Notes on Cultural Materialism, Cultural Relativism, and Cultural Transmission (from Theory in Social and Cultural Anthropology

Encyclopedia Metadata and Publishing Context

The source text is extracted from “Theory in Social and Cultural Anthropology: An Encyclopedia” (© 2013, SAGE Publications, ISBN 978\text{-}1\text{-}4129\text{-}9963\text{-}2, Library of Congress call number GN307.T54\ 2013, Dewey Decimal 306.03\text{—}dc23).

Editors: R. Jon McGee and Richard L. Warms (both at Texas State University).
Editorial Board: Regna Darnell, F. Allan Hanson, J. Stephen Lansing, Robert Launay, Herbert S. Lewis, George E. Marcus, Deborah Pellow, Robert Rotenberg, David Zeitlyn.

The volume is physically produced and distributed by SAGE’s offices in the United States, United Kingdom, India, and Singapore; a complete production staff list is supplied (Acquisitions Editor, Developmental Editor, etc.).

Cultural Materialism

Cultural materialism is a research paradigm—strongly influenced by evolutionary theory, cultural ecology, and Marxist materialism—that explains cultural practices through their material (economic/environmental) consequences rather than their symbolic meanings.

• Practical “riddles of culture” it tackles: the sacred cow in India, Jewish/Muslim pork taboos, other seemingly non-rational or counter-productive customs.
• Core assumption: Animals, foods, & resources are treated first as nutritive/caloric assets; symbolism is secondary.
• Infrastructure → determines → social organization & ideology (echoing, but modifying, Marx and Engels).
• Rejects classic Hegelian dialectic; adds reproductive and ecological pressures to economic determinism.
• Extends to archaeology via “The New Archaeology” (1960s); about ½ of North-American archaeologists self-identify—at least partly—as cultural materialists.
• Persists despite post-modern and interpretivist critiques; remains vibrant in contemporary social science.

Emic vs. Etic Data Strategies

• Emic: Culturally internal categories; researcher prioritizes informants’ explanations. Agreement among natives is treated as accuracy.
• Etic: External, scientifically standardised categories (e.g., fertility rates, caloric intake, rainfall).
• Cultural materialists insist that a true “science of society” cannot rely solely on emic insight; both emic (meaning) and etic (measurement) are needed.

Cultural Relativism

Definition and Antithesis to Ethnocentrism

Cultural relativism = doctrine that standards grounding knowledge and morality are culturally based and therefore vary across societies; absolute, universal yardsticks are absent.

• Epistemological relativism: all knowledge claims are culturally conditioned.
• Moral (ethical) relativism: conceptions of good/evil and propriety are culturally conditioned.
• Contrast: Ethnocentrism judges others by one’s own cultural standards.

Historical Roots & Anthropological Adoption

• Intimations since Herodotus; articulated by Montaigne, Montesquieu, pragmatists William James & John Dewey.
• Anthropological hallmark via Franz Boas’s students (Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, Melville Herskovits).
• Fieldwork by participant observation fosters empathy, making a relativist attitude almost inevitable.

External Critiques: Religious & Secular

• Religious absolutists (e.g., Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Fides et Ratio, 1998) insist truth must be universal.
• Secular conservatives: William Bennett (Why We Fight, 2002) and Robert Bork (Slouching Toward Gomorrah, 1996) blame relativism for moral decline, hedonism, and nihilism.

Anthropological Re-assessment

Globalisation and internal social heterogeneity weaken simplistic relativism:
• World-systems theory (Immanuel Wallerstein) demonstrates remote villages are tied to global events.
• Influence of Marx, Gramsci, and Foucault highlights intra-cultural conflict (class, race, gender, sexuality).
• Anthropologists often side with dominated groups (e.g., feminist empowerment) → “activist” turn.

Toward Methodological Relativism

• Proposed by Michael Brown & Elvin Hatch: suspend judgment until full context is known.
• Still permits condemnation of certain practices once understood; offers tolerance without blanket approval.

Ethical Case Studies

• Aztec human sacrifice, Chinese foot-binding, Polynesian fostering: illustrate tension between understanding and personal moral revulsion.
• Richard Shweder’s witchcraft-trial anecdote: anthropologist serving as judge; highlights dilemma of participation vs. moral stance.
• Key insight: “Understanding does not entail agreeing.” One evaluates with one’s own culturally derived moral code.
• No compelling evidence for absolute standards beyond cultural consensus—unless one invokes divine authority.

Epistemological Dimensions

Definitions:
• Truth = accurate description of a state of affairs.
• Knowledge = a person’s justified true belief.

Contrasting theories of truth:

1. Correspondence theory: truth matches external reality; single correct statement per fact; aligns with positivist science.
2. Coherence theory: truth = logical fit within a system of presuppositions; allows multiple, incompatible “truths.”

Both unsatisfactory for cross-cultural work. Solution: double contingency (after Kant, C. I. Lewis, Arthur Danto) — truth depends on the empirical world and the subject’s culturally shaped categories.

Analogy: humans, flies, octopi possess different eyes; same object, different perceptual outputs.

• Anthropologists must learn each mode of discourse’s truth-criteria, then evaluate whether those criteria are properly applied.
• Successful cross-cultural communication evidences that such understanding is indeed attainable.

Consequences for Anthropology

• Relativism cannot be wholly discarded nor fully embraced as absolutism’s replacement.
• Methodological relativism allows rigorous analysis while respecting cultural difference; it anchors ethical and epistemological judgments in contextualized knowledge.

Bibliographic Highlights (selected)

Benedict 1934; Brown 2008; Herskovits 1972; Shweder 2006; Hatch 1983; Hanson 1975; Gairdner 2008; Renteln 1988; Ulin 2007; John Paul II 1998; Wilson 1997.

Cultural Transmission (Opening Themes)

Cultural transmission = transfer of cultural information both inter-generationally and intra-generationally.

• Explains continuity over centuries: e.g., Alexis de Tocqueville’s 19^{th}-century observations of America still resonate.
• Question posed: Are new mass media subverting traditional cultural transmission?

Past Pattern: “Grandparents Were Wise”

• Historically, elders passed practical knowledge; children aspired to emulate community adults.
• Anthropologists writing in the ethnographic present once took continuity for granted, portraying timeless cultures.

Present Pattern: “Youth Teaching Elders”

• Rapid rural-to-urban migration, endangered minority languages, and external vocational training make change the norm.
• Stereotype: children instruct parents in technology, music, vocabulary.
• Key inquiry: Does this invert—and potentially break—the parent-to-child transmission chain?

(The excerpt ends just as it begins discussing whether mass media undermine cultural continuity.)

Connections & Significance

• Cultural materialism’s etic/emic distinction maps onto epistemological relativism’s search for objective vs. culturally contextual knowledge.
• Methodological relativism offers a practical stance for fieldwork, complementing cultural materialist data-collection guidelines.
• Debates on mass media’s role in cultural transmission relate to relativism: global content may homogenize moral/epistemic standards or foster pluralism.
• Ethical discussions of foot-binding, witchcraft trials, and sacrifice illuminate how ecological/economic factors (per cultural materialism) can shape practices later critiqued through relativist or absolutist lenses.

Practical Implications & Study Tips

1. When analyzing a cultural practice, first delineate emic meanings, then gather etic data (e.g., demographic or ecological context).
2. Apply methodological relativism: suspend moral judgment until context and internal logic are clear; then articulate one’s own position.
3. Remember the double-contingency model of truth when comparing knowledge systems; ask: “What empirical events are observed?” and “What cultural categories structure interpretation?”
4. Trace how globalisation, media, and internal social fractures complicate the once-assumed “bounded culture” model.