Cultural Relativism, Human Rights, and the AAA

Wilcomb E. Washburn

American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 89, No. 4. (Dec., 1987), pp. 939-943.

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Cultural Relativism, Human Rights, and the AAA

WILCOMBE. WASHBURN Smithsonian Institution

The embarrassment with which anthro~ol- ogists treat cultural relativism and their re- luctance to repudiate the concept require ex- planation. Once argued confidently and ag- gressively by anthropologists, cultural relativ- ism is now dealt with ambiguously and humorously, even by the few willing to grap- ple directly with the subject. Paul Rabinow has wryly remarked that "cultural relativism marks a major stage in the reduction of the Other to the Same. All differences are pre- served a n d denied a t the same time" (1983:59). Even Melville Herskovits, whose crude formulation of cultural relativism ex-pressed the naive belief of an earlier genera- tion of anthropologists in the doctrine, recog- nized the humor inherent in the concept by noting that "One friendly critic of our disci- pline, more witty than wise in his assertion, has defined an anthropologist as a person who respects every culture-pattern but his own. Like any other bon mot, it is true and not true . . ." (Herskovits 1951:23, reprinted in 1973:37). I would assert that cultural relativ- ism derives its continuing power from cultural anthropologists' hostility to the values of their own society rather than from any inherent the- oretical rigor.

The apogee of acceptance of cultural rela- tivism (in its various diverse forms) as a ra- tional doctrine of anthropology occurred in the 1930s. Its foremost exponents were Mel- ville Herskovits and Margaret Mead (Hatch 1983). But cultural relativism was inherent, in one way or another, throughout the Boasian approach to culture as well as in the functional approach of British anthropology (Hatch 1983; Rabinow 1983). The trauma of World War 11, the optimism of the immediate post- war period, and the pessimism of the 1960s and the Vietnam War period all buffeted an- thropological belief in cultural relativism but, I would argue, merely changed the form in which anthropologists' commitment to those who were perceived as the victims of Western civilization was expressed.

If the motivation behind anthropological theory is sometimes concealed or masked, then it is important to look at efforts by an- thropologists to explain their theories to non- anthropologists in order to clarify their intent and meaning. Such an attempt, drafted by Melville Herskovits, was the Statement on Human Rights submitted to the United Na- tions in 1947 by the Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association. The Statement was published in American Anthro- pologist in the same year (Executive Board, AAA 1947:539-543). In a world in which the Executive Board asserted that "In the main, people are willing to live and let live, exhibit- ing a tolerance for behavior of another group different from their own, especially where there is no conflict in the subsistence field," there came a "point of view" whose "conse- quences" "have been disastrous for man- kind." That point of view, the Statement as- serted, emerged from "the history of Western Europe and America," where "economic ex- pansion, control of armaments, and an evan- gelical religious tradition have translated the recognition of cultural differences into a sum- mons to action." This summons to action has been "emphasized by philosophical systems that have stressed absolutes in the realm of values and ends. Definitions of freedom, con- cepts of the nature of human rights, and the like, have thus been narrowly drawn." "The history of the expansion of the western world," the Statement went on, "has been marked by demoralization of human personality and the disintegration of human rights among the peo- ples over whom hegemony has been estab- lished" (Executive Board, AAA 1947:540- 541).

In its recommendations regarding human rights, the Executive Board rejected the idea of a declaration on the Western democratic in-

dividualistic model, such as the American Declaration of Independence or the American Bill of Rights, noting that such documents were written by men some of whom were themselves slave-owners. Rather, the State- ment asserted, the rights of "Man in the Twentieth Century cannot be circumscribed by the standards of any single culture" and must be incorporated in "the only right and proper way of life that can be known to them, the institutions, sanctions and goals that make up the culture of their particular society." The Executive Board went on to assert that "Even where political systems exist that deny citizens the right of participation in their government, or seek to conquer weaker peoples, underlying cultural values may be called on to bring the peoples of such states to a realization of the consequences of the acts of their governments, and thus enforce a brake upon discrimination and conquest" (Executive Board, AAA 1947:542-543). This sentence was not in the draft of the Statement written by Herskovits.' Although phrased ambiguously, the sentence seems to have been an attempt to mollify crit- ics of another assertion in the Statement that "man is free only when he lives as his society defines freedom," which Herskovits had ear- lier more honestly, if less elegantly, stated in the following form: "There is, indeed, some reason to feel that the concept of freedom should be realistically redefined as the right to be exploited in terms of the patterns of one's own culture" (Herskovits 1942:560).

A few anthropologists at the time reacted in dismay when the Statement appeared in Amer-ican Anthropologist. Julian Steward (1948:351- 352) of C o l u m b i a a n d H . G . B a r n e t t (1948:352-355) of the University of Oregon both published critiques of the Statement in a subseauent issue. Steward noted that the added sentence seemed to be "a loophole to exclude Germany from the advocated toler- ance, but it looks to me," Steward noted, "like the fatal breach in the dyke." "Either we tol- erate everything, and keep hands off, or we fight intolerance and conquest. . . .As human beings, we unanimously opposed the brutal treatment of Jews in Hitler Germany, but what stand shall be taken on the thousands of other kinds of racial and cultural discrimina- tion, unfair practices, and inconsiderate atti- tudes found t h r o u g h o u t t h e world?" (1949:351). Barnett noted that "It is an ines- capable fact that we cannot at the same time be moralists (or policymakers) and scientists. We all know this; we teach it and practice it- except in the pinches when our private or group interests and prejudices become in-

volved. Then, unhappily, we behave like any undisciplined layman . . ." (1948:353).

In the 20 years subsequent to the issuance of the Statement on Human Rights, anthro- pology moved from optimism to pessimism, and from a naive faith in cultural relativism to an embarrassed and ske~tical unease concern- ing the doctrine. I would assert that in the pro- cess of turning their backs on cultural relativ- ism as a formal theory, cultural anthropolo- gists nevertheless retained their moral and emotional commitment to those perceived as the victims of Western civilization.

Such a commitment found a logical expres- sion in what Sol Tax named "action anthro- pology." While inconsistent with the nonin- terventionist theoretical premise of cultural relativism, Tax's theory of advocacy reflected the reality of the personal commitment of the anthropologist to the society he was studying and antagonism toward the society of which he was a member. Tax substituted one form of ~owerfulintervention from the outside for an- other, ostensibly in the interests of the weaker society. Too often, in my opinion, he mis- judged his target (Washburn 1984).

In the 1960s, with the trauma of racial con- flict in the United States and American inter- vention in Vietnam, a great number of anthro- pologists became even more alienated from the society in which they found their material support, and more sympathetic toward those societies-internal and external-that were perceived as victims of the values of the dom- inant society. The movement was marked by the manifesto entitled Reinventing Anthropology (Hymes 1972). This collection not only em- phasized the need for anthropology to do something for the "oppressed" of mankind against their "oppressors" (the United States in particular) but, as Kaplan pointed out in a review essay (Kaplan 1974), attacked the con- cept of objectivity and value-free inquiry in the process.

Having questioned the legitimacy and good will of the former colonial rulers of the newly emerging countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, anthropologists were eager to accept the legitimacy and good will of the new rep- resentatives of the societies for whose cultural values they had fought so hard. But when these new societies defined freedom in such a way as to cause millions of their members to flee if they could, or, if they could not, to be slaughtered in situ (as in Cambodia, Uganda, or Ethiopia), anthropologists faced a theoret- ical and practical dilemma. Many new states asserted their claim to cultural legitimacy by appropriating labels such as "People's Repub- lic" or "Democratic" to describe their new

states. A hollow process of formal "elections" served to "validate" one-~artv and one-man . , rule. Millions of people were soon fleeing these "people's republics," much to the embarrass- ment of their presumptive leaders. It was even more embarrassing t o Western anthropolo- gists that they fled to the West and particu- larly to the United States. Armed resistance struggles have broken out against Marxist- Leninist regimes in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Laos, Nicaragua, Angola, Mozambique, and Ethiopia. How does the anthropologist today apply the 1947 injunction that "individuals are free only when they live as their societies define freedom"? Who speaks for the citizenry of Cuba, Angola, East Germany, Vietnam, Nicaragua, or, indeed, the Soviet Union?

The questioning of cultural relativism from the theoretical side of philosophy and logic has been as damaging as that from the practical side (cf. .Jarvie 1984). But the skepticism of philosophers has, as Jarvie has noted (1975a:343), failed to "lure the relativists out for a joust." Clifford Geertz, even while pro- claiming that it was not his intention to do so (Geertz 1984:263), is one of the few who has risen to the theoretical defense of cultural rel- ativism, albeit in a backhanded, double neg- ative fashion as indicated by the title ("Anti Anti-Relativism") of his Distinguished Lec- ture at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association in 1983 (Geertz 1984). In his quixotic defense of the concept, Geertz sets up numerous straw men to knock down rather than dealing directly with the real issue resented bv the anti-relativists. who do in fact recognize the diversity of cul- tural viewpoints but seek to encourage debate between and among these diverse views (Jar- vie 1975a:348). Instead of dealing with their arguments, Geertz attributes an absolutist philosophy to the anti-relativists, mockingly disparaging, through the use of capital letters and quotation marks, the concepts of "Human Nature" and "The Human Mind," although the quotation marks are not attributed to any particular anti-relativist zealot and would seem to be part of the straw with which he has set up his easily disposable target.

Outside the walls of anthropology, critics- ignored and unchallenged-are saying that by committing themselves to the interests of the objects of their study and by confusing the question of knowledge with the question of be- lief, anthropologists are losing their claim to scientific status (Jarvie 1975a:347). Jarvie has even supplied an epitaph for anthropologists, having discovered that his "epistle" to the an- thropologists (Jarvie 1975b:253-266) has gone unheeded. The attempts of anthropolo-

gists and sociologists to become scientific, he has asserted. have failed. "So. either soldier on; or slip helplessly back into generalism; or become social activists, planners, social engi- neers, propagandists, and the like" (Jarvie 1976:521).

Other attacks have come from within the profession, particularly as to whether the the- oretical formulations of anthropology can claim the dignity of scientific laws. Stanley R. Barrett, professor of anthropology at the Uni- versity of Guelph in Canada, has questioned anthropology's claim to paradigmatic status for its theories, even for its celebrated formu- lations of structural functionalism and cul- tural materialism. Barrett concludes that an- thropology has never enjoyed paradigmatic status (1984:69). It is not even pre-paradig- matic (1984:61). Rather, Barrett asserts, it is "pseudo-paradigmatic," or, more respect-fully, "non-paradigmatic" (198459). That national boundaries have shaped the disci- pline of anthropology so emphatically, pro- ducing various schools depending upon whether the anthropologist is British, French, Dutch, German, ~uss i an , or American, is, as Barrett points out, embarrassing, since "few criticisms disturb anthropologists more than the claim that their interpretations are cul- ture-bound" (198459).

Conclusion

As the faith of anthropologists that the doc- trine of cultural relativism would solve the world's ~ractical ~roblems has faded so have the claims for anthropology's scientific status (Spiro 1986). One rarely hears references to- day to what Radcliffe-Brown called "A Natu- ral Science of Society" (1957), what Bronislaw Malinowski called "A Scientific Theory of Culture" (1944), what Ralph Linton called "the Emergent Science of Man" (1 945: 18), what Melville Herskovits called "The Science of Man" (1948:3), and what Laura Thompson looked forward to in her Toward A Science of Mankind (1961). Thompson, the most optimis- tic of all, confidently asserted that she counted herself "among those students of man who be- lieve that the development of such a science is not only possible, but imminent" (1 96 1 :vii; 1976:346).

Anthropology, as a theoretical science, must face up to external criticisms of its claims. Anthropology, as a policy science, can no longer merely urge policymakers to accept the general idea that different cultures have different values. Everyone knows that and knows that our Western values are not univer- sal values. Policymakers have no need for an-

- -

thropological generalities, not because they may not be true, but because they are usually not relevant to the problems policymakers face. To invoke the mantra of "cultural rela- tivism" and how a "society defines freedom" does not help the policymaker to determine whether to aid or oppose one side or the other.

Anthropologists may long for the good old days when Western colonialism was in place and when one could easily identify with the good guys (natives) struggling for freedom against the bad guys (the West) preventing their emergence as independent and self-reg- ulating states. It was that attitude that under- lay the AAA Executive Board's statement on Human Rights in 1947. But in the intervening 40 years, the simple picture of the postwar pe- riod has dissolved into the complex picture of 1987. It has become impossible to apply the Executive Board's policy recommendations of 1947 to the specific situations of today.

While absolutist thinkers will always be with us and anthro~olo~ists like Geertz are justified in warning against being deluded by new universals, we can no longer rely on the concept of cultural relativism even in the dis- torted and concealed form in which it cur- rently exists, as an explanation of, or solution to, cultural conflict. Cultural relativism itself may not need to be buried, but our willingness to misuse the concept to express a distaste for our own society andrationalize our preference for other societies does need to be abandoned.

1 "

Note

'I cannot find in the National Archives of Anthropology (NAA) at the Smithsonian In- stitution, where the records of the AAA are kept, that it was supplied by any particular member of the Executive Board to whom the statement was circulated for comment (AAA Records). ( I have examined the records of all members of the 1947 Executive Board in the M A records and corresponded with some whose records are not in the NAA. In addition to Herskovits, the members of the Executive Board included Clyde Kluckhohn, Charles F. Voegelin, Cora Du Bois, William W. Howells, Ralph L. Beals, and W. W. Hill. Erminie W. Voegelin served as Executive Secretary to the Executive Board. Frederick R. Eggan served as Vice President of the Association.) Hers- kovits may have made the addition following receipt of comments from some members of the Board who. like William Howells. recom- mended that

It might be made clear that, in insisting on the freedom of individual cultures, as well as individual men, our sense of "culture" is

not synonymous with "political system," and is not to be confused with it. Otherwise perverse people can say we are stating that Franco is just as good as anybody else, etc., and similar red herrings not really germane. [Howells 19471

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Can an Anthropologist Go Home Again?

CHOONGSOON KIM The University of Tennessee at Martin

Recently, a growing number of anthropol- ogists have engaged in their work at home. Al- though methodological discussions on this subject have flourished (Messerschmidt 1981 :9-13; Ohnuki-Tierney 1984a:584), my field experiences offer an additional dimen- sion. Unlike most native anthropologists who previously had done their work in an alien cul- ture and returned home, my fieldwork began at home, then continued in alien cultures, after which I returned home.

My first fieldwork was in Korea from 1963 to 1964. As a research associate in the Social Science Research Institute at Yonsei Univer- sity, I participated in a project supported by an Asian Foundations erant to studv the com- u

patibility of traditional Korean customs and the current legal system. Since I was the sole unmarried member of a four-man research team, I was able to stay in the field longer than the others. I spent almost a year in rural Ko- rean villages. I felt confident and comfortable workine with Koreans. Fieldwork in one's

w

own society has the advantage of allowing one to develop more insight into the culture be- cause of familiarity and to arrive at abstrac- tions from the native's ~ o i n t of view.'

The major critics of anthropological work at home "have characterized such knowledge as mere subjective involvement, a deterrent to objective perception and analysis" (Aguilar 1981:15). Nonetheless, the inherent bias of being a native anthropologist doing work amone one's natives has been reduced. if not w

eliminated, by studying other cultures before studying one's own culture, and by "distanc- ing" from the natives both physically and psy- chologically (Ohnuki-Tierney 1984b: 13). To "distance" herself physically and psychologi- cally from the natives being studied and to prevent too much immersion in her native cul- ture, and to regain a sense of reflective per- spective as an anthropologist, Ohnuki-Tier- ney (1984b: 12-1 3), a native Japanese who has conducted fieldwork in an alien culture, re- duced her fieldwork in Japan from six months to four.

Since leaving Korea, I have done my field- work in an alien society with alien cultures (Kim 1977): Blacks and poor White pulpwood workers in south Georgia in 1969-70 (Bailey and Kim 1971; Kim 1972); a Choctaw Indian tribe in east central Mississippi in 1974 (Pe-