“It’s all relative”. I’m sure most if not all have said this phrase or had this phrase said to them at one point in their life, but what does it mean? Cultural relativism is an idea that a person’s way of life (thoughts, beliefs, values, etc.) is relative to his or her own culture.
What makes America so great is that it is a melting pot of different cultures and values which makes it conducive to tolerance of different ideas and beliefs. However, I think many people do not understand the concept of cultural relativism, including myself, which in turn breeds ignorance in certain situations.
I remember a specific example of cultural relativism, and that was when I went to the Philippines. I was a naïve 17 year old kid visiting the country for the first time in over 10 years. Everything was a shock to me. The weather was different, the food was different even though I have eaten Filipino food before, and their way of life was different. Basically, their whole culture was different from my American culture. I complained about everything that was different to me. Here I am, in a third world country, complaining about anything and everything, until I realized that I am the ignorant one in this situation. I should know that there is no absolute, fixed way to live life for all places and cultures and that in the grand scheme of things, everything is relative to how each person has their own system and way of life.
Another example that represents cultural relativism happened during class on Wednesday. I remember there was an exchange between Truman and Chris about Chris having a MacBook and Truman responding “I don’t like Apple” or something of that nature. It was then I knew I wanted to write about cultural relativism because this is a form of consumer culture. Two different cultures, PC and Mac users, that often clash heads leading to elitism on both groups. However, in the end, isn’t it all relative and that both machines are both computers?
1 comment:
The question of "cultural relativism" is a vexed one. I often think we use this phrase as a way to avoid actually talking about how people are different. In the case of the Mac vs. PC, this seems exactly to be your point: when people express preference or a valuation, they are often avoiding careful description of what makes something different. This is a well done post, as it gets your reader into the subtleties of the issue at hand.
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