What is Cultural Relativism and Why Do Anthropologists Value It?

Anthropologists value cultural relativism because “it calls into question the ethnocentric assumption of Western superiority” (Rentein, 1988:58). This can help to tackle intolerance and racism within modern Western society. With cultural relativism it can be suggested that so-called ‘primitive’ societies may actually be more complex than Western civilisation. This is because; behaviour would be being studied from an unbiased point of view and would not be being judged against Western customs. Furthermore, cultural relativism has “the ability to challenge the presumed universality of standards” which actually only belong to one culture (Rentein, 1988:58). In addition, anthropologists can see cultural relativism as valuable because it can help them to understand the environmental factors that shape a culture and to explain the psychological factors that frame such culture. Moreover, when Boas suggested cultural relativism he was trying to establish the inductive method in anthropology and abandon the comparative method. This results in anthropologists valuing cultural relativism as Boas prioritised the importance of the discipline of anthropology being an objective and inductive science.

On the other hand, it can be argued that there are limitations to cultural relativism. Christensen (1960:31) suggests that “there has been little quantitative research to test the theory of cultural relativism, especially as applied to modern Western societies”. Additionally, Christensen (1960) notes how cultural relativism has a tendency of being unable to discover the consequences of differences between societies. In essence, there is a high amount of information on how societies differ from one another but not a lot on how these differences may affect their peoples. Also, cultural relativism can be seen as limited because it undermines our ability to condemn repressive practices in other countries. This view is reinforced by Murphy who called cultural relativism “intellectually irresponsible”. An example of such a practice is the tradition of female genital mutilation around the world. This convention is seen as barbaric by the West, but it estimated that one hundred million women are now living with female genital cutting. It mainly occurs across the mid-belt of Africa in countries such as Sudan and Eritrea. It is argued, that when practices such as this are taking place, not all cultures can be viewed as equal. However, cultural relativism would dispute that those who are appalled in the West do not think about the traditions and the “local meaning” of such practices.

In conclusion, it can be seen that although cultural relativism does have its limitations, it is still a valuable idea as it helps to remind us in the West that our culture is not ‘superior’, just different. The attempts to understand cultures in their own terms and provide an objective ethnography are the major accomplishments of cultural relativism. Overall, the fact that cultural relativism can help to fight against ethnocentrism and intolerance means it has made permanent contributions to the field of anthropology and society as a whole.