Culture and Relativism Cultural Views Essay

Submitted By blacktype_sh
Words: 490
Pages: 2

Relativism
Relativism pertains to what each individual culture defines as right or wrong. A great example was given that in some parts of the world capital punishment is wrong in France, but right in Saudi Arabia (Waller, 2008 pp. 24) Relativism is defined by the culture that you are in, at that present time. If you move or visit another country, you would need to pay close attention to their relativism views.
The understanding of relativism is useful, because it reminds us of keeping an open mind towards different cultural views. For example, when traveling to another country making sure we stay respectful to those cultures views is critical. The thought of cultural change wouldn’t be considered, because we would be at an understanding that we are not at home. That some of our notions of what we believe to be right, may not be the same of other places. We start to think more in favor of the other culture, because we realize that that our views are the absolute norm on how things are done (Waller, 2008 pp. 20).
The negative side of that comes into play when, you have cultures within cultures with other cultures. Living a small suburb community, would have their own set of relativism cultural views. As a resident in that community, you are satisfied with the activities performed in your community. Unfortunately as you start zooming out, away from your community you find yourself having to abide by another much larger community. With their own ways of doing and viewing certain things, conflicts between communities start to arise. Ultimately, you include the cultural views of the country that houses those communities that you are part of. The possibilities are endless, with different ways of viewing, and doing things there can be problems (Waller, 2008 pp. 26).
In the topic of animal care, the methods, and definitions of that could be contrary of what we view as normal. For me the animal care provided to animals