Revision summary
Ethnocentrism judged others by a home ladder of civilisation. Tylor–Morgan evolution and colonial display backed that habit. Boas, Herskovits, Benedict, and Mead made local history the frame. Post-war anti-racist science sealed the teaching shift. Relativism is method; it is not silence about violence.
Model answer
Copper italics in this answer — like this — are the key facts. Each one is unpacked in the Facts & figures rail.
Introduction
Ethnocentrism judges other lives by one’s home standard. Cultural relativism, as a method, asks that those lives be understood in their own terms first. The shift is a history of empire, science, and war.
Body
Ethnocentrism in context
- Unilinear evolutionists such as Tylor and Morgan ranked savagery, barbarism, and civilisation, which fitted colonial offices and mission schools.
- World fairs and racial anthropometry presented other peoples as exhibits. Gobineau and later racial science made hierarchy look natural.
The relativist turn
- Franz Boas, against Spencer and museum evolution, argued that each culture is a historical product. Language, myth, and body must be taken on their own terms.
- Herskovits named cultural relativism as a principle. Ruth Benedict’s Patterns of Culture and Mead’s Samoa, whatever the later debate, taught American readers that custom is not one ladder.
- The world wars and the Holocaust made ranking peoples as a scientific programme politically intolerable. UNESCO statements after 1950 used Boasian language against race doctrine.
Limit
- Relativism is a method of understanding, not a ban on judging cruelty. Boas still opposed racism. Geertz later warned against treating cultures as sealed islands.
- Indian anthropology after Srinivas used relativism in the village without denying law or reform.
Flow diagram
Conclusion
Ethnocentrism rode with empire and unilinear rank. Boasian fieldwork, anti-racist science, and the shock of racial war put cultural relativism in its place as a working ethic.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Is race a valid and biologically meaningful concept?
Next question on this syllabus topic (2021 · Q5(c)). View answer →
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Does relativism forbid comparison?
No. It forbids ranking as a moral ladder before the local logic is known.
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Is ethnocentrism only Western?
Every group can be ethnocentric. Anthropology’s shift was to stop making that habit into a science of rank.
Same topic · past papers
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2016 · Q1(b) · Anthropology GS 1 · 10 marks
Cultural Relativism
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