cultural relativism

Just punch the fuckers, and when they say, "Oi, stop that," you say, "Says you, relativism boy."

Simple.

like where your coming from.

I think you've laid out your answer for yourself though.

I think Zizek (if i've grapsed him at all right) takes major issues with the politics of "differance" and "identity" serving only to rebuild homogenity. Of course the button being more grounded in this shit could probably tell you more.

my impression is that most of this stuff goes on the same line as postmodernism, ie starting with saussure's structural linguistics (meaningis constructed internally to the system primarily through the difference between elements within that system), then derrida went and removed all reference to the signified, meaning is nowconstructed out of difference between signs(i'm sure this is a really inadequate gloss).

for post modernists all totalising discourses (e.g. of class) are tantamount to intellectual terrorism. however this is problematic since it seems to rule out any form of mobilisation against capital, which might be a worse form of terrorism then discourses of class, thus post modernism is anti ethical.

others however have usedpost modernism as a way into a thoroughly different form of anarchism. deleuze and guattari's 'capitalism and schizophrenia' is the biggy here,but i aint read it, only 'on an(archy) and schizo analysis' by rolando perez. 'capitalism and schizophrenia' is claimed as an ethical work, it suggests that humans are desiring machines whose desires are appropriated by capital and other forms of social domination (oedipus). despite the post modernity it seems that there is still an a priori concept of the human at stake here. this points to a problem with the social constructivist position (the relativist one too i would imagine) in that in their haste to shout 'discourse' or 'structure' they give these social creations a life of their own. but these realities are constructed by people, God didn't put them there, they're highly contingent, were it not for this, change would be impossible.

as an alternative to this whole stew of confusion, i think it's worth exploring bakhtin's linguistics which focuses on the idea of dialogue, i think theatre of the oppressed use him.

sorry for ramblage.

Why thank you. 8)

Unfortunately, I cannot type the words "cultural" & "relativism" in the same sentence without losing the will to live.

Oh no..... it's started already.......

bakhtin is able to reconcile the tensions between structure and agent by suggesting discourse genres. discourse is a process of exchange, but the genre provides an expected structure to that exchange. so for example if i go to the shop to buy something there is a certain expectation as to how the conversation will go, in terms of tone, vocabulary etc. however these structures are not the monoliths that structuralism would make them out to be, they are constantly interacting, they become hybrid. this hybridity is created by the action of the speakers within these forms, their negotiation.

this accounts for the process of change and acquisition of structural forms, something which structuralism and post- have difficulties with. if we look at cultural relativism in this way, we see that structuralism makes cultures out to be static and immobile. rooted in a particular people's history, blood, and in nationalism, territory.

for anarchists this conception is unacceptable, injustice, cruelty transcend cultural forms. anarchists in my view seem always to have an a priori notion of the human and thus right and wrong at stake. challenging cultural relativism in this form is quite easy, hit em with a problem, eg honour killings. no right thinking person can see these as acceptable. in fact viewing them as a part of a specific culture ignores ténsion and opposition within these groups. so when people say that they don't condone honour killings then you gotta twist the knife, why? is that just your 'culture' or do you think this pertains to all people? if they can accept some universal views of the human then you got em over a barrel. as has already been mentioned simple narratives of 'us' and 'them' mask power interests, talking about the clash of civilisations is very convenient for the ruling class of all nations.

anyway, so culture is changing. norms are not set in stone but are negotiated and achieved through interaction. smash the state.

Aak nasty, where are you studying, joy? I don't think any staff in my anth department are into cultural relativism, at all, more into anthropology as cultural criticism afaik. Hmm, I'm gonna go search my reading lists cos I KNOW there's huge amounts of current anthropology which shits all over CR, but I've got a mind like a goddamn sieve.