The American Anthropological Association (AAA) has seen their share of criticism regarding their view of cultures. The Ayaan Hirsi Ali (AHA) Foundation has taken up a stance to do anything within their power to fight for the rights of women worldwide, specifically pertaining to honor violence. There seems to be serious philosophical tension between the AAA and the AHA. In this paper, I will set out to discuss this tension in three ways. The first thing I will do is to try and present the AAA’s position with as much accuracy and charitability as I can. The second thing I will try to do is to apply the AAA’s stance specifically to honor violence. Lastly, I will argue for my view of the AAA’s position. Hopefully, I will offer a compelling case …show more content…
The reason is this. For an individual to truly grow as a person, that individual must be in a societal context that supports growth. The reverse is also true. For a society to grow, it must consist of individuals who place a high value on support for one another. The argument is thus self-sustaining. In this, I believe they are trying to communicate that all cultures should be given the same amount of respect. If all cultures are made up of humans, then in their eyes attacking a culture is the same as attacking an …show more content…
The entire premise of their statement has been that you cannot judge a culture by another culture. Therefore, the view of absolute moral claims goes against that. However, that is exactly what they are presenting. By saying that there are no moral claims, that view in and of itself is a moral claim. Their view that there is no such thing as absolute morality is a statement of absolute morality. The AAA’s statement is neither coherent nor convincing. It is by its own nature inconsistent. In this paper, I have showed my case as to why I believe the American Anthropological Association’s statements are inconsistent and self-defeating. I presented what I believed their position was in an unbiased and charitable position as possible. I also showed that they could neither endorse the Ayaan Hirsi Ali movement to help women nor could the condemn honor violence. I finally revealed what I believed the weaknesses of their argument were. The statements of the AAA show what happens when people rely on emotion apart from
Chapter 1, Sexual Violence as a Tool of Genocide, discusses the history of and gives us an introduction to genocide. The author talks about the treatment of bodies, in particular Native bodies, and how colonial thought and theory regards Native people as inherently “rapable” and “violable,” a colonial conviction that stretches past the physical bodies of Natives, to Native independence and lands as well. She explains that patriarchy is the foundation by which power is established over Native women's bodies because hierarchal, patriarchal authority and control systems of society are seldom found within native societies. Europeans, on the other hand, have long depended on these methods to suppress and infuse fear into their people.
It expresses the idea that this is something that is common among most people. As a social analyst or sociologist, one needs to view another culture not as something abnormal or wrong but as something just simply different than our own. This viewing of other cultures as simply different is called cultural relativism. Cultural relativism is an important concept to comprehend in this chapter and this is because it helps us to understand and to “place different values, beliefs, norms, and practices within their own culture”. (Ferris & Stein, 2010, p. 78). It is important to practice cultural relativism because it allows oneself to be open minded and to see other more openly, without judgment and as a result appreciate their culture, their way of life. Another insightful concept addressed in this chapter was the concept of cultural leveling which is “the process by which cultures that were once unique and distinct become increasingly similar” (Ferris & Stein, 2010, p. 91). The chapter states that cultural leveling is seen all around the United States. If cultural leveling is something that seems to be constantly occurring, then it is an important concept to understand. One example that the chapter provides is the rise of popularity in Japanese anime in
James Rachels claims that morality is absolute. In his article Mortality is Not Relative, he discusses the fallacies of Cultural Relativism as well as the Cultural Differences Argument. Rachels believes that all cultures have some values in common and that there is way less disagreement between them than it seems. He brings up the example of the Eskimo’s and how they choose to kill the infants that they cannot take care of, “The Eskimo’s values are not all that different from our values. It is only that life forces upon them choices that we do not have to make” (Rachels). Another example of this would be how in some cultures it is wrong to eat cows because they believe that the souls of their ancestors and deceased are reincarnated into the cow. In our culture we would not eat our grandparents either, the only difference is we do not believe that they become cows, thus we would have no problem eating cows. “Now do we want to say that their values are different than ours? No, the difference lies elsewhere. The difference is in our belief systems, not in our values” (Rachels).
That is, each culture is distinctly different from any other culture and cannot be mixed with other cultures, according to moral isolationism. Furthermore, Midgley describes our culture in the following way, “It is no sealed box, but a fertile jungle of different influences” (165). In other words, in reality, our culture does have inspirations from different cultures and is a sort of “melting pot” of many cultural influences. In addition, she makes the following claim, “Except for the very smallest and most remote, all cultures are formed out of many streams” (165). Thus, our culture’s formation was dependent on the mixing together of many different cultures, but if a barrier does exist between cultures, then our culture could not have been
Violence against women has existed for centuries and women experience violence in many setting; however, domestic violence is the most prevalent. Abela and Walker (2014) explain that the women’s right movement took place because women were maltreated and oppressed (78). They state that the victimization of women was the reason why the second wave of the feminist movement arose. They also explain that during this time, laws in the Untied States allow men to hit their wives (Abela & Walker 79). Women from different cultures and different economic status have been victims of domestic violence. In this paper, I will focus on domestic violence against women from different cultures. I will present information about the history of domestic violence
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This analogy shows that there are problems with the logic the Cultural Differences Argument because it tries to “derive a substantive conclusion” about a topic from the fact that there is a disagreement in belief between two groups (Rachel 19). While the premise involves what people believe, the conclusion is about what is the truth, which means the conclusion does not follow from the premise. A deductive argument is valid if its conclusion follows the premises; therefore, the Cultural Differences Argument is invalid. Furthermore, this analogy works as a criticism of the Cultural Differences Argument because it shows that the disagreement between cultures about a topic does not guarantee that there is no objective truth about such a topic. It might simply be because one party (or both) is
Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and Its Others, many American political makers attempt to interfere with women in the Muslim culture, because they see them as things that need to be saved. American society focuses purely on their cultural and moral differences, instead of the marvelous beliefs and lives they lead. Abu-Lughod argues that instead, the American government needs to focus and learn to appreciate these differences among women around the world. She also states, “When you save someone, you imply that you are saving her from something” (Ab-Lughod, 2002, pg.788). Again, this is crushing the spirits of strong, independent women; implying they are objects that need to be protected. This is a great example of how the American government is trying to mitigate the rights and choices of
The thesis of the article written by Aashika Damodar is; “Gender-based violence both in the developed and developing world are a complex blend of structural and cultural challenges, many of which are enhanced and enabled by communicative technology.” One example that is made in favor of the thesis is the “Mensajes De Paz”. Which is film documentary on gender-based violence in Guatemala. Where over 6000 women have been killed in last ten years and only two percent were convicted.
The article by Meetoo and Miraz define extreme forms of domestic violence, which often lead to the death of a woman at the hands of her loved ones or community. Interestingly, "honour" only arises as a motivation for murder when religion or ethnic communities are involved. In the article, the author asserts that ethicized women (women of colour and other minorities) who are victims of honour killings are unrecognized in both multicultural discussion and domestic violence discussion. Since 9/11, these women have become much more visible, but unfortunately this increased recognition is due to a heightened sense of fear and danger associated with the idea of a "Muslim alien 'other'". By employing an approach focused more on human rights, people
Honor based violence and domestic violence are two common forms of violence that exist in our world today, and they have for many years (Devaney, 2014; Hague, Gill, & Begikhani, 2013; Olwan, 2013). Honor based violence covers a wide variety of violent acts performed by a male relative that are done in order to preserve family honor (Eshareturi, Lyle, & Morgan, 2014), and this type of violence is associated most often with Middle Eastern nations (Belfrage, Strand, Ekman, Hasselborg, 2012; Olwan, 2013; Standish, 2014). Domestic violence is an umbrella term for a variety of actions such as rape, as well as assaults of both the physical and verbal varieties (Policastro, & Payne, 2013). While the rationale and execution of each of these types of violence varies (Chesler, 2010; Eshareturi et al., 2014), there are underlying similarities that exist among both.
In this essay, I will be creating a discourse on anthropological activism and how it relates to the basic principles of anthropology, whilst referring to the case study Activist Anthropologists by Victoria Sanford. I will provide my anthropological views on this subject based on my research.
The case study of the violence in Native American communities illustrate the concept of privilege. The group who are privilege in this case are the non-Natives. Even if they have committed a violence crime against a woman on a tribe land or is married to a tribe member, they can not be prosecuted by the tribe enforcement. The concept of oppressed based off this case study are the women. The Native American women who have been in a violence incident. They are oppressed oppressed from the Violence Against Women Act, because the tribal law not being able to prosecute the offender. The institutions that are seen in this case study are the law enforcement in the tribe, the federal law enforcement and the Violence Against Women act. The ideologies
There is more to these arguments that once they are well analyzed they are read differently with another meaning to them. These arguments are against objective values. “Since morality is a product of culture, there can’t be objective moral truths” (Shafer-Landau, P. 205). The problem with this quote is that what a culture produces can express truths about how people live.
This argument claims that we are not allowed to condemn another culture just because it is different from our own. While it is an interesting idea to be tolerant and accepting of all choices from other cultures, it is just not plausible. It is an acceptance which leads to no growth in society and results in the inability to also criticize the negative aspects of a society. For example, if we agreed that each culture has the right to believe and do as they please without outside interference, then we would not be able to criticize slavery or anti-semitism because they are just the thoughts of that culture. If we were unable to criticize these fundamentally wrong ideas then there would be no growth in culture since we would be unable to disconnect our society from morally incorrect thoughts and move them on to better ideas. This thought that one’s culture is always correct in its opinions not only makes it impossible for one to criticize another culture, but it also makes it impossible for one to criticize their own