Analysis Of Renato Rosaldo's 'Of Headhunters And Soldiers'
Nov 8, 2016 746 Words 2 PagesView in Writing Tool
In his “Of Headhunters and Soldiers”, Renato Rosaldo makes a vivid distinction between cultural relativism and ethical relativism from his own personal experience. According to Rosaldo, cultural relativism focuses on human differences and the acquisition and adherence to one’s culture after birth. He references Ruth Benedict and further expands on the notion that all cultures are equally valid and that patterns of life cannot be scale down into grades (excellent, good, medium, below medium). Next, Rosaldo defines ethical relativism as a subset of cultural relativism pertaining to moral aspects of various cultural practices. The adoption of ethical relativism will hinder one’s ability to critically assess right versus wrong and good versus evil in the world. The author considers himself more of a cultural relativist than an ethical relativist and emphasizes the goal of relativism is to “determine what that other person is actually thinking.” The author includes a personal anecdote of the time he spent living with a Filipino hill tribe called the llongots, who are regular practitioners of headhunting. Initially, Rosaldo is terrified of the headhunting practices of the llongots and unconsciously associate the group as blood lusting and violence driven people. However, when he told them that he is drafted to fight in the Vietnam War the llongots provided a reaction that is polar opposite to “their nature” that Rosaldo has expected. Rosaldo comes to realize that headhunting to him is viewed the same way as war is viewed by the llongots. Rosaldo’s revelation can be summarized in that we, as a society, fears cannibalism and headhunting practiced by other subcultures, but failed to recognize that these subcultures also fear modern warfare practiced by dominant industrialized cultures like us. He concludes with a poem with the theme that each culture has its own moral threshold and certain practices we take for granted can inspire abhorrence from other cultures.
Rosaldo recognizes the existence of moral systems within cultures, but is unsure of what moral universals would consist of without the specification of moral standards. I also share the same feeling with Rosaldo on this one. I agree that one must learn to “familiarize itself with divergent value systems” in the diverse world that we live in today, but at the same time we need a set of moral standards in order for moral universality to exist. However, when relativist tenet is applied to ethics, I disagree with Kluckhohn’s statement in that “different values in human cultures are not so much ethical as they are matters of taste.” I believe the differences in languages, clothing styles, and food rituals are the somewhat inessential aspects of culture that can be loosely interpreted in terms of relativity because these differences do not pose a threat to human nature and morality. Nevertheless, there are some cultural differences that are so extreme and detrimental to the universal notion of morality that associating them to merely differences in taste is very unreasonable to say the least. In addition, I somewhat disagree with the author’s view in that one can hold a position as ethical without the need to be universal. The recognition of universality in ethics does not literally mean that you have “to wait for a consensus of the whole world, of every form of life, every language, every culture” before having a judgment of your own. Since a person is free to think, he can have an ethical judgment of his own, but if that judgment is made alone without any consideration to the universal code of ethics, then it will not be any different from ethical relativism. In regards to the topic of moral threshold of headhunting versus modern warfare, I believe that these thresholds exist in relation to exposure. The llongots have been practicing the traditions of headhunting for years and are not as frequently exposed to wars; therefore they are more inclined to view war with repugnance. Similarly, dominant cultures like our own take wars for granted due to our frequent involvements in wars and hence render abhorrence towards the uncommon practice of headhunting. I can understand where the author is coming from, but I still believe that even if dominant practices of one culture can generate moral horror in another and vice versa, the practices themselves can be individually assessed on an ethical level. Wars and headhunting might inspire varying reactions from culture to culture, but it cannot be denied that both practices are universally unethical because they brought about intentional killing of human beings.
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