Title: Understanding different cultures
Topic: Cultural relativism (Indian practice of Sati)
Source : 1. Robbins, Richard H. Cultural
Anthro. Cengage
Learning, Belmont, CA 2012 Objectivity and Morality
2.
Spradley, James., McCurdy, David W. Conformity and
Conflict. Pearson Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River,
New Jersey, 2009
3.
The data that I used for this lab report
comes from a
video which was aired on “Good Morning America”
:“Gay marriage should be legal.” by Obama’s saying
Relation: Chapter 3 in CC pages 23-32, Chapter 1 in
RR, specifically pages 12-13 that talks about Cultural relativism
Description: Description: The article in CC chapter 3 Laura B makes an
attempt to explain Hamlet one of Shakespeare’s story. But there was
conflict in the understanding of Hamlet because of the different cultures and
views about certain concepts such as marriage and gender role. For example,
according to the Elders from the Bush tribe, “the younger brother marries the
elder brother’s widow and becomes the father of his children. Now if your
uncle, who married your widowed mother, is your father’s full brother; then he
will be a real father to you.” And this fact made the author Laura upset
because it was hard for her to accept Tiv’s culture. This kind of different
point of view and culture let Laura to explain Hamlet in Tiv’s way.
Another example of misunderstandings others culture can be seen in RR (p.12~13)
which explains what “Cultural relativism” is and gives an example of Indian
practice of sati, the burning of a widow on her husband’s funeral pyre.
It also mentions that it is important to
understand culture differences as like cultural relativist. In addition to the
two examples previously mentioned, I used a video where Obama stated the gay
marriage. It shows that President Obama’s views on same-sex marriage have been
evolved over two years. Through this video, it is noticeable that there are many
discrimination and inequality towards homosexual people even in America where
known as “The nation of Freedom.” President Barack Obama stated that he
strongly supports LGBT (Lesbians, gay, bisexual, and transgender) community.
“At a certain point, I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important
for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to
get married,” Mr. Obama said.
Analysis:
First of all, chapter 3 in Conformity & Conflict mainly talks about the author
Laura’s experience in Tiv’s culture while she was telling the story of Hamlet. Tiv people had been confused
because they cannot understand the story of Hamlet
with their culture concept. So that they had to ask Laura all the time when
they cannot understand with their culture background. Those questions that Tiv
asked made her upset because she cannot accept their culture background
differences based upon her own culture.
Through this article I could learn that the differences between each
culture can create misunderstanding. “One can easily misinterpret the universal
by misunderstanding the particular.” (CC p.23) Also, in RR, which talks about
cultural relativism, shows that the importance of understanding in one’s
culture with their cultural concept. Sati
which is given as an example for this article might not be satisfactory to
other culture. Some might think this practice is cruel and unimaginable, but
for the people in India it is acceptable culture. Therefore, we should try to
understand each other’s culture based upon those each other’s own way. To add
more we need to respect each other’s differences in culture. I think culture
shock is pretty much related with cultural relativism. I have an experience of
having a culture shock since I came to U.S. I was shocked when I heard that
Obama insisted that the gay marriage should be legalized. Based upon my culture
perspective, this is exceptionally extraordinary and not going to be accepted
at all. So at first I thought that this law is weird and also cannot be
endorsed as a legal law. However, when few states legalized gay marriages, I
realized that I should not define homosexual issue with my perspective created
by Korean culture and these ethnocentric biases may can blind me the
alternatives.
