Cultural Universals, Cultural Relativism, and What should we avoid when studying and observing cultures?
What are cultural universals? A cultural universal are "an element, pattern, trait, or institution that is common to all human cultures worldwide." For example, each and every baby from the film and in our world eat, sleep, need comfort and safety, play, cleaned some how, grow teeth, grow, walk, talk and pay outside. A cultural universal can be anything that is common to all humans anywhere in the world. Below is a picture of Ponijao playing with another child. Playing is a cultural universal.
What is cultural relativism? A cultural relativism is "judging cultures on their own terms: the principle that people should not judge the behavior of others using the standards of their own culture, and that each culture must be analyzed on its own terms." Each culture is unique and important for our society and world to function. Even though someone may look different or go about life differently doesn't give you an excuse to judge or mistreat them. Every single person in our world is different and special in their own way. Just like every single snowflake is unique so is each human being. I remember always hearing "treat others the way you would want to be treated." This saying doesn't just have to be about treating people with respect and nicely. It could also be like "don't judge a book by its cover." Personally I don't think that saying is just about physically appearances. I think it could also reflect on cultures. For example, after the 911 hit the twin towers in NYC people began to judge that all Muslim people are terrorists. Yes some of them are but I am positive some Christians, Atheists etc... do some terrible things as well. Once something bad happens, people tend to think the worst about people and cultures. That is why we need to not judge and use cultural relativism. We should judge ourselves before judging others. Nobody is perfect and we need to respect and honor different cultures.
What we should avoid when studying and observing cultures There are a few things we should be aware of when looking at other cultures. The first is background information on the culture. Even though you may want to put away all of your biases before studying the culture you should see what is respectful and what isn't. In some cultures eye contact is very disrespectful. If you were to study that culture and didn't do background information on that culture you would be disrespecting a lot of people. The second is being aware of cultural relativism, universals and components. Third, observe and compare many different cultures and avoid saying which one you like best. I personally think there are only a few things we should be aware of when looking at different cultures. I think the biggest one is respect and responsibility when reporting your findings. Always remember that everyone and every culture makes up our world. Culture is very important in the development and growth of our future generations and world. "People without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots" (Marcus Garvey).
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