Hittin’ Up that Young Cultural Relativism is Actually Pretty Hard

As my new friend Emma so aptly put it, cultural relativism is the idea that every culture makes sense in it’s own context. It’s not making excuses for people being sexist, racist, classist, ableist, or whatever else in a culture. But it is saying that you need to understand what people do in terms of their own culture.

Let me tell you, in theory, cultural relativism is cool. In practice, cultural relativism is still cool, but it’s hard.

Two weeks ago, I met two Turkish men late at night at a shwarma place. I was with a guy friend of mine. We are both planning on traveling to Istanbul later in the spring, and so we proceeded to be complete Americans and ask them both a billion questions about Istanbul, what we should see there, what we should do there, and what history there was exactly. The conversation lasted at least 10 minutes. It involved a lot of Googling.

Then as we were leaving, one of the men reached out to shake Sam’s hand. I proceeded to also reach out to shake his hand. He shook his head at me and explained that he was a practicing Muslim and he did not shake hands with women. In the shwarma place I nodded and said okay. As soon as we walked out though, I was appalled. I had never experienced anything so sexist in my life! What on earth?

Sam told me to get used to it. If we were going to Istanbul, I was going to have to get used to it. Cultural relativism, son. Hit it up.

I continued to be appalled. For literally a week and a half. Then I met a friend’s friend who was studying in Istanbul. Once again, I proceeded to ask him a billion questions about Istanbul. But I also told him this story. And about how cultural relativism means understanding cultures in context. It does not mean having to put up with sexism.

Well, actually, that’s pretty normal, the friend’s friend explained. It’s pretty common in some Muslim communities. Almost every culture recognizes gender differences, they just recognize them differently. For example, in the US, a lot of people wouldn’t live alone with someone of another gender, simply because they are a different gender. It’s both recognizing gender differences, but the extent and the way they are recognized is relative.

So, when looked at relatively, the guy who wouldn’t shake my hand wasn’t being sexist. It’s just different. When I look at it without context it’s disturbing. With context, it makes sense. In short, context is pretty important.

And that idea of context being important, well, it doesn’t just apply to other cultures. The more time I’ve spent studying abroad, the more I’ve realized that as an American I don’t just need to apply cultural relativism to other cultures. I need to apply it to American culture.

How can you be culturally relative about your own culture? By remembering the context.

It sounds strange. But I was very surprised when I got here by how much all of the Americans I was studying with, myself included, were criticizing America. We visited a Danish after school program (called an SFO) and then spent an hour talking about how American after school programs would never work like that. We talk about how the Danish healthcare system is better, the people seem more calm, less racist, more trusting. When we talk, it seems like everything the Danes do is positive, everything Americans do is negative. I was surprised to learn that it botheredme. In a really fundamental way it grated on me.

I couldn’t figure out why. It’s not that I don’t think the criticisms are valid — I do. And it’s not that I think you shouldn’t say bad things about your own country or culture — that’s one of my favorite things about America. That all of us can criticize it and complain about it and speak as freely about it as we’d like. That criticizing America is pretty patriotic. It’s trying to make things better.

So what was it?

It’s because I felt like all of us, once again myself included, were forgetting the context. People in America have a pretty good reason for being less trusting than the Danes. It doesn’t make it a good thing, but it makes it a thing that makes sense. Americans are randomly violent or gun happy or stressed or suspicious. We don’t have a national healthcare system or free college for a reason. It’s not senseless.

While I’m here, i’m going to keep criticizing, keep comparing. It’s healthy and it’s patriotic. I’m learning about my own culture through examining another culture (or, actually many other cultures) which is incredibly cool. But while I’m here, I’m going to try to remember the context. We are what we are for a reason. America is what it is for a reason. And unless I remember those reasons, that relativity, on a daily basis, the comparisons between my culture and Danish culture, my culture and Turkish culture — they aren’t helpful.

Like I said though, when a man won’t shake your hand or when a Dane is asking you earnestly why you would ever have to go 50,000 in debt for school, cultural relativism is hard. Remembering that all cultures, including your own, make sense in their own context isn’t easy. But hey. No one ever said studying abroad was simple.