Culture and Relativism |
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Authors: | Joseph E Davis |
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Institution: | (1) Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, University of Virginia, P.O. Box 400816, B068 Garrett Hall, Charlottesville, VA 22904, USA |
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Abstract: | The meanings and implications of cultural relativism have been debated for decades. Reprising this debate, Roger Sandall offers
a pointed critique of the anthropological concept of culture and identifies relativism as the internal and corrosive enemy
of the open society. I challenge his reading of our predicament. Considering the work of Franz Boas and his debts to the philosopher
Johann Gottfried Herder, I distance the social science concept of culture from positions—the rejection of standards of truth,
beauty, and morality; the belief that cultural value systems and practices are all equally true (or untrue); the valorization
of primitivism—that are not intrinsic to it. Next, I consider the use of culture in the “philosophy of primitivism” and its
meanings in multiculturalism and identity politics. I argue that many ostensibly relativist claims are used to serve non-relativist
agendas, or hide universalistic claims in unstated but essential premises and background assumptions. Rather than a world
dominated by relativism, where cultural differences are held to be inviolable and cross-cultural judgments have been rendered
impossible, I see something like the reverse. Our problem is not that we overvalue cultural differences but that we underestimate
them. Even in our multiculturalism, we imagine a sameness of outlook and aspiration, an unwitting projection of ourselves
in the end.
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Keywords: | Culture Relativism Primitivism Multiculturalism Concept of culture |
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