Culture may be defined as the sum totaltotal of non-biological activities of a people. For anthropologists like Marvin Harris (1974). Culture is directly related to concrete material conditions of existence. It is a set of altitudinal and behavioral tools as well as a map of adapting to one’s environment. Culture is thus essentially adaptive. Following the concept of cultural relativism espoused by Margaret Mead (1968) it is the view of this article that culture must be seen asbe specific and valid in particular circumstances with value judgement as to its relative significance to other groups, even within the same nation-state or society. The point that is therefore being made is that there are some particularities of culture that characterize …show more content…
It is suggested that there is less homogeneity and consensus than is generally acknowledge. Structural functionalism is Talcott Parsons made the most battered of all twentieth century sociological theories popular. These two features are held essentially together. First there is a minimum set of common values that are necessary for social order to exist. His intellectual predecessor, Emily Durkheim proposed that society has tomust exist on the basis ofbased on some sort of collective conscience, which is generally shared to a greater or lesser degree. Parsons identifies these subsystems as: Gaul attainment which equates to the political system; the adaptive subsystem which corresponds to the economy; the latency and pattern maintenance subsystem which includes all agents at socialization including the family, school and church. The latter compromises all the rules, values, laws and general prescriptions and prohibitions of behavior. According to Smith, Caribbean societies are plural societies in that they are” units in a political sense. Each is a political unit because it has a single government. He also recognizes that his critics tended to ignore this fact that some uniformity of law and government is essential if the society is to remain a political unit to …show more content…
Two very important phenomena information of colony is sugar and plantation slavery. Within the territory sugar production was possible due to the forced labor of Africans slaves or their descendants. The legacy of slavery and the entire colonial heritage is a highly stratified society based on different access to goods and services. In Latin America were called “Burrios” In the US they are called Hoods and Ghettos. Oscar Lewis in the 1960s developed the motion of a culture of poverty from his ethnographic research with a number in Mexico. The culture of poverty is an adaptation and a reaction of the poor in their marginal position in a class stratified, highly individuated capitalistic society. Although the theory has been attacked because it seems to implicitly blame the poor for their own sufferings. For Lewis, it is a peculiar cultural orientation that is a “legitimate” and functional one as for the survival strategies of the poor concerned. As a true Parsonian service suggested that each society could be characterized according to the different types of subsystems. A society could be therefore be classified according to the level of relative level of the respective subsystems. The Band or Horde was characterized as having “among other features” an egalitarian political order where power was
Cultural Relativism is a moral theory which states that due to the vastly differing cultural norms held by people across the globe, morality cannot be judged objectively, and must instead be judged subjectively through the lense of an individuals own cultural norms. Because it is obvious that there are many different beliefs that are held by people around the world, cultural relativism can easily be seen as answer to the question of how to accurately and fairly judge the cultural morality of others, by not doing so at all. However Cultural Relativism is a lazy way to avoid the difficult task of evaluating one’s own values and weighing them against the values of other cultures. Many Cultural Relativist might abstain from making moral judgments about other cultures based on an assumed lack of understanding of other cultures, but I would argue that they do no favors to the cultures of others by assuming them to be so firmly ‘other’ that they would be unable to comprehend their moral decisions. Cultural Relativism as a moral theory fails to allow for critical thoughts on the nature of morality and encourages the stagnation
Each person has its own point of view on how culture is develop and which aspect is beneficial and enjoy the history behind the culture. On the other hand, we make assumption about cultural identify without analyzing the factual data. Additionally, individual experiences does reflex the life the person has lived and the achievement embody a sense resiliency and failure for a certain period. “A study reveals culture as potentially ephemeral beliefs, beliefs, feelings, and behavior, unique in their details to each individual. No two people can live precisely identical life histories” (Handwerkker, 2002,
The Challenge of Culture Relativism written by James Rachels argues the downsides and upsides to the idea of Cultural Relativism. This is the idea of Cultural Relativism: the principle that an individual human 's beliefs and activities should be understood by others in terms of that individual 's own culture. It was established as axiomatic in anthropological research by Franz Boas in the first few decades of the 20th century and later popularized by his students.
Cultural Relativism states that there is no objective right or wrong. Right or wrong are defined by your society’s moral code. I will provide reasons why we should not be cultural relativists. My reasons include; how it affects philosophy, the Cultural Differences Argument, examples of why it doesn’t work and societal needs.
There are multitude definitions of culture available in the literature and each definition relies on the context of one’s field of study. It was variedly defined that each
Cultures are infinitely complex. Culture, as Spradley (1979) defines it, is "the acquired knowledge that people use to interpret experiences and generate social behavior" (p. 5). Spradley's emphasizes that culture involves the use of knowledge. While some aspects of culture can be neatly arranged into categories and quantified with numbers and statistics, much of culture is encoded in schema, or ways of thinking (Levinson & Ember, 1996, p. 418). In order to accurately understand a culture, one must apply the correct schema and make inferences which parallel those made my natives. Spradley suggests that culture is not merely a cognitive map of beliefs and behaviors that can be objectively charted; rather, it is a set of map-making skills through which cultural behaviors, customs, language, and artifacts must be plotted (p. 7). This definition of culture offers insight into ...
Every individual is taught what is right and what is wrong from a young age. It becomes innate of people to know how to react in situations of killings, injuries, sicknesses, and more. Humans have naturally developed a sense of morality, the “beliefs about right and wrong actions and good and bad persons or character,” (Vaughn 123). There are general issues such as genocide, which is deemed immoral by all; however, there are other issues as simple as etiquette, which are seen as right by one culture, but wrong and offense by another. Thus, morals and ethics can vary among regions and cultures known as cultural relativism.
When it comes to anthropological theories, it is hard to prove or disprove them because everyone has different experiences in their lives within their different cultures that contribute to their opinion on that theory. I believe this is true with the theory of cultural relativism. My experiences within my own culture and the beliefs of my culture have led me to both agree and disagree with different aspects, or lack thereof, of cultural relativism. I believe there exists a duality within the theory of cultural relativism, a duality that I am familiar with and that has become a significant part of my culture. I am from the Twin Cities in Minnesota. The “Twin Cities” refers to Minneapolis and St. Paul. Only divided by a river (or in some cases, just a street), these cities are of equal, yet different importance in Minnesota culture. My experiences spending time in the two cities have led me to live in duel cultures. While many people live in a duality of cultures through their ethnicity, I identify with duel cultures based on geography. My experiences in both Minneapolis and St. Paul contribute to my ambivalence regarding cultural relativism. In Anthropology, there is a gray area when it comes to generalizing about cultures, because we all come from different ones. The idea of duality is a familiar one with which I can apply to my own life and my own culture, as well as to the well-known anthropological theory that tries to find an answer to the question of what culture is.
Morality, according to Socrates, is about “how we ought to live” and why. Cultural Relativism is one among numerous disputed theories which has attempted to expand upon Socrates uncomplicated definition (Rachels Elements of Moral Philosophy 1). This theory is unique in its five basic claims. The theories basic claims contain weaknesses, strengths and unsound argument.
Cultural relativism is the idea that moral and ethical systems varying from culture to culture, are all equally credible and no one system is morally greater than any other. Cultural relativism is based on the concept that there is no “ultimate” standard of good and evil, so the judgement of what is seen as moral, or immoral, is simply a product of one’s society and/or culture. The general consensus of this view is that there is no ethical position that may be considered “right” or “wrong” in terms of society and culture (Cultural Relativism). In this paper I will argue that cultural relativism is not an adequate view of morality by providing evidence of its most common logical problems and faulty reasoning.
It is absolutely impossible to deny that every culture believes different things. It 's in human nature. Humans are programmed to gather with people that share similar beliefs. Look around, even among one’s culture, it is easy to recognize patterns. People create groups in which everyone share different characteristics such as language, ethnicity, and religion. It does not matter where you go every culture have a unique set of guidelines. That 's what cultural relativism claim. There are not universal moral truths rather every culture defines what is accepted within that culture and what 's not. Moral beliefs are not considered true or false, better or worse but just different. And because of this, moral relativists believe that they promote tolerance, equality and acceptance. However, Cultural Relativism is not flawless. There are several arguments that refute its validity such as its misinterpretation of the word tolerance, and the fact that is morally infallible.
The Plantation society theory tries to explain the social Caribbean structure in relation to the plantation experience. According to Professor George Beckford “plantation societies are characterized by the existence of a right social hierarchy based on labour, racial and cultural differences, large areas of land denoted to production, Authoritarian management centralized, among other things”. The plantation model stresses on the existence of two classes – “a white/free class which owned the means of production and a black/slave class which owned labour”. This model shines a spotlight on the traditional Marxist argument which speaks about the unequal distribution of wealth and power. The plantation society model serves to authenticate the assertion that occupation was linked through race. Although wealth and power can be inherited, they are also the products of occupation.
When linking the concept of cultural relativism to architecture, one would realize that both these components depend on each other. One cannot exist without the other (Kohler, 2003). Kohler remarks that in order for architecture to be progressive, The transfer and acceptance of technologies and techniques has to be based on a sound knowledge of regional culture (Kohler, 2003). In other words, the existing architecture or urban environment has to distinguish the features of regional diversity. Cultural exchange must consider the environment. No clash exists between regional and environmental appropriate construction techniques (Kohler, 2003). This is so because traditional architecture has adopted economic and environmental solutions. Conflict can only exist if one considers the ‘international style’ that has popularized the modern era with its high resource consumption. Kohler (2003) also stresses that there should be no regional cultural boundaries in order for architecture to be progressive (Kohler, 2003:86)
Each culture has their own unique set of beliefs and morals. What I believe to be ethical might be totally unethical or nonsense to you or even many others. For example, ISIS might believe that it is acceptable for them to behead others and perform terrorist acts in other countries. On the other hand, this would be completely unacceptable and unethical to many others because their cultures are completely different and these activities are not part of their culture. What is morally sound to an individual might not be to another individual. This then ties into cultural relativism. Cultural relativism is basically the idea that there are no universal morals that cultures share since each culture has a different view on what is right and wrong.
What is culture? Culture is identity; it’s the indigenous or non-indigenous ideology, habits, customs, appearances and beliefs that people are either raised by or adapt to from different nations surrounding. It is a network of knowledge shared by a group of people. Culture consists of configurations, explicit and implicit, of and for behavior obtained and spread by symbols establishing the distinctive achievement of human groups including their embodiments in artifacts; the vital core of culture consists of traditional ideas and especially their attached values. Culture systems may, on one hand, be considered as products of action, and on the other, as conditioning influences upon further action.