“CULTURAL RELATIVISM AND UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS

Summary of “CULTURAL RELATIVISM AND UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS” by Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban

“ members of one culture might view as strange and bizarre in another culture (for example, polygamy, body tattooing, or strict dietary laws) can be understood best within that culture's context. Theoretically, anthropologists always should be observers and recorders not evaluators of other peoples’ customs and values.” ; Page 1

The main argument of the article is that there are many cultures around the world and we should learn about them before judging them unless if there’s is something ethically wrong in their cultur . One culture varies greatly from another culture. There around thousands of cultures around the world. We don’t know about a lot of cultures. One person may only know about as much as a handful of cultures. And in every culture there might be things that may look weird to us. We can find many such examples every day. So before we judge any culture we should learn about them and know about the cultures ethics. Our culture creates viewpoints for us about different things. We see things differently than other peop ot be judging people . Instead we should try to learn about their cultures. In the given article we see that the western countries have been telling Islamic countries to implement women empowerment. But it is very hypocritical that Islamic countries have more number of female leaders than western countries. Islamic countries have given more power to women . It is true that we should respect all cultures and learn about them. But in some cultures, even our own cultures, there might be something that is morally wrong and absurd. Like female circumcision or killing someone is wrong no matter what. We should stop things like these. Even if we respect cultures we have to say le because of our culture. So, if we see anything that may seem wrong or unethical to us, we should n what is wrong and what is right.