A Defense of Cultural Relativism

Posted on August 23, 2002 in Thinking

This article is a response to, though not necessarily an attack on, the views of Locust Eater.

I was trained in cultural anthrpology where relativism was the centerpiece of the study. I still feel it is a valid point of view, a necessary starting point when one evaluates other cultures to see how they tick. When I see it invoked in IRC and similar Internet dialogues, it strikes me as a cop-out. “You don’t have an open mind,” you will hear the faux relativist claim. “You have to accept the fact that I hate Jews, gays, Catholics, blacks, Latinos, etc. It’s my culture.”

Not so long ago, I remember when complaints about torture in other nations were met with this vulgar relativism. “Well,” their defenders would say, “that’s their culture”, neglecting to note that much of the training of these despots was taking place at the School of the Americas. Now people pretend that Muslims invented all the bombs, guns, and devices, as well as the tactics, they use in their war on Westernization. Relativism means that you have to look hard at yourself and ask “Is this a fair way to solve the problems all humans must face?” It writes no ticket to forgive the Holocaust, slavery, or the killing fields of Pol Pot.

Relativism is supposed to make us stop, look, and understand before we criticize. I don’t think Franz Boas and the other founders of cultural relativism meant to let evil persist uncriticized and unchallenged. Many anthropologists have championed the rights of indigenous people against the international corporations and cartels that invade their rainforests with bulldozers and chain saws. They do not buy that we should only be observers and politically unopinionated. Boas himself was expelled from the American Anthropological Association because he said that anthropologists had no business endorsing militarism. Enemies of liberals think that relativists are wimps: these examples show that this is not so.

Many fine books based on the simple idea of stopping to understand and consider the possibility that there may be other valid ways to face certain human problems than the ones to which we are accustomed. I am reading one about a rebel outlaw gang that makes it very plain that they go through a lot of unnecessary hassling from law enforcement. And, yet, it also observes that the members do not treat women well. This is the stuff of good, honest ethnography.

We can still be relativist and be moral. It’s certainly fair to ask, for example, of gays, if that lifestyle option does any real harm? I much prefer that we spend our time focusing on better ways of channeling human aggression and resolving conflict than worrying about two men kissing each other in the act of love. The one costs lives: the second is at worst embarassing to those who prefer the opposite sex.

As a relativist, I still think it fair to comment on morality. For example, I support same sex marriage. My reasons for doing so are both relativist and moral in nature. The relativist side of me (I plead guilty to pragmatism in its application) simply sees homosexuality as another way of sexual expression. The moralist in me sees some serious problems in the unregulated homosexual life. First, I see families who might be hostile to homosexuality coming between two people who are honestly in love with each other. Second, I see opportunities for exploitation of the weaker party in a gay relationship. Heterosexuals can resort to marriage and palimony to protect them from becoming mere sexual chattel. Gays and lesbians can’t. This means that some pretty unsavory characters can do some nasty things to poorer, weaker people who they use as sexual partners. It is no more anti-gay of me to speak out against this than it is anti-Turk to speak out against the use of torture in Turkish prisons: I want to protect people, who are not all that much unlike me, from predators and despots. The relativist quickly sees that the people the moralist in me wants to protect are gays and Turks.

The relativist and the moralist partnered in me realize this: as long as we push gays and lesbians to the unprotected fringes, these monsters will continue to be able to operate unhindered. I accept homosexuality as another alternative way of life. That’s the relativist talking. It is also the relativist who helps me to think of other ways we might let gays and lesbians live among us. The moralist hates the evil I see. The relativist suggests practical and humane ways to challenge it.