Cultural Relativism In Mexico Vs The United States

Cultural Relativism

Merriam-Webster defines relativism as, “a view that ethical truths depend on the individuals and groups holding them” (n.d.). Cultural relativism is a postmodernist philosophy that departs from the traditional ethical theories of duties, fairness, and rights, proposing instead that one group’s morality cannot be judged as right, wrong, or inferior when compared to another’s (Brusseau, 2012). This paper explores cultural relativism from the context of traffic violation fines in Mexico versus the United States.

Mordidas

From Spanish, mordida translates into English to mean “bite”, slang used in Mexico that describes a bribe. In many cultures, bribes might be called a time-honored tradition, not only expected by both parties

Writing in 1946 for the New York Times, Virginia Warren described bribes as driving up the cost of living in Mexico City for U.S. civil servants. Her story emphasized that traffic police in Mexico City were especially zealous in extracting bribes and suggested that the mordida goes back to the time of Spain’s South American conquests (1946).

Traffic Fines in Mexico

From this position, bribes are nothing out of the ordinary, an established protocol for transacting business, used for hundreds of years. Customs, those going back before the present day eldest were born, have a sense of legitimacy, a mindset of, “this is how it has always been done”, almost a moral conviction. Putting aside corruption, cultural relativism acknowledges bribery as a culture-specific Mexican value, and therefore not morally wrong.

With this mindset, it could be argued that the ability to pay a legitimate traffic violation "fine" on the spot is convenient, more so if paying the bribe keeps the infraction off one’s driving record. An altruist might say that bribes help support law enforcement and their families. This notion presupposes that the violator has sufficient funds. Perhaps this is part of the custom, always having currency on hand, lest one not come to a full stop in Mexico

If one chooses, even if they were at fault, it's their right to fight traffic tickets in court. Americans use mobile apps to fight tickets. If it wins, the violator pays the app's owner 50% of the original fine (Kharif, 2015). Central to this American value system is the belief that everyone will be treated fairly, there will always be an opportunity to contest a ticket, and the payment of bribes is not expected, although many an impaired driver and those with license infractions try to work brides in the opposite