2 weeks ago, my gender studies lecturer introduced a term which I found to be very profound: cultural relativism. It is a simple concept; that every person’s beliefs and actions are only meaningful in the context of his/her culture.

While I shared my new found knowledge with my friends, I wasn’t really surprised when there was some resistance. “If that were true, there would be no absolutes, no truth and everything is just relative”. I couldn’t agree more for what is THE truth? Who defines it? God? (I certainly don’t doubt it except that religious texts are not faxed from Heaven). Our leaders? (political, community or religious?) It wasn’t too long ago that superiority was defined by the color of our skin and homosexuality was a mental disorder. Although times are changing but we still have a long way to go as the Katrina incident showed.

Don’t get me wrong. While I am suddenly a new believer I am not apathetic. Neither am I a faddist. More open minded and tolerant more like it. I do agree though, it can be a difficult idea to digest. Does that mean that all principles are just figments of our psyche? That everything could and would crumble because they are not absolutes? Instead of pillars we now have will-o-wisps. There can then be neither wrong nor right… Scary thought… but it is time to rethink what is “natural” or “civilized” to us and to realize that such labels exist only within our own cultural imagination.