Essay Example on Franz Boas is a German American Anthropologist

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Franz Boas is a German American anthropologist who is also well known by the title Father of Modern American Anthropology Boas is born in 9th of July in the year 1858 earning a Phd in physics at the age of 23 yet explored within the social science and natural science field The Biography 2014 In the end he chose his core career as an anthropologist In the year 1911 Boas published one of his book named The Mind of Primitive Man The Biography 2014 In this book Boas included a series of lectures on race and culture related issues such as the control of less developed countries by the western countries based on their race The Biography 2014 This topic leads to the development of the theory cultural relativism Cultural relativism is a philosophical theory developed in the early 20th century by Franz Boas 



The theory cultural relativism refers to the practice of understanding or acknowledging a culture s behavior values and knowledge from the view of its own culture's beliefs and values and not other cultures Cole 2017 Cultural relativism became an essential tool for the early context of social science as soon as it is developed by Franz Boas as it encourages researchers to push back on ethnocentrism during their research Cole 2017 Cultural Relativism is a philosophical theory developed in the early 20th century by an anthropologist Franz Boas who is known as the title Father of Modern American Anthropology The theory cultural relativism refers to the practice of understanding or acknowledging a culture s behavior values and knowledge from the view of its own culture's beliefs and values and not other cultures Cole 2017 Cultural relativism became an essential tool for the early context of social science as soon as it is developed by Franz Boas as it encourages researchers to push back on ethnocentrism during their research Cole 2017 In my point of view there are both advantages and disadvantages in everything in this world that we are living in Thus by identifying the advantages and disadvantages can help the readers and myself to better understand the theory In my personal view one of the advantages of the practicing the theory cultural relativism is that it gives rise to a peaceful and positive society as people from different cultural groups learn to accept and appreciate the cultural values and practices of one and another

Additionally cultural relativism discourages ethnocentrism where one judge a culture with the beliefs and values of other cultures as it can change the perspective of an individual or a cultural group in ways where they learn to view the ugly as pretty Moving on the practice of cultural relativism may increase the possibility of a cultural group to preserve their own cultural behaviors or their own uniqueness First of all people will use this theory as an excuse to be ignorant about the cultural practices of other cultures that are ethically wrong For example in my knowledge girls from a cultural group in Africa are undergoing Female Genital Mutilation FGM at a young age as it is a must for their culture However the practice of FGM may lead to many different sicknesses that can worsen a girl s health condition which also mean that FGM is unsafe to operate on girls as it is dangerous and ethically wrong In my opinion more people should be aware of the dangerous practices that other cultures are operating on the members and voice out to save lives Secondly it can limit one s thinking where changes will never be an option As an example if members of a culture practices slavery and are never given more space to think out of the box they would remain slaves for their lifetime First of all people will use this theory as an excuse to be ignorant about the cultural practices of other cultures that are ethically wrong For example in my knowledge girls from a cultural group in Africa are undergoing Female Genital Mutilation FGM at a young age as it is a must for their culture However the practice of FGM may lead to many different sicknesses that can worsen a girl s health condition which also mean that 



FGM is unsafe to operate on girls as it is dangerous and ethically wrong In my opinion more people should be aware of the dangerous practices that other cultures are operating on the members and voice out to save lives Secondly it can limit one s thinking where changes will never be an option As an example if members of a culture practices slavery and are never given more space to think out of the box they would remain slaves for their lifetime Philosophical theories can never magically solve problems for humans It can only be used as a tool for problem solving as it can affect one s perspective so that one can apply to his or her thinking when facing an obstacle Cultural relativism promotes the idea of putting oneself in another's shoes to better understand the culture so that conflicts between different cultural groups can be avoided In my point of view this theory is best used in the cultural anthropology field as it encourages anthropologists to avoid ethnocentrism This theory can be used while traveling in foreign countries When traveling in other countries we might encounter different cultural behaviors instead of judging immediately we can apply this theory to understand their culture and learn to appreciate their culture Furthermore the theory can be used in our daily life as well Take Malaysians as an example Malaysia is made up of different races and cultural groups However different cultural groups in Malaysia learn about other cultural groups and accept each other’s cultural behaviors In fact the cultural groups in Malaysia even exchange their cultural practices with each other and enjoyed it From this we know that the theory cultural relativism is suitable for reasoning and problem solving


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