I was recently conversing with someone who claimed that "cultural relativism" was the only proper basis upon which to make social decisions. Now, this might well be a fashionable pose to make, but a claim of exclusive validity for cultural relativism appears to be self-destructive. To wit:
If absolute cultural relativism is valid, then, to be philosophically consistent, one must admit that the cultural perspective that rejects cultural relativism is equally as valid as the cultural perspective that accepts cultural relativism. If this is the case, then one cannot claim that cultural relativism is valid, since to do so means that one must also claim that it is as invalid as it is valid.
To reject the cultural perspective that rejects cultural relativism means that one must abandon cultural relativism in order to defend it, since to reject the cultural perspective that rejects cultural relativism is to assign higher value to accepting cultural relativism than to rejecting it, which means that one is no longer being culturally relativistic.
The only way to "preserve" cultural relativism is to be a hypocrite to some level or another. One must embrace a "dogmatism of relativism" or embrace a "relativism except in those areas that are philosophically inconvenient".
If absolute cultural relativism is valid, then, to be philosophically consistent, one must admit that the cultural perspective that rejects cultural relativism is equally as valid as the cultural perspective that accepts cultural relativism. If this is the case, then one cannot claim that cultural relativism is valid, since to do so means that one must also claim that it is as invalid as it is valid.
To reject the cultural perspective that rejects cultural relativism means that one must abandon cultural relativism in order to defend it, since to reject the cultural perspective that rejects cultural relativism is to assign higher value to accepting cultural relativism than to rejecting it, which means that one is no longer being culturally relativistic.
The only way to "preserve" cultural relativism is to be a hypocrite to some level or another. One must embrace a "dogmatism of relativism" or embrace a "relativism except in those areas that are philosophically inconvenient".