# Culture and Cultural Relativism History I · Anthropology · https://tryals.app/learn/history-i/culture-and-cultural-relativism ## The Architecture of Culture In 1871, Edward B. Tylor defined **culture** as the complex whole of knowledge, beliefs, arts, morals, law, custom, and habits acquired by humans as society members. Two words matter most: **acquired** (learned, not in our genes) and **whole** (acting as an integrated system). | Component | What it is | Example | | --- | --- | --- | | **Values** | Shared ideas of what is good | Hospitality is sacred | | **Norms** | Rules for behavior | Guests must be fed first | | **Symbols** | Things that carry meaning | Bread and salt at the door | | **Artifacts** | Material culture | The guest room itself | Norms range from casual **folkways** (table manners; mild social eye-rolls) to serious **mores** (moral duties; real social sanctions), absolute **taboos** (the unthinkable), and formal **laws** enforced by the state. ## Moving Past Ethnocentrism **Ethnocentrism** is judging other cultures by your own standards, viewing your food as proper cuisine and theirs as weird. The antidote is **cultural relativism**: the methodological rule that a practice must first be understood strictly **in its own context**. > **Method, not morality:** Relativism is a tool for understanding, not a vow of silence. It requires understanding why a practice exists before judging it, but it does not make moral judgment impossible. Anthropologists document and contextualize before they ever critique. **Culture Shock Stages:** Immersion moves through fascination, frustration, adjustment, and adaptation. The frustration stage is key data: it marks the exact point where your unspoken norms collide with host norms. ## Practice questions 7 of this lesson's 12 practice questions, with answers. The full set is in the app. ### 1. Cultural relativism is a method, not a moral position. What is the difference, and why does it matter for a fieldworker studying a practice she finds abhorrent? A. There is no difference; relativism entails withholding all moral judgement B. As a method it asks for understanding before judgement C. The method requires her to accept the practice as valid within its culture D. The method applies only to practices that cause no harm **Answer:** B. As a method it asks for understanding before judgement **Why:** Suspension is temporary and instrumental, you cannot evaluate what you have misdescribed, so relativism buys accuracy rather than surrendering ethics. Collapsing the method into a moral doctrine is the standard misreading, and it is what makes people think the discipline cannot criticise anything. Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/culture-and-cultural-relativism/cultural-relativism-is-a-method-not-a-moral-position-what-is-the ### 2. Order the classic stages of **culture shock**. **Answer:** 1. Honeymoon: everything is charming and photogenic 2. Frustration: the unspoken rules stop making sense 3. Adjustment: patterns emerge, gaffes decline 4. Adaptation: functioning comfortably in two codes **Why:** The frustration trough is where fieldwork gets hard, and where the visitor’s own hidden norms finally become visible as data. Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/culture-and-cultural-relativism/order-the-classic-stages-of-culture-shock ### 3. A fieldworker suspends judgement on a practice she finds abhorrent so that she can understand it. Why is that methodological relativism and not moral approval? A. Because anthropologists are professionally required to remain neutral B. Because suspending judgement is a tool, not a verdict C. Because every practice turns out to be equally good once it is understood D. Because moral judgements can only be made about one’s own culture **Answer:** B. Because suspending judgement is a tool, not a verdict **Why:** Methodological relativism is an instruction about how to look, not a verdict. Collapsing it into moral relativism is the standard error, and it makes the position indefensible for no analytical gain. Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/culture-and-cultural-relativism/a-fieldworker-suspends-judgement-on-a-practice-she-finds-abhorrent-so ### 4. By 1952, Kroeber and Kluckhohn had catalogued how many competing definitions of "culture"? **Set the slider.** **Answer:** 164 (within ±25) **Why:** 164 definitions, evidence of a concept so successful that everyone needed it and no one could pin it down. The count itself became part of the discipline’s folklore. Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/culture-and-cultural-relativism/by-1952-kroeber-and-kluckhohn-had-catalogued-how-many-competing ### 5. Sort each item into **material** or **nonmaterial** culture. **Answer:** - Material culture: A Berber wedding carpet, A samurai sword, A cathedral - Nonmaterial culture: The belief that elders speak first, The rule that the sword is worn on the left, The doctrine preached inside it **Why:** Objects are material culture; the beliefs, rules, and meanings wrapped around them are nonmaterial. Each side is unreadable without the other. Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/culture-and-cultural-relativism/sort-each-item-into-material-or-nonmaterial-culture ### 6. Match each grade of norm to its example. **Answer:** - Folkway → Wearing pajamas to a lecture, odd looks - More → Lying to your hosts, moral outrage - Taboo → Cannibalism, the unthinkable - Law → Theft, the state prosecutes **Why:** Norms escalate from convention to morality to horror to statute; the sanction tells you which grade you crossed. Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/culture-and-cultural-relativism/match-each-grade-of-norm-to-its-example ### 7. Cultural relativism is a method for understanding a practice, and it leaves the anthropologist free to criticise it. **Answer:** True **Why:** True. Methodological relativism asks you to suspend judgement long enough to understand a practice on its own terms; it does not oblige you to approve of it. Conflating it with moral relativism, the claim that no practice can be criticised, is the standard misreading, and it is one anthropologists working on female genital cutting or caste have had to answer directly. Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/culture-and-cultural-relativism/cultural-relativism-is-a-method-for-understanding-a-practice-and-it