Culture, relativism, women's rights
An aspiring philosopher/blogger who goes by the name of Majikthise discusses a cultural practice called 'ala kachoo' which is apparently widespread in Kyrgyzstan. This practice is essentially, marriage by forcible kidnapping of the bride.
Links:
New York Times article on ala kachoo (this link will probably die in a few days, as NYT stories over a week old are put behind a pay-per-view wall)
Majikthise on ala kachoo and relativism.
I like philosophers because they're so careful and precise with their terms. Majikthise makes a very important distinction here between relativism and moral skepticism. Moral skeptics are, well, skeptical that we can know or say anything about morality. So a moral skeptic might say something like "Who's to say whether this practice is right or wrong? How can anyone know?" Whereas a cultural relativist must say something along the lines of "This practice is morally acceptable if it is approved of by the culture in which it takes place."
If you don't want to bother to read the whole thing, I'll just excerpt one point Majikthise makes on the problems of cultural relativism, which sums up a point I tried to make in class, but never made as clearly as she does here:
One of the fundamental problems with cultural relativism is that it's not clear what it means for a culture to approve of something. If we take cultural approval to mean universal and unqualified assent, then cultural relativism never settles anything. If it means something less than that, then the relativist has to give us a non-arbitrary definition of approval that we can actually use for real cultures. Without that such a standard, cultural relativism collapses into moral skepticism.
She goes on to show that the ala kuchoo is widespread, but also not all that popular. What does a cultural relativist say about a practice that is both widely practiced and widely distained? Cultures are full of such practices.
Feel free to use this thread to further discuss the issues of relativism, group rights, women's rights, etc. in addition to the content of this post.
posted by David Watkins @ 9:10 AM
5 Comments:
So much for personal security. Not much need for democracy in a land that cannot guarantee a woman freedom from abduction based on her qualifications as a bride--reproductive capability, etc.
ok, I must say more, after viewing the PBS video link about bride kidnapping on majikthise's (nice name!) website. Without even commenting initially on the human rights issue, the video is a stunning testimony to the human spirit (resistance) and cultural stoicism (accepting one's fate and making the best of it).
I think that after viewing this video, I would consider myself a cultural relativist, ONLY because I do not consider my view on cultural practices superior to those of other cultures. Change must come from within the culture.
When change is IMPOSED upon a society, resistance is guaranteed sooner or later because that society will feel their way of life threatened and will come to resent those who impose. When change is SUGGESTED to a society, by means of cultural exchange or exposure to different points of view, members have the opportunity to engage in philosophical discourse among themselves and make decisions on THEIR OWN based on their specific cultural needs.
One last comment. Kyrgyzstan appears to be predominantly Muslim. A big concern for Muslim's seems to me to be the regulation of female sexuality and paternity. What has this got to do with bride kidnapping? Quite a bit, seems to me.
Thanks for your comments Elizabeth. Just for the record, the position that "change must come from within" doesn't make you a relativist. That's a second order, strategic concern. If you believe that ala kachoo is clearly morally unacceptable, that's not a relativist position, regardless of what you think outsiders should do (if anything) about it.
I'm not sure that I think that bride kidnapping is morally unacceptable 100% of the time, because I'm not sure that I understand all the cultural nuances about this society, when it comes to marriage customs. I think it has to be considered situation by situation. Does that make me a relativist?
Here's a new wrinkle. I just read an article by David Miller* in which he distinguishes between cultural relativism (cultures decide what is right for them) and contextualism (certain things are right for certain cultures, depending on the context, but sometimes cultures get it altogether wrong). Contextalism is a different way of thinking about the middle ground--a form of quasi-universalism that is highly nuanced and, well, contextual, but doesn't force us to rely on what other cultures do, or what they approve of, in all cases.
*David Miller, "Two ways to think about justice," Politics, Philosophy, and Economics 1:1, 2002, p. 5-28.
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