The Cultural Relativism Ethnocentrism and
Culture is the beliefs, behavior, objects, and other characteristics shared by group pf people.
Culture could be based on shared ethnicity, gender, customs, values, or even objects.
Culture can also demonstrate the way a group thinks, their practices, or behavioral patterns, or
their view of the world.
What is Cultural Relativism?
Cultural relativism is the idea that a person’s beliefs and practices should be understood based
on that person’s own culture.Proponents of cultural relativism also tend to argue that the norms
and values of one culture should not be evaluated using the norms and values.
How different cultures have different moral codes:
Different cultures have different moral codes.What is thought right within one group may be
utterly abhorrent to the members of another group, and vise versa.
Therefore, there is no objective "truth" in morality. Right and wrong are only matters of opinion,
and opinions vary from culture to culture.
there is no reason to think that if there is moral truth everyone must know it.
Cultural Relativism
• Cultural Relativism, as it has been called, challenges our ordinary belief in the objectivity and
universality of moral truth. It says, in effect, that there is not such thing as universal truth in ethics; there
are only the various cultural codes, and nothing more. Moreover, our own code has no special status; it
is merely one among many.
-By definition, ‘’cultural relativism’’ is the concept of understanding different cultures and respecting
their own beliefs.Normally, it is to be expected that a certain type of practice is culturally acceptable in
one group while being considered a cultural deviation in another group.
BENEFITS OF CULTURAL RELATIVISM
o Encourage people to be open minded
o Promotes tolerance
o Promotes cooperation
o Makes people respectful
The Consequences of Taking Cultural Relativism Seriously
• We could no longer say that the customs of other societies are morally inferior to our own.
• We could decide whether actions are right or wrong just by consulting the standards of our society.
• The idea of moral progress is called into doubt.
Ethnocentrism
The word ethnocentrism derives from the Greek word ethnos, meaning "nation" or "people,"
and the English word center.
The usual definition of the term is "thinking one's own group's ways are superior to others" or
"judging other groups as inferior to one's own". "Ethnic" refers to cultural heritage, and
"centrism" refers to the central starting point.
A belief that one’s own culture is better than others.
Tend to compare, evaluate, and even judge other people’s based on the values and standards set in one’s
culture.
Their worldview is based on the beliefs, assumptions, expectations, and values shaped by one’s
language, behavior, customs, values, religion and other aspects.
• Ethnocentric behavior involves judging other groups relative to the preconceptions of one's own
ethnic group or culture, especially regarding language, behavior, customs, and religion. These aspects or
categories are distinctions that define each ethnicity's unique cultural identity.
William G. Sumner defined ethnocentrism as "the technical name for the view of things in which
one's own group is the center of everything, and all others are scaled and rated with reference
to it.
Ethnocentrism and cultural relativism are mutually exclusive. They are two extremes on the
opposite sides of a philosophical spectrum
Theocentrism is the view that God is superior to everyone else. The word theocentrism derives
from the Greek word theos, meaning "God" or "gods," and the English word center. In this
context, theocentrism refers to the view that God's system of beliefs and values is morally
superior to all others.
Example of Ethnocentrism:
► Motive of the Spaniards in colonizing the Philippines. They regarded the natives of the islands as
uncivilized savages in need of Spanish governance and practices. The Spaniards forced the natives to
adapt to Spanish culture, which eventually become a part of the Philippine culture in the modern setting.
So what is the problem with ethnocentrism?
Ethnocentrism leads to misunderstanding others. We falsely distort what is meaningful and
functional to other peoples through our own tinted glasses. We see their ways in terms of our
life experience, not their context. We do not understand that their ways have their own
meanings and functions in life, just as our ways have for us.
Xenocentrism
Xenos is a greek word that means stranger or foreign; correspondingly, xenocentrism is the preference
for another culture or other cultures over one’s own culture.The preference for another culture over
one’s own culture is known as xenocentrism.A person who practices xenocentrism believes that foreign
cultures are superior to their own and thus value the goods, styles and ideas of other cultures moreover
than their own.
Opposite to ethnocentrism
Coined by william graham in the 19th century.
ECONOMIC SITUATION
It’s the best criteria for judging the degree of xenocentrism in. a country.
Peolple of poor and developing countries often follow the culture of developed countries.
Xenocentrism Examples
There are many common examples of xenocentrism that can be witnessed in daily life, such as
o The belief that French wines and cheeses are superior to all other wines and cheeses,
o The insistence that German beers are of the highest quality,
o The image of Paris as the fashion capital of the world,
o The idolization of large blue eyes and pale white skin in Eastern Asian countries,
o And the notion of the "American Dream" or America as "the land of opportunity" in countries outside of the
US.
Each of these different examples are situations where there is a preference for another culture outside
of the culture in the home country.
Understanding Xenocentrism
In psychological terms, xenocentrism is considered a type of deviant behavior because it sways from the
norms of society. It is unexpected that an individual would value the goods, services, styles, ideas and
other cultural elements of another nation.
