Start Date: January 25, 2017

In spirit, cultural relativism is an anthropological concept that actions be understood in the context of the culture or heritage of the participants.

It certainly makes sense that background and experience influence a person’s values and behaviors. Though one might argue that treating different people differently is the opposite of equality, a notion generally espoused by those who support the notion of relativism.

Now it seems there is a new darker side of this relativism, particularly in the media. Though it would be hard to say whether it is a value system that has trickled up or trickled down.

I first recall thinking something was amiss after watching a TV news piece program of the genre of 60-Minutes, Dateline, or 20-20. There was a segment presented where a female reporter traveled to a rural area, probably Texas or perhaps the plains, to interview a Christian family wherein the three daughters were introduced to their husbands by way of a process where friends of the parents would recommend appropriate young men who would be invited to dinner. If things went well a courtship involving no physical relationship could commence. Everyone involved was of age and all relations were by mutual consent. No one was anywhere they didn’t want to be. Yet while the reporter didn’t directly cast aspersions it was clear that this was to be a window into the quaint yet outdated or even bizarre world of Christian Evangelicals. The notion of “those people” was implied. 

It dawned on me at some point that other cultures also approach marriage by arranged introductions and that they also preclude pre-marital physical relations. If the reporter had wanted to save travel costs she could have simply taken her NYC based crew to a local ultra orthodox Jewish neighborhood. The difference probably would be that the crew, if male, would not be allowed to interview the female members of the family alone. It is simply a tenant of the heritage of a culture thousands of years old. 

So why the travel to some ranch out west? Well one possible answer is that presenting a conservative Jewish family in a questionable light, even if they would allow the process, would be considered anti-semitic. But there is no such equivalent term for a white Christian Evangelical family. The very fact that we can’t think of a word for that implies it is an inconceivable bias no matter how prevalent.  The “relativism” here is not to expect different behavior based on different context but to judge the same behavior differently based on different context.

The most extreme variant of this would be the media’s prevailing fear of being deemed Islamophobic,  such that they would be disinclined to run a story about marriages where the arrangements were not just introductions but marriage by dictate, where the bride could be a child, her genitals may be mutilated to insure her purity, and her life ended by her family via honor killing should she ever be be a victim of rape.

Three different views of marriage, one of society’s most basic constructs. It’s all relative I guess. But should it be?