The Barbarian in Rome and the Cultural Relativism Debate

Abstract

After a brief discussion of the way critique of cultural relativism today often is part of anti-liberal and ultranationalist stances in public debates, Mattias Gardell goes on to trace the concept’s historical roots in cultural anthropology. He points out that whereas in contemporary society, cultural relativism is often understood as a normative doctrine that allegedly legitimates multiculturalism, for cultural anthropologists, it typically served as an analytical perspective where customs, beliefs and institutions must always be analyzed in their proper contexts to be fully understood. The anthropological concepts of truth and knowing are, then, necessarily different from philosophical ditto, and the failure (and unwillingness) to grasp this fact has made it easy to create various relativistic strawmen in academic as well as political discussions. The problem with these strawmen is that they have become ideal opponents for various ultranationalist and/or monoculturalist political movements in their opposition against tolerance and diversity.