From Inuits killing there newborn babies, to Callatians eating their dead fathers. There is clearly a wide variety of what is accepted in certain cultures compared to others. Its hard for us to say what should be and was shouldn’t deemed allowed in cultures when we are not in the cultures ourselves. This is where Cultural Relativism comes in and says we shouldn’t be allowed to say whats right and wrong in other cultures. Cultural relativism refers to not judging a culture to our own standards of what is right or wrong, strange or normal. Instead, we should try to understand cultural practices of other groups in its own cultural context. Some of the main arguments for the theory is that truth is relative which means that you cannot say what is right or wrong in cultures that are not yours. This allows people to express themselves which could end up with a happier and diverse culture. Some more positive arguments about Cultural Relativism is that it promotes cooperation by not letting people say what it right and wrong, therefor you will have to learn to live with other cultures. Also it preserves cultures. So many cultures may have died or have died because of society saying there beliefs are incorrect. Finally, equality has the chance to be achieved, this could be possible because nobody would be higher than others in society because now all societies are socially acceptable.
Granted Cultural relativism does have a lot of benefits, simply the negatives associated with this makes it not a good option. Rachel made plenty of great points which is why I believe that Cultural Relativism is not beneficial in society. Throughout history we have had an abundance of actions that were in the past accepted in societies. If Cultural Relativism were to be our new way of acting then we would have chaos everywhere. This would happen because Cultural Relativism says that we cannot deem what is right and what is wrong in other societies. Therefor if Cultural Relativism was our way of thinking a hundred years ago then we would not have advanced as a society. For instance, as Rachels said about the Nazi and the Jews. The Nazis believed that the Jewish people were outcast due to hair and eye colours. They then decided to murder and try to wipe out all of the jewish people. Back then due to Cultural Relativism we could not have intervened or tried to stop this because we could not tell them what is right and what is wrong. Although many cultures have a variety of customs and different way they do certain things, that is alright and should be encouraged. To a certain point though we should be able to intervene to prevent inhuman activities or other unmoral acts that are really crossing the line. There are simply to many things that could go wrong if we were to adopt cultural relativism. There are a lot of beautiful cultures in our world that have so many great things happening in their society, but on the other hand their are many things that are wrong with communities. Some cultures are okay with stoning people to death, and some are okay with genital manipulation. Cultural Relativism would make this allowed and not a single person could interfere to tell them that this is not allowed. Due to the fact that whats moral for them wouldn’t be the same as what a different culture views it as. Maybe people would start to make up cultures with outrageous rules that allow murder and rap and all sorts of bad things. Cults could possibly turn into cultures. There is to many negative outcomes that are associated with Cultural relativism that it makes it such a horrible idea to implement this into the world.
Although it is given that Cultural Relativism would not benefit in this world it does have a lot of strong points about it that could in some ways benefit a society. One way that Cultural Relativism could really benefit communities is that it will allow them to do all of their original practices without being frowned upon. Take for example the Inuit. They used to practice senicide, this was action took place when the elderly would become to old to contribute to the communities. They didn’t do this because they didn't love them anymore or out of hate. They simply had to do this because the elderly would need to be cared for and fed. Unfortunately, in their type of climates food was hard to come by and they were on the move. It was to hard to provide for them and all the other tribe members. It then became a custom that when they reached a certain age they would take the elderly far out somewhere and just leave them to freeze to death. Cultural Relativism would stop this and could actually harm the community because they would not be able to feed all this people and sustain a strong community. Cultural Relativism also has the power to preserve cultures. Cultures throughout history have changed in order to please the world. With Cultural Relativism cultures can stick to their roots and can have traditions that stay in place. In todays society many ideals and with the internet and social media, many of the smallest actions often spread worldwide and can often lead to a large debate, even turns into questioning that culture and if its proper. Cultural Relativism would eliminate most of the unnecessary problems.
Sure, those do sounds like very positive outcomes by implementing Cultural Relativism. It still is not a smart idea because its consequences heavily outweigh the positive side. With Cultural Relativism you will see that no person can deem what is moral or allowed in a culture. This will lead to cultures having the freedom to doing whatever they please. We could have cultures who have children abuse and domestic abuse along with other not acceptable actions, but all they would have to say is in out culture it is accepted. That is why we should not implement Cultural Relativism into out world.