultures) accept child prostitution. This particular practice goes against any sensible definition of what is acceptable to do to children. Another example is when a job or employ clearly puts the child in danger of not surviving. Mining, it is such a dangerous occupation for adults that no child should suffer the odds that they might not make it to adulthood because of this vocation.
An instance in our own country bears scrutiny as well. On Dateline NBC a few months ago they detailed some appalling practices that can take place in the Amish communities. One, incest, is mostly frowned upon by even the Amish, though some perpetrators and supporters denounce outside attempts to completely abolish the practice. Another practice the Amish do on a much wider scale is extraction of all the healthy teeth of adolescents. This is done under the guise of preventing costly dental visits later. I think this is an appropriate practice to denounce and not use cultural relativity. Why? Because these societies (cultures) are advocating a mostly unnecessary practice in order to prevent material loss later. They want the benefit of modern dentistry to put dentures in where healthy teeth used to be, but, they do not want to use modern dentistry to prevent and/or repair teeth. Does this instance cross the line of not applying an outside value system on another group? No, not at all. In the universal value system, this practice would be hypocritical and dangerous to most outside observers considering that modern dentistry is available at modest prices to this group.
As to the problem of ethnocentrism, this is the flip side of cultural relativism. Ethnocentrism refers to the idea that one would judge another culture based upon standards of their own culture. On the site fiscalstudy.com, they have a great example of how ethnocentrism can be viewed in two very different ways. One the one side, the historical view that western civilization is superior to any other is shown by the “discovery” of the Americas by Christobal Colon. This view of ethnocentrism allows that the countries and societies that developed and maintained the western civilization have a responsibility to advance and perpetuate this “advanced” way of living around the world. The other view of ethnocentrism argues that the “discovery” of the Americas by Columbus ushered in a period of slavery, mass killing, and subjugation. The purveyors of western civilization felt that they needed to convert, by force if necessary, the native peoples of the western hemisphere. Others will tell that the colonization of the Americas by the Europeans can be likened to a holocaust. I believe that at the very least, Columbus and the colonizers ushered in 300 + years of mass genocide (if not by outright murder, then by foreign diseases, i.e. smallpox) upon the native peoples of the Americas. They chose to look at other cultures (Native Americans) with an ethnocentric (Eurocentric) eye, while totally ignoring the inherent value of the cultures they discovered. I personally refuse to join the service organization of American Catholics (The Knights of Columbus) because I have a great problem with that organization holding their patron as some great hero, some even propose sainthood for him. I choose to be a member of Pax Christi and serve humanity in that capacity.
This is obviously an interesting and intriguing subject. There are few merits for an ethnocentric view in my mind, and I do find it appropriate to take parts of my own culture and apply them to the practices of other cultures. This is done only when absolutely necessary, as a cultural relativist method of study has great value.
This post is about when is it appropriate to judge cultures in their own value system, or, with an ethnocentric view.
What is culture? From our text, we learn that culture is “the values, beliefs, behaviours and material objects that together form a people’s way of life”. While that is an adequate definition of culture, I find it lacking in its depth. A comprehensive definition of culture should include the staid definition above, but it should be expanded to include many other things, both tangible and intangible.
A culture is generally a term used to describe the shared experience of a society or population. The word culture can be restricted to encompass a population of several thousand people or, it can be used to describe the part of shared experience that over 6 billion people on our planet experience. Culture includes such things as symbols, language, mores, folkways, and taboos. Where we get into some problems with defining culture is when we start to take a discerning look at other cultures – within the context of their culture, or, by applying our own cultural values upon a foreign culture.
Cultural relativity is defined by sociology.org.uk as “..... an attempt to understand the cultural development of societies and social groups on their own terms; that is, without trying to impose absolute ideas of moral value or trying to measure different cultural variations in terms of some form of absolute cultural standard. “ In other words, one who attempts to use cultural relativism in their studies should attempt to integrate their way of thinking and belief systems as much as possible into the culture being studied.
A good example of cultural relativism involves an idea of circumstances. In most societies, murder is not an acceptable behaviour, but, within certain contexts, such as war, or capital punishment (I am opposed to capital punishment, I adhere to a consistent life ethic), murder can be considered appropriate even within one culture. Another way of looking at cultural relativism is judging the actions of individuals or groups through the standards that that particular culture accepts.
Is it appropriate to use a cultural relativist approach in all circumstances? No, one can even use varying degrees in ascertaining when a behaviour or belief is acceptable. Take for instance child labour, some cultures rely on child labour for daily needs. If an individual from our culture was to immerse themselves into a culture that accepted and even promoted child labour, they may run afoul of local customs and even laws. One place where it would be appropriate to take a “global value” into another culture can be in something clearly detrimental or harmful to an individual or group. An example, some cultures (maybe subcultures) accept child prostitution. This particular practice goes against any sensible definition of what is acceptable to do to children. Another example is when a job or employ clearly puts the child in danger of not surviving. Mining, it is such a dangerous occupation for adults that no child should suffer the odds that they might not make it to adulthood because of this vocation.
An instance in our own country bears scrutiny as well. On Dateline NBC a few months ago they detailed some appalling practices that can take place in the Amish communities. One, incest, is mostly frowned upon by even the Amish, though some perpetrators and supporters denounce outside attempts to completely abolish the practice. Another practice the Amish do on a much wider scale is extraction of all the healthy teeth of adolescents. This is done under the guise of preventing costly dental visits later. I think this is an appropriate practice to denounce and not use cultural relativity. Why? Because these societies (cultures) are advocating a mostly unnecessary practice in order to prevent material loss later. They want the benefit of modern dentistry to put dentures in where healthy teeth used to be, but, they do not want to use modern dentistry to prevent and/or repair teeth. Does this instance cross the line of not applying an outside value system on another group? No, not at all. In the universal value system, this practice would be hypocritical and dangerous to most outside observers considering that modern dentistry is available at modest prices to this group.
As to the problem of ethnocentrism, this is the flip side of cultural relativism. Ethnocentrism refers to the idea that one would judge another culture based upon standards of their own culture. On the site fiscalstudy.com, they have a great example of how ethnocentrism can be viewed in two very different ways. One the one side, the historical view that western civilization is superior to any other is shown by the “discovery” of the Americas by Christobal Colon. This view of ethnocentrism allows that the countries and societies that developed and maintained the western civilization have a responsibility to advance and perpetuate this “advanced” way of living around the world. The other view of ethnocentrism argues that the “discovery” of the Americas by Columbus ushered in a period of slavery, mass killing, and subjugation. The purveyors of western civilization felt that they needed to convert, by force if necessary, the native peoples of the western hemisphere. Others will tell that the colonization of the Americas by the Europeans can be likened to a holocaust. I believe that at the very least, Columbus and the colonizers ushered in 300 + years of mass genocide (if not by outright murder, then by foreign diseases, i.e. smallpox) upon the native peoples of the Americas. They chose to look at other cultures (Native Americans) with an ethnocentric (Eurocentric) eye, while totally ignoring the inherent value of the cultures they discovered. I personally refuse to join the service organization of American Catholics (The Knights of Columbus) because I have a great problem with that organization holding their patron as some great hero, some even propose sainthood for him. I choose to be a member of Pax Christi and serve humanity in that capacity.
This is obviously an interesting and intriguing subject. There are few merits for an ethnocentric view in my mind, and I do find it appropriate to take parts of my own culture and apply them to the practices of other cultures. This is done only when absolutely necessary, as a cultural relativist method of study has great value.
posted by Mark at 4:10 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home