ANTH 1120 Midterm Exam Review

Ethnocentrism is defined by our tendency to judge other groups or cultures based upon our own standards establishing

Ethnocentrism is defined as the tendency to judge other people and cultures by the standards of one’s own culture and to believe that the behavior, customs, norms, values and other characteristics of one’s own group are natural, valid, and correct while those of other’s are unnatural, invalid and incorrect. For example, in Funny in Farsi Firoozeh experiences ethnocentrism from citizens here

Moral Relativism is defined as the belief that conflicting moral beliefs are true. This carries the impression that what you respect as a right behavior may be a right conduct for you, but not for me. Moral Relativism is an attempt to

Cultural relativism is the idea that human behavior, ideas, and emotions must be understood in the context of the whole culture in which they occur.

Cultural relativism is the process of how we understand different cultures through their own meaning, and not how we understand these cultures through our culture. Ethnocentrism is when you look at another culture and judge it solely based on attitudes and judgments based solely on how we understand the different culture through our own cultural views. Before being socialized into the Hmong culture, Walt had a very stereotypical view of him Hmong neighbour’s. He viewed them as stereotypical Asians that were taking over his neighbourhood and country, and often referred to them as gooks. Walt only understood Asian people based on his own opinions of them and through what his culture perceived them as and not by direct exposure to their culture.

According to Anonymous in Dissoi Logoi Cultural Relativism is defined as, “only an individual’s perspective can determine the value of a given object, act, experience, and so on. (Anonymous, 1979, p. 47). Anonymous provides 5 sections on Cultural Relativism, Good and Bad, Seemly and Shameful, Just and Unjust and Truth and Falsehood. On Good or Bad he gives us the example, “Death is bad for those who die, but good for the undertakers and grave diggers.” (Anonymous, 1979, 48). In Seemly and

Cultural Relativism – the practice of assessing a culture by its own standards, and not in comparison to another culture

Ethnocentrism:(late 15th century). Individuals judge other groups relative to their own based on langue behavior customs and religion. When the Spaniards came to the new worlds they saw that the natives were more advanced in agriculture. The natives also had a different customs and languages. Ethnocentrism, or the idea of it, placed natives in forced labor and segregated them based on their customs.

Being enclosed, locked up inside cages and inner universes of stubbornness and inflexibility, hinder ethnocentric individuals from seeing and viewing the world equally and reasonably. Hence, Cultural relativists seek to understand the reason why individuals from another culture dress, speak or eat in particular way. Namely, they suppress judgments in order to understand people by their own norms because for relativists, no culture is better or worse than another culture. With the advance of human rights, adherence to ethnicity is not an imposition and compulsion where it became a matter of choice (C.L. Khatri, 2005). It is important to resume that cultural relativism strives to promote an equal vision and perception of all existing cultures and cultural ideologies.

Cultural relativism is the way society separates right from wrong within a culture. What we describe as “good” and “bad” is based off of our cultural beliefs. Cultural relativism argues that no culture is better than any other and all their beliefs are equally valid. The way that modern society is has made it possible for almost everything to be justified.

We must first understand the two distinct theories regarding perception of outside cultures: Ethnocentrism and Cultural Relativism. Ethnocentrism is judging another culture solely by the values and standards of one's own culture.[1] The ethnocentric individual will judge other groups relative to his or her own particular ethnic group or culture, especially with concern to language, behavior, customs, and religion - these ethnic distinctions and subdivisions serve to define each ethnicity’s unique cultural identity.[2] The logical alternative to ethnocentrism is Cultural relativism, the practice of judging a

In a world dominated by an endless number of cultures, it can be hard to decipher aspects of another person’s life without making false judgements based on preconceived notions of what we know about these other cultures. It is these false ideas inside of our thoughts that create trouble for bringing about acceptance into the world. Ethnocentrism can be thought of as this difficulty when it comes to understanding others in terms of how they act, feel and think (“Ethnocentrism and Cultural Relativity” Lecture). We tend to see the world through one lens only, and we tend to judge others based on our own experiences and perceptions about the world around us. Not only is the concept of ethnocentrism about interpersonal dynamics, but about intrapersonal

Cultural relativism means the exact opposite of ethnocentrism. It can be summed up as believing that “all religious, ethical, aesthetic, and political beliefs are completely relative to the individual within a cultural identity” (www.cultural-relativism.com). This means that there is no definite “right” or “wrong”, but rather an ever-changing set of values for each separate culture.

Cultural relativism is the concept that morality is based upon culture, “[…] there are sometimes differing moral standards and practices in various cultures” (Hollinger, 2002, Kindle Locations 212-218). Morals are not universal, practices are accepted or rejected by the individual culture and change as the culture changes.

Many cultures, have the urge to judge another's culture because their culture may seem different to them. Every Culture has their different perspectives on the world as they were brought up with a divergent mindset. For instance, the Japenese people, sit on the floor to eat all meals, personally from my point of view, I think that is very strange because I am not used to doing that or I have never tried it. I eat on a table. This can lead to cultural misunderstandings because I did not take any time to try to understand why they sit on the floor, from my perspective, I had just concluded one of their norms, based on what I had