The Intellectual Standard

Volume 2 | Issue 2 Article 1

2013

Critiquing Cultural Relativism

Jaret Kanarek
Illinois Wesleyan University, jkanarek@iwu.edu

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Kanarek, Jaret (2013) "Critiquing Cultural Relativism," The Intellectual Standard: Vol. 2: Iss. 2, Article 1.
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The Intellectual Standard

Critiquing Cultural Relativism

Jaret I<:anarek

I. INTRODUCTION
Cultural relativism is the ever-popular theory claiming that, "any
set of customs and institutions, or way of life, is as valid as any other:'l
In its appeal to tolerance-the seemingly incontrovertible "virtue" of the
modern era-it has gained wide appeal amongst myriad disciplines, most
notably in the social sciences.2 However, the theory is destructive in both
theory and practice. In theory, cultural relativism emphatically denies rea­
son and objective reality.3 In practice, it sanctions the worst manifestations
of violence and oppression.

II. CULTURAL RELATIVISM DEFINED

That cultural relativism is not simply a statement about the equal
validity of cultures, but a theory dependent on explicit philosophic funda­
mentals' is central to its proper understanding. Franz Boas, oft referred to
as the father of American anthropology, first expounded the theoretical
basis of cultural relativism in a number of essays published in the 1920s.4
Melville Herskovits, a well-known anthropologist and student of Boas, fur-

Frank E. Hartung, "Cultural Relativity and Moral Judgments:' Philosophy of

Science, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Apr., 1954), pp. 118-126. Published by The University of Chicago
Press for the Philosophy of Science Association.
2 Tolerance is often touted as an end in itself, and on a grand scale. In the Dec-
laration of Principles on Tolerance, created by the United Nations Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), tolerance is upheld as "a moral duty " and "as the
virtue that makes peace possible" (Article 1, November 16, 1995).
3 In her essay, "In The Name of Culture: Culture Relativism and the Abuse of the
Individual:' Elizabeth M. Zechenter points out that cultural relativism has many variants
and, as such, cannot be spoken of a monolithic theory (pp. 323). She isolates three broad
yet distinct variants as follows: descriptive relativism (or weak relativism), normative
relativism (or strong relativism), and epistemological relativism (or extreme relativism). In
this essay, it is the latter two that I am explicitly critiquing.The reader is free to apply the
arguments herein to descriptive relativism at his or her discretion. Also, "objective reality:'
as it is used in this essay, is defined as reality existing independent of man's mind, feelings,
perceptions, wishes, et cetera.That is, it is the facts of reality are facts regardless of whether
men choose to believe them.
4 Marguerite Holloway, "The Paradoxical Legacy of Franz Boas - father of Ameri-
can anthropology:' Natural History, 1997.

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The Intellectual Standard Critiquing Cultural Relativism

ther elucidated the theory. Cultural relativism, posits Herskovits, begins

with the notion that experience is man's primary connection to reality. It
is through experience that man comes to know about the world, and it is
from this experience that judgments are derived. Herskovits wrote, "judg­
ments are based on experience, and experience is interpreted by each in­
dividual in terms of his own enculturation:'5 Enculturation is the process
by which a culture conditions man's mind, thus influencing his conceptual
make-up.6
Enculturation is not latent. Herskovits remarks that, "the force of
the enculturative experience channels all judgments:'7 As one scholar fur­
ther explains:

"Cultures inculcated their members with moral and ethical rules

through involuntary socialization and enculturation and ... few, if any,
individuals were consciously aware of the arbitrary character of be­
liefs that were ingrained into them:'8

There are two defining aspects of this process. First, enculturation

is "involuntary:' Second, it is in large part unconsciously accepted. Resul­
tantly, any conviction of an individual or group is inherently "arbitrary"
because they are determined solely by accident of birth.
Thus, the starting point of cultural relativism is an assertive epis­
temological claim about man's nature. Judgment, it holds, is reliant on ex­
perience-experience that is inseparable from its cultural context. Since
man's judgments are culture-bound, so too are his methods of reasoning
and knowledge. As Herskovits states, "Evaluations are relative to the cul­
tural background out of which they arise:'9 This does not solely pertain

5 Paul F. Schmidt, "Some Criticisms of Cultural Relativism:' The Journal of Phi-

losophy, Vol. 52, No. 25 (Dec. 8, 1955), pp. 782.
6 Ibid. pp. 782
7 Melville Herskovits, Cultural Relativism: Perspectives in Cultural Pluralism (New
York, Vintage Books, 1973).
8 Elizabeth M. Zechenter, "In The Name of Culture: Culture Relativism and the
Abuse of the Individual:' Journal of Anthropological Research, Vol. 53, No. 3, Universal Hu­
man Rights Versus Cultural Relativity (Autumn, 1997), pp. 324.
9 Melville Herskovits, Man and His Works (New York, A. A. Knopf, 1948), pp.
63. Note: Herskovits remains unchanged in his views regarding the subject in the 1955
abridged version of his work, Cultural Anthropology.
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The Intellectual Standard Critiquing Cultural Relativism

to value judgments, but to all reasoning and to all knowledge. Herskovits

continues, "Even the facts of the physical world are discerned through the
enculturative screen, so that the perception of time, distance, weight, size,
and other 'realities' is mediated by the conventions of any given group:'lO
As such, reality is interpreted according to each man's inherently
culture-bound perceptions. Reality is not objective, but rather subjective in
that its nature is determined by and dependent upon its perceiver. The fol­
lowing is one scholar's summation of the cultural relativist's view of reality
and man's knowledge of it:

''All experience is culturally mediated. There is no reality known to

man beyond, or in addition to, cultural reality ... it follows a priori
that all modes of perception and all value judgments are also cultur­
ally conditioned ... This thesis implies that culture is an absolute real­
ity ... and that all modes of human experience and thought are relative
thereto because they are functions of culture and dependent on it for
their form and contenf'll

Consequently, the philosophic basis of cultural relativism becomes

quite clear. Epistemologically, man's mind-in content and form-is in­
evitably culture-bound and arbitrarily defined. Metaphysically, "there is no
such thing as objective reality, truth, or reason:'12
This philosophical groundwork gives rise to cultural relativism's
socio-political claim for the "unqualified tolerance of all cultures:'13 Given
that its foundation is mutually exclusive with any objective cross-cultural
standard, value, or method, cultural relativism thus eliminates the possi­
bility of cross-cultural judgment. There are, in fact, innumerable cultures
and thus innumerable realities, each with their own truths and moralities.
There can be no universally "good" or "bad" practices since what consti­
tutes "good" and "bad" is relative to each culture. Even in regard to the vast
bodies of knowledge and progress science has brought mankind, cultural
relativism asserts that science is no more than "a culturally biased way of

10 Ibid. pp. 64.

11 David Bidney, "The Philosophical Presuppositions of Cultural Relativism and
Cultural Absolutism:' Ethics and the Social Sciences (Notre Dame, Indiana, 1959), pp. 66.
12 Zechenter, pp. 325.
13 Ibid. pp. 326.

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The Intellectual Standard Critiquing Cultural Relativism

thinking that is no different from magic or witchcraft:'14

Evidently, cultural relativism is much more than a simple state­
ment claiming the equal validity of all cultures. It is a full-fledged philo­
sophic theory, which "asserts that there is no absolute truth, be it ethical,
moral, or cultural, and that there is no meaningful way to judge different
cultures because all judgments are ethnocentric:'15

III. THEORETICAL CRITIQUE

By definition, cultural relativism does not just dismiss even the
slightest possibility of objectivity; it vehemently scoffs at any attempt to in­
tegrate knowledge beyond one's own culture-bound reality. The premises,
upon which cultural relativism is based, as well as its assertive claim about
the equal validity of all cultures, are anything but vague on this issue. This
is the first way in which cultural relativism emphatically denies reason and
objective reality.
The second way cultural relativism denies reason and objective
reality is in its very formulation. Reason is the faculty that identifies and
integrates the material provided by man's senses.16 Identification is the pro­
cess by which man applies the law of identity to his existence. It is his rec­
ognition that each existent has a specific identity-that A is A, and that A
has a specific nature by which it can be nothing other than A. Integration
is man's process of abstracting from his identifications, thus allowing him
to move from the perceptual to the conceptual level. The perceptual level
is defined by the direct awareness of existents. If man's concepts are to be
valid, i.e. in accord with reality, they must be non-contradictory-all of
what he has identified about reality must be consistent. He cannot hold A
and not A to be true simultaneously. A fact of reality and its opposite can­
not both be logically integrated within the same consciousness. Logic is the
art of non -contradictory identification and integration.17
In its formulation, cultural relativism violates the most basic law
------

14 Ibid. pp. 325.

15 Ibid. pp. 323.
16 Ayn Rand, "The Objectivist Ethics;' The Virtue of Selfishness, pp. 20. It should be
noted that the following is a much-abbreviated summation of Objectivism's (the philoso­
phy of Ayn Rand) stance on reason.This is the framework that will be utilized herein,
and there is no full proof of the aforementioned here. For proof of the underlying theory
presented, see Leonard Peikoff's Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand.
17 Ayn Rand, "Galt's Speech;' For the New Intellectual, pp. 125.
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of logic: the Law of Identity-the law stating that A is A. Its philosophic

premises and its conclusion are necessarily at odds. If the theory is valid,
then the conclusion is nullified. Cultural relativism holds that all convic­
tions, even the laws of physics, are culture-bound. These convictions have
neither applicability nor truth outside of the cultural context from which
they originate. Such a conclusion must then apply equally to cultural rela­
tivism.
If cultural relativism is valid then we should regard all theories and
beliefs, including cultural relativism, as culture-bound phenomena. Cul­
tural relativism is, in fact, a predominantly western theory situated primar­
ily in the subculture that is the ivory tower. It would be wrong, by its own
accord, to apply cultural relativism cross-culturally since it is just another
culture-bound theory. Indeed, some cultures hold cultural relativism to be
valid while many others hold it to be invalid. According to cultural relativ­
ism, it is necessary to conclude that both views are equally valid. Yet, they
are opposing theories: one states A, and the other, not A. A conclusion and
its negation cannot both be right-logically, they are mutually exclusive.
Yet, the very formulation of cultural relativism necessitates a logical con­
tradiction.
The consequence of this contradiction is damning. Concludes one
scholar, "the theory destroys its own basis:'18 He continues:

"[ Cultural relativism] is intended to be an empirical truth of anthro­

pology and sociology holding for all cultures, but it destroys the basis
for the objectivity which is required to make meaningful assertions
that are cross-cultural. It destroys objectivity because the frame of
reference for measurement in each culture is somehow peculiarly
'true' for that culture and no over-arching or inter-cultural standard
is available to objectively adjudicate inconsistent reports. Thus the
cultural relativist cannot have it both ways: he cannot claim that the
truth of factual judgments are relative to their cultural background
and at the same time believe in the objectivity of sociological and
anthropological investigations:'

This, at the very least, makes cultural relativism untenable-no

18 Schmidt, pp. 78I.

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theory can uphold a contradiction of this nature and be considered logi­

cally valid. To attempt to do so not only is an evasion of reason, but an at­
tempt to obliterate it. Yet, there is another notable evasion taking place in
the formulation of cultural relativism.
That evasion is in regard to a critical fact of reality : man's volitional
nature. Cultural relativism regards man as a product of enculturation­
an involuntary and uncritically accepted process by which the content of
man's mind is determined by his culture. There can be little room for voli­
tion in this framework since man is unaware of, let alone able to challenge,
the force that is determining his conceptual make-up. Everything men
"choose" to value, believe, and pursue, is simply a product of his cultural
conditioning, and as such, is inherently arbitrary. Such an assertion could
only make B.p. Skinner blush.19
Contra cultural relativism, man's mind is not a ball of clay on
which incontestable and unknown forces exert themselves. Man is un­
doubtedly a volitional being, i.e. he is able to choose his values, ideas, and
actions. In every issue and with respect to every idea, he can choose to
evaluate it or not, and he can choose to accept it or not. This is fundamental
to man's "metaphysically given nature;' observes philosopher and novelist
Ayn Rand.20 She elucidates:

"A man's volition is outside the power of other men. What the unal­
terable basic constituents are to nature, the attribute of a volitional
consciousness is to the entity 'man: Nothing can force a man to think.
Others may offer him incentives or impediments, rewards or punish­
ments' they may destroy his brain by drugs or by the blow of a club,
but they cannot order his mind to function: this is in his exclusive,
sovereign power:'

Man is undoubtedly shaped by his culture in numerous ways, but

he will only be so to the extent that he chooses to accept its customs and
beliefs. And history has shown that many individuals refuse to accept such

19 B.P. Skinner is a famous psychologist and behaviorist claiming that environ-

mental factors determine man's behavior.In Beyond Freedom and Dignity, he states that, "a
person does not act upon the world, the world acts upon him:'
20 Ayn Rand, "The Metaphysical Versus the Man-Made:' Philosophy: Who Needs It,
pp. 3l.
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The Intellectual Standard Critiquing Cultural Relativism

beliefs, often breaking entirely with the dominant thought of their respec­
tive eras. Aristotle, against the backdrop of centuries of mysticism, offered
the first rational philosophy in recorded history. Sir Isaac Newton rejected
the scientific theories of his time and fundamentally redefined physics and
the methods by which science was conducted. Our nation's founding fa­
thers created a political system unlike that of any realized in their time.
All of these great men were unprecedentedly radical for their time,
somehow overcoming the supposed beliefs "ingrained into them:' Barring
volition, such feats would be neither possible nor explainable. In most of
the cases, the prevailing cultural attitude was fundamentally opposed to
the ideas and achievements of these men. If the notion of enculturation
held true, what would give rise to these unprecedented and radical men?
How and why did these men do what they did? The thoughts and actions
of these men were revolutionary in their respective eras, and it is doubtful
that some abstract cultural phenomenon necessitated these achievements.
For example, pre-Aristotelian philosophy condemned the material
world as illusory, instead praising the mystic realm of Forms (as Plato did),
or some other transcendental world, as the true and supreme reality.21 The
world had little knowledge or awareness of a non-mystic philosophy prior
to that of Aristotle's, and there was hardly any significant cultural impetus
for a philosophy of his kind. It was Aristotle's choice to think, evaluate, and
reject the dogma of his time that made his achievements possible.
Of course, the cultural relativist could claim that X or Y cultural
factor gave rise to these achievements, but such a claim is non -falsifiable­
it is neither testable nor open to empirical investigation. To prove encul­
turation, it would be necessary to provide a method by which a causal
relationship between generally held views and the specific content of an
individual's mind could be empirically shown. Such a method is not yet
possible, and even if it were, the cultural relativist would have to denounce
it as just another "culturally biased way of thinking that is no different from
magic or witchcraft:'
Not only that, but enculturation is an empirical delusion. The no­
tion that moral rules, beliefs, values, and practices are "involuntarily" in­
grained into the minds of individuals is absurd. Even the most susceptible
minds, such as those of children, do not operate in this way. Simply im-

21 See Plato's Phaedo and Republic, for example.

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mersing a child with moral rules and the like will neither garner their ac­
ceptance nor ensure their practice. Instead, the child must actively seek to
understand and apply them by choice. As Rand observed about the learn­
ing process:

" To understand means to focus on the content of a given subject (as

against the sensory-visual or auditory-form in which it is com­
municated), to isolate its essentials, to establish its relationship to the
previously known, and to integrate it with the appropriate categories
of other subjects:'22

This view is far from controversial. A child will not learn by osmo­
sis if he is placed amidst other children in a classroom. At most, the child
may be able to parrot a concept of which he has no understanding, but he
will learn nothing without seeking to understand the content of the lesson
being taught. The fact that so much focus is placed on trying to get kids
interested in learning is evidence enough to prove this point. If children
simply absorbed knowledge presented to them with no volitional effort on
their part, their interest in learning would not be an issue.
Or take the basic skill of reading. A man could spend years locked
in a library full of books, yet he would not learn to read without actively
seeking to understand what was before his eyes. If he wants to read, he
must choose to open a book, make sense of the various markings, form
the concepts of letters, sounds, words, meanings, et cetera. Man's mind is
not filled with efficacious content "involuntarily:' Learning is not a passive
process.
For a theory that is supposed to assert "an empirical truth" about
man's nature, it is inexcusable that enculturation cannot be empirically
verified and explicitly prohibits progress in doing so. That enculturation is
grounded in a blatant empirical delusion about man's volitional nature and,
subsequently, his learning process, is arguably worse.
So far, cultural relativism has been shown to be vehemently op­
posed to-and be without any basis in-reason and reality. By definition, it
is a rejection of both. In its formulation, it unapologetically necessitates an
untenable contradiction and evades crucial aspects of reality, such as man's

22 Ayn Rand, Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution, pp. 68.
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The Intellectual Standard Critiquing Cultural Relativism

volitional nature, while relying on non-falsifiable assertions and empirical

delusions as its "empirical" basis. To this extent it is fully destructive in
theory, as it undermines not only itself but also all knowledge, including
but not limited to, scientific methods and the fundamental laws of nature.
Cultural relativism is therefore a destructive force in theory and is thus
bound to be destructive in practice.

IV. PRACTICAL CRITIQUE

It is in practice that cultural relativism sanctions the worst mani­
festations of violence and oppression. Cultural relativism accomplishes
this in two ways. First, it makes the innocent morally defenseless against
those that wish to do them harm. Second, it morally sanctions the actions
of the aggressors.
In regard to the first, to be morally defenseless is to be without any
valid moral ground by which one can justify his actions, convictions, or
character. Cultural relativism disarms men by proclaiming that there are
no standards, whether moral of any other form, by which cross-cultural
judgment is at all possible. Logically, in lieu of any standard, judgmental
proclamations of any kind are meaningless. What weight can be ascribed
to the proclamation that something is good or bad without a criterion for
determining what constitutes the good and bad?
As it applies to cross-cultural judgments, it is important to note
that cultures are not monolithic, static, floating abstraction independent of
the individuals, practices, and ideas that comprise them. In fact, cultures
do evolve. They often replace old modes of life for new ones, and in doing
so adopt new ideas and practices.
That being the case, cultural relativism's claim "that there is no
meaningful way to judge different cultures" is to claim just that about the
individuals, ideas and practices of cultures. When cultural relativism pro­
claims that all cultures are equal, it says so about real-past or present,
dominant or underground-ideas and practices as maintained by the indi­
viduals upholding them.
Incontrovertibly opposing ideas and practices throughout the
world's various cultures, then, become problematic for the cultural relativ­
ist framework.
The 1939 German invasion of Poland, for example, elucidates this

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issue. During World War II, the German Nazis believed they had a moral
and valid claim to takeover of the rest of the world. One prominent expres­
sion of this belief was the Nazi's principle of Lebensraum, or"living space;'
supposedly justifying national conquest as an ordained right of the Aryan
race for the purposes of natural development. Conversely, Poland main­
tained and acted on the principle of national sovereignty. Despite these
diametrically opposed principles, Germany invaded Poland under the pre­
tense that it had a right to do so, while Poland staunchly denied such a
right.
In the cultural relativist framework, however, the German claim
to Poland is just as valid as Poland's claim to sovereignty. Accordingly, the
Nazi fantasy of world domination and their practice of brutal invasions
and genocide are equally as valid as the idea of sovereignty and the prac­
tice of it. On what basis, then, is Poland to claim a right to its sovereignty
when claims to its enslavement are equally as valid? The result is the moral
disarmament of the innocent-Poland would be left with few, if any, means
to effectively rebut Germany 's actions and justification.
As such, cultural relativism makes cross-cultural judgments im­
possible-it leaves no means by which different ideas and practices of cul­
tures can be judged. The result is obvious: the innocent are left morally
defenseless against their aggressors. Its framework-if taken to be true and
applied as such-automatically disarms the victims. It does so through
its universal denial of any standard by which an idea or practice may be
judged, at least cross-culturally.
But isn't it equally possible that the Nazi's are left with no means
to challenge Poland's claims to sovereignty? Isn't cultural relativism the
theory of tolerance that supposedly prevents acts of aggression? As Frank
Hartung, esteemed professor of sociology at Wayne State University, elo­
quently answers:

" This particular approach to tolerance gives aid to the enemies of

tolerance. This is because the cultural relativist disarms himself in
advance against aggression by an authoritarian. He is himself con­
vinced' and has publicly announced his conviction, that any way of
life is as good as his own ... If every way of life is equally valid, the
cultural relativist has, logically, no right to insist upon imposing tol-

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The Intellectual Standard Critiquing Cultural Relativism

erance on a variant way of life that is based upon intolerance:'2 3

Cultural relativism, still, goes a step further in that it morally sanc­

tions the aggressors. It does so by ascribing validity to their actions. If all
ways of life are equally valid because there are various cultural ideas and
practices and there is no way to adjudicate them, then the source of their
validity lies in the fact that they are cultural practices. In other words, an
idea or practice is valid precisely because it is an idea or practice in some
culture. As a result:

"One is compelled to accept any cultural pattern as vindicated pre­

cisely by its cultural status: slavery, cannibalism, Nazism, or Commu­
nism may not be congenial to Christians or to contemporary Western
societies, but moral criticism of the cultural patterns of other people
is precluded:'2 4

This means that practices such as forced female genital mutilation,

which affects millions of women around the globe and often leads to severe
physical and mental ailment, infection, and death, is valid and has value
because it is a practice. It means that the kidnapping, brainwashing, and
transformation of hundreds of thousands of children into child soldiers
who commit the most abhorred atrocities is valid because it is a practice.
Coupled with the notion of equal validity, cultural relativism af­
firms that these ideas and practices are not only valid and valuable, but that
they are on par with their polar opposites. The cultural relativist must be
committed to the notion that a culture protecting individual rights for all
men and women is as equally as valid as one in which women, minorities,
or other groups are treated unequally and unfairly under the law. He must
be committed to the notion that a childhood placing emphasis on educa­
tion' friends, recreation, and the overall pursuit of happiness is equally as
valid as a childhood of slavery, abuse, and violence. He must be so as long
as the practice is a part of the world's many cultures. One only needs to
look to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Darfur, or Iran, to discover
that such modes of life are the reality for countless individuals.

23 Hartung, pp. 125.

24 Zechenter, pp. 324.
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The Intellectual Standard Critiquing Cultural Relativism

Apart from the disarmament of the innocent, the additional di­

mension is clear; the aggressors are granted a moral blank check for their
actions. The theory that affirms the validity of any idea or practice because
it is an idea or practice is the first to grant sanction to the aggressors. In
this way, cultural relativism precipitates the worst forms of atrocity and
oppression. As further demonstrated by one scholar's poignant historical
application of the theory to World War II:

" The Nazi thinks that it is right for him to exterminate Jews, con­
demn without trial, appropriate foreign lands and kill resisting for­
eign persons, violate international law, etc. Why is it right for him to
think and act thus? Because these are the accepted value judgments
of his culture. Hence it is right for him to follow them. The Ameri­
can thinks that the opposites of the above value judgments are right.
Why? Because in the United States these are the accepted value judg­
ments ... Each side can legitimately, on this theory, claim it is right
and both sides can be asserting true propositions:'25

Note that the innocent are left unable to challenge the claims of the
aggressors. Also note that the means by which each conviction is granted
validity is through the fact that they are convictions. Cultural relativism,
then, can only empower the aggressors: both by disarming the innocent
and sanctioning the aggressors' actions. With no means of adjudication,
it is no wonder why this scholar concludes that "ethical disagreements are
not solved by cultural relativism ... but rather one or the other party is dis­
solved, liquidated:'26 This is not necessarily always the case, but granted a
zealous aggressor, it is more than likely.

V. CONCLUSION
Cultural relativism is destructive in both theory and practice. In
its theoretical denial of reason and objective reality, it sanctions the worst
forms of violence and oppression in practice. This is unsurprising; a theory
that adamantly denies reason and reality cannot be suitable for the latter,
nor be sound according to the former.

25 Schmidt pp. 786-787.

26 Ibid, pp. 787.

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The Intellectual Standard Critiquing Cultural Relativism

The deficiencies with cultural relativism are too important to ig­

nore' and the consequences too far reaching. As such, the purpose of this
essay is to provide a cohesive and integrated response to cultural relativ­
ism. However, there are many more arguments against cultural relativism
that are not included in this criticism. Because this is in fact a criticism,
arguments for a positive account of objective, cross-cultural standards are
not included. Such considerations are omissions because they are outside
the scope of this critique, not because this author concedes their impos­
sibility. Ultimately, it should be clear that cultural relativism deserves to
be nothing more than a relic. A relic that perhaps one day cultural anthro­
pologists, social scientists, and those in higher education at large, ought to
study as a mistake of their intellectual predecessors.

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