Cultural Relativism

           Cultural relativism is trying to understand another culture without comparing it to what you have been taught or know to be true (Henslin 2012). This is difficult to accomplish because we grew up being taught to think and act a certain way. When you come to college, chances are you are there is more cultural diversity in one place than you have experienced before. This is a great place to start working on your ability to accept and understand other ideas and perspectives on things that you have always seen a fact.

            Henslin uses the example of bull fights as something that is encouraged in Spain where most Americans see it as cruel or barbaric. When I visited Spain we went to a ranch where they raise bulls and some of those bulls go on to participate in bull fights traveling is more fun when you try to put aside your judgments and avoid the mindset that things a “weird” because then you are able to see past the superficial differences and really get a feel for how the people live and think. 

I took this picture while in Spain

Something I noticed while I was in Europe is people’s personal space. In America we tend to have our own space and don’t enjoy when other people enter into that space. This is not the case for many Europeans. Where people tend to notice this the most is in there greetings. When they see a friend are very animated where we tend to be more low key and may just nod hello and be on our way. It is also the most common thing for Americans to kiss each other on the cheek in greeting especially if we are not related. Cultural differences occur in day to day life, sometimes more extreme than others like in the case of traveling. How do you see cultural relativism being helpful in your life?

J. Henslin. Sociology a down-to-earth approach. Pearson (2012). eleventh ed.