Editing Cultural relativism (section)

==Criticism==
The debate over the "Statement on Human Rights", then, was not merely over the validity of cultural relativism, or the question of what makes a right universal. It forced anthropologists to confront the question of whether anthropological research is relevant to non-anthropologists. Although Steward and Barnett seemed to be suggesting that anthropology as such should restrict itself to purely academic affairs, people within and without the academy have continued to debate the ways non-anthropologists have used this principle in public policy concerning ethnic minorities or in [[international relations]].

Political scientist [[Alison Dundes Renteln]] has argued that most debates over moral relativism misunderstand the importance of cultural relativism.<ref>Renteln, Alison 1988 "Relativism and the Search for Human Rights" in ''American Anthropologist'' 90(1) 56–72</ref> Most philosophers understand the Benedictine–Herskovitz formulation of cultural relativism to mean:

{{quote|[W]hat is right or good for one individual or society is not right or good for another, even if the situations are similar, meaning not merely that what is thought right or good by one is not thought right or good by another...but that what is really right or good in one case is not so in another.<ref>[[William Frankena|Frankena, William]] 1973 ''Ethics''</ref>|author=|title=|source=}}

Although this formulation clearly echoes the kinds of example anthropologists used in elaborating cultural relativism, Renteln believes that it misses the spirit of the principle. Accordingly, she supports a different formulation: "there are or can be no value judgements that are true, that is, objectively justifiable, independent of specific cultures."<ref>Schmidt, Paul. 1955. "Some Criticisms of Cultural Relativism." ''[[The Journal of Philosophy|Journal of Philosophy]]'' 52:780–91.</ref>

Renteln faults philosophers for disregarding the heuristic and critical functions of cultural relativism. Her main argument is that in order to understand the principle of cultural relativism, one must recognize the extent to which it is based on enculturation: "the idea that people unconsciously acquire the categories and standards of their culture." This observation, which echoes the arguments about culture that originally led Boas to develop the principle, suggests that the use of cultural relativism in debates of rights and morals is not substantive but procedural. That is, it does not require a relativist to sacrifice his or her values. But it does require anyone engaged in a consideration of rights and morals to reflect on how their own enculturation has shaped their views:

{{quote|There is no reason why the relativist should be paralyzed, as critics have often asserted.<ref>Hartung, Frank 1954 '"Cultural Relativity and Moral Judgements" in ''Philosophy of Science'' 21: 11–125</ref> But a relativist will acknowledge that the criticism is based on his own ethnocentric standards and realizes also that the condemnation may be a form of [[cultural imperialism]].}}

Renteln thus bridges the gap between the anthropologist as scientist (whom Steward and Barnett felt had nothing to offer debates on rights and morality) and as private individual (who has every right to make value judgements). The individual keeps this right, but the scientist requires that the individual acknowledge that these judgements are neither self-evident universals, nor entirely personal (and idiosyncratic), but rather took form in relation to the individual's own culture.

===Post-colonial politics===
Boas and his students understood anthropology to be a historical, or human science, in that it involves subjects (anthropologists) studying other subjects (humans and their activities), rather than subjects studying objects (such as rocks or stars). Under such conditions, it is fairly obvious that scientific research may have political consequences, and the Boasians saw no conflict between their scientific attempts to understand other cultures, and the political implications of critiquing their own culture.  For anthropologists working in this tradition, the doctrine of cultural relativism as a basis for moral relativism was anathema. For politicians, moralists, and many social scientists (but few anthropologists) who saw science and human interests as necessarily independent or even opposed, however, the earlier Boasian principle of cultural relativism was anathema. Thus, cultural relativism came under attack, but from opposing sides and for opposing reasons.

===Political critique===
On the one hand, many anthropologists began to criticize the way moral relativism, in the guise of cultural relativism, is used to mask the effects of Western colonialism and imperialism. Thus, [[Stanley Diamond]] argued that when the term "cultural relativism" entered popular culture, popular culture co-opted [[anthropology]] in a way that voided the principle of any critical function:

{{quote|Relativism is the bad faith of the conqueror, who has become secure enough to become a tourist.

Cultural relativism is a purely intellectual attitude; it does not inhibit the anthropologist from participating as a professional in his own milieu; on the contrary, it rationalizes that milieu. Relativism is self-critical only in the abstract. Nor does it lead to engagement. It only converts the anthropologist into a shadowy figure, prone to newsworthy and shallow pronouncements about the cosmic condition of the human race. It has the effect of mystifying the profession, so that the very term ''anthropologist'' ("student of man") commands the attention of an increasingly "popular" audience in search of novelty. But the search for self-knowledge, which [[Michel de Montaigne|Montaigne]] was the first to link to the annihilation of prejudice, is reduced to the experience of culture shock, a phrase used by both anthropologists and the State Department to account for the disorientation that usually follows an encounter with an alien way of life. But culture shock is a condition one recovers from; it is not experienced as an authentic redefinition of the personality but as a testing of its tolerance ... The tendency of relativism, which it never quite achieves, is to detach the anthropologist from all particular cultures. Nor does it provide him with a moral center, only a job.<ref>Stanley Diamond 2004 [1974] ''In Search of the Primitive''  New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers page 110</ref>}}

[[George W. Stocking, Jr.|George Stocking]] summarized this view with the observation that "Cultural relativism, which had buttressed the attack against racialism, [can] be perceived as a sort of neo-racialism justifying the backward techno-economic status of once colonized peoples."<ref>Stocking, George W. Jr., 1982. "Afterward: A View from the Center" in ''Ethnos'' 47: 172–286</ref>

===Defence by Clifford Geertz===
By the 1980s many anthropologists had absorbed the Boasian critique of moral relativism, and were ready to reevaluate the origins and uses of cultural relativism. In a distinguished lecture before the [[American Anthropological Association]] in 1984, [[Clifford Geertz]] claimed that the critics of cultural relativism did not really understand, and were not really responding to, the ideas of Benedict, Herskovits, Kroeber and Kluckhohn.<ref>[[Clifford Geertz|Geertz, Clifford]]. 1984. "Anti-Anti-Relativism." ''[[American Anthropologist]]'' 86(2):263–78.</ref> Consequently, the various critics and proponents of cultural relativism were [[talking past each other|talking past one another]]. What these different positions have in common, Geertz argued, is that they are all responding to the same thing: knowledge about other ways of life.

{{quote|The supposed conflict between Benedict's and Herskovits's call for tolerance and the untolerant passion with which they called for it turns out not to be the simple contradiction so many amateur logicians have held it to be, but the expression of a perception, caused by thinking a lot about Zunis and Dahomys, that the world being so full of a number of things, rushing to judgement is more than a mistake, it is a crime. Similarly, Kroeber's and Kluckholn's verities – Kroeber's were mostly about messy creatural matters like delirium and menstruation, Kluckholn's were mostly about messy social ones like lying and killing within the in-group, turn out not to be just the arbitrary personal obsessions they so much look like, but the expression of a much vaster concern, caused by thinking a lot about ''anthrōpos'' in general, that if something isn't anchored everywhere nothing can be anchored anywhere. Theory here – if that is what these earnest advices about how we must look at things if we are to be accounted as decent should be called – is more an exchange of warnings than an analytical debate.  We are being offered a choice of worries.

What the relativists – so-called – want us to worry about is provincialism – the danger that our perceptions will be dulled, our intellects constricted, and our sympathies narrowed by the overlearned and overvalued acceptances of our own society. What the anti-relativists – self-declared – want us to worry about, and worry about and worry about, as though our very souls depended on it, is a kind of spiritual entropy, a heat death of the mind, in which everything is as significant, and thus as insignificant, as everything else: anything goes, to each his own, you pays your money and you takes your choice, I know what I like, not in the couth, ''tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner''.}}

Geertz concludes this discussion by commenting, "As I have already suggested, I myself find provincialism altogether the more real concern so far as what actually goes on in the world." Geertz' defense of cultural relativism as a concern which should motivate various inquiries, rather than as an explanation or solution, echoed a comment [[Alfred Kroeber]] made in reply to earlier critics of cultural relativism, in 1949:<ref>[[A. L. Kroeber|Kroeber, Alfred]]. 1949. "An Authoritarian Panacea." ''[[American Anthropologist]]'' 51(2):318–20.</ref>

{{quote|Obviously, relativism poses certain problems when from trying merely to understand the world we pass on to taking action in the world: and right decisions are not always easy to find. However, it is also obvious that authoritarians who know the complete answers beforehand will necessarily be intolerant of relativism: they should be, if there is only one truth and that is theirs.

I admit that hatred of the intolerant for relativism does not suffice to make relativism true. But most of us are human enough for our belief in relativism to be somewhat reinforced just by that fact. At any rate, it would seem that the world has come far enough so that it is only by starting from relativism and its tolerations that we may hope to work out a new set of absolute values and standards, if such are attainable at all or prove to be desirable.}}