0.4.5 Beliefs and Cultural Relativity

Version 1.0 March 2013                                Previous Version

Often we discover beliefs we thought were ‘natural’ or universal are in fact cultural. 

It takes a lot of effort to determine what are reasonable ‘universal’ beliefs, as we have attempted in these pages, and we must always allow for error. 

Many people feel it is impossible to be ‘objective’ – citing examples of historical errors. 

·       In the Middle Ages Europeans believed the world was flat, now we all believe it is round. 

Ancient Greeks knew the world was round and even calculated how big it was.  This knowledge was lost but has been rediscovered.  Science seems to be very changeable.

These days we understand that our current scientific explanations are the best explanations of the “facts� that we have, at this moment, so we must act upon them, knowing they may be replaced by even better explanations as we learn more.

·       Once we believed that slavery was OK, now we believe it is not. 

In primitive societies, separated by geography, language and technology, it was possible to believe that outsiders were somehow inferior, subhuman, and it was OK to treat them more like beasts than human beings.  These days we know (or should know) that we are all essentially the same.  Though there are (relatively small) differences between individuals, it is no longer accepted – by those accepting our core values – as an excuse for oppression. 

So any attempt to claim that slavery is OK in certain cultures today deserves contempt.  If we value equality then slavery is unacceptable. 

Some even suggest that claiming to know the objective truth is somehow inevitably oppressive because one “culture� is saying that another “culture� is “bad�: this, so some say, is immoral. 

·       There is no objective evidence for this supposedly universal truth, so the argument is circular.  How can we judge any action to be “wrongâ€� if there is no objective standard?  We can judge many individual actions and systematic abuses as objectively “wrongâ€�, regardless of which culture commits these offences.

·       No doubt many imperialists, colonialists and evangelists, from not just Europe but the Middle East, India and China, thought that foreigners – “nativesâ€�, “barbariansâ€�, “infidelsâ€� – from outside their civilisations were ignorant and crude, and there is no doubt they were often incorrect.  There is no doubt many imperialists were and are oppressive.

·       But here we aren’t comparing industrial with agricultural or nomadic life styles.  We look at our core values of truth, diversity, life, love, beauty, responsibility, equality and hope.  We praise cultures which honour such values, but not those which reject them.

·       The philosophical dilemmas we all face are not culturally specific.  They apply equally as much to hunter gatherers as to rich, modern, globe trotting “masters of the universeâ€�.  Choosing core values is required by every individual, whether they do it consciously or not.  Scientific and historical facts have equal validity to hunters, farmers and bankers.

It would be truly depressing if there really were no way that different peoples of the world could agree on anything.  We think appealing to reason and the evidence, and to our core human nature, is a good way to start, and that it can be immensely fruitful.