Essays on Cultural Relativism

“We should respect that other cultures have different values, even if that means they reject human rights.”  In the first section of this essay, I will touch upon the long-standing dispute between the universality of human rights and cultural relativism by discussing the persecution of...

What I see as a perfectly normal thing to do could be absolutely appalling to someone who was raised in another culture. As an example, I work at a US retail store that gets visitors from around the world, many of which are from Brazil....

This paper covers the central theme of Moral (Cultural) Relativism. It is essentially the idea that morally acceptable conduct is determined and set by culture. The key factor is that the moral codes of a certain culture are usually different when compared to another. This...

Introduction Normative cultural relativism is a moral theory that sees moral rights and wrongs to be necessarily dependent on a particular society, culture or community’s moral norms. Thus, one can simplify it to a simpler statement whereby a normative relativism ‘tells us how we ought...

I always thought that because I am born and raised in a Vietnamese household, I already have a firm grasp on the concept of overcoming ethnocentric biases and be unprejudiced and/or more understanding when it comes to other religious and cultural practices. However, that is...

Cultural relativism is a phrase that can be ambiguous; a few different meanings have been attached to it. The more moderate meaning of the phrase, and the main one used in this essay, is that people’s values and practices must be understood in the context...

At some point in our lives, every one of us will have to respond to some kind of cultural differences. Obviously, some professions and lifestyles will expose you to more contrasting societies than others. However, in a world as global as ours is today, coming...

Ethnocentrism is a tricky subject. It is when a person believes they are better than another person, when in reality they are both humans, which means no one is better than anyone else. This belief is what creates a hostile environment in our country because...

Cultural Relativism Cultural Relativism basically states that different cultures have different moral codes. The customs of different societies are all that exist and no independent standard of right and wrong can be imposed. Anthropologist, Ruth Benedict, argues that studying the cultural practices of different groups...

High context cultures communicate indirectly through contextual elements. The Taiwanese emphasize values such as saving face, which means to uphold the dignity or maintain the balance of a group. Speaking bluntly or mentioning opposing views can embarrass and affect how people perceive that individual, which...

“Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter” This great proverb was a favorite of the influential author, who wrote Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe. Achebe realized the value of storytelling. As a writer, the story...