In this, Corbett claims: The norms, beliefs, practices and language of any group are not static but dynamic – the group is forever negotiating and renegotiating its norms and values among its membership. Therefore, the core beliefs – and the language that articulates them – will necessarily change over time (2003, p. 20). It is significant to note that even though cultures are divergent in several aspects; this does not necessarily mean that some of them are good while others are
Perceiving new information, including a new self-knowledge, encodes a child and organizes this information in accordance with the dominant cultural notions of femininity and masculinity and traditional notions of male and female roles in society. Thus, self-esteem and the child, and the preferred behaviors are largely determined by substantial component of gender
Another distinction which has had a strong impact on the study of culture is the understanding of culture as practice or culture as a system of symbols and meanings. As Hall stresses, culture is about meaning and as such “permeates all of society.” Representations, practices, values and identities have cultural meanings that are discursively constructed and tap into previous cultural discourses to be meaningful. Critical intercultural communication casts light on ways in which meanings echo cultural knowledge and are therefore difficult to identify and question – even for researchers themselves, hence a strong emphasis placed on reflexivity. The importance of “cultural resonance” has also been pointed out by scholars examining media
Appiah rejects this autonomy since it requires a level of critical self-thinking. One can become autonomous without becoming a moral philosopher. Each of these two groups chooses one of two distinct perspectives in society. That is subject-centered perspective and social centered perspective and they serve different interests. The social structure can be even more useful in identifying issues which are essential for sustaining individuality and at the same time providing a more realistic social
However, an organisation may also gain legitimacy, not on the basis of direct favourable exchanges, but because the organisation responds to the larger interests of their audience. This is known as influence legitimacy. The last form of pragmatic legitimacy is dispositional legitimacy, which results from audiences associating organisations with personalities, and their tendency to support organisations which share their values. To conclude, pragmatic legitimacy thus rests on judgements about whether the organisation benefits the evaluator, and is based on self-interest and materialistic power-dependence relations. 46 47
In this case, one can ask for clarifications so as to reduce chances of misinterpretation. Moreover, there should be an end to prejudice which leads to stereotyping of other cultures. This will allow room for different opinions on how to conduct, for instance, business activities. This will also help to counter check the effects of the ethnocentric perspective, which stands for one way of doing things. As Sethi (2010) argues, “there is no specific and rightful way of doing thing because different cultures have a set of beliefs, behavior and principles in relation to ways of doing things”.
Three Challenges posed by Cultural Relativist Arguments Human rights are those rights that are held simply by virtue of being human. Human rights’ substance, form and interpretation – at least according to the Universalist model – are not subject to variations and differences in culture. Cultural relativist argument rejects this claim and contends instead that the source of human rights is culture, since cultures are diverse. Cultural relativism maintains that human rights are non-universal; moreover, cultural relativists challenge the universality of human rights on three different
The individualism-collectivism dimension is defined as “the degree to which people in a country prefer to act as individuals rather than as members of groups” (Hofstede, 1994, p. 6). Individualistic cultures more commonly include western cultures such as North American countries, western European countries (e.g. UK and Germany) and Australia while collectivist cultures often consist of Asian countries (e.g. Japan and China). Without fail, it is crucial to keep in mind that there are individuals with collectivist values present in individualistic cultures, just as there is a significant amount of individualists in collectivist
How is it fair that others benefit from a culture that does not belong to them, but those from the culture are not benefited? In any academic platform plagiarism is a major offence. How is cultural appropriation any different? Aspects of certain cultures are used and wrongly made to belong to the appropriator. Taking someone’s culture is undoubtedly as wrong as plagiarism; however there is no punishment for the
Studying these ultimately opens a dialogue about what culture is. Cultural studies questions culture by examining various aspects of what impacts it. It examines questions that are asked about diverse aspects of culture by using a myriad of disciplines and methods. Nelson, Treichler, and Gosseberg describe the methods used, stating that, “...cultural studies is not merely interdisciplinary; it is often, as others have written, actively and aggressively anti-disciplinary,” (2). The multi-faceted approach that cultural studies takes in studying culture is exemplary of the diverse nature that culture has.