I still blame myself for leaving the window open. Around 2 am on February 10, 1999 [name deleted] entered my room through an open window and strangled me while he raped me.
It’s a moment frozen in time, crystallized in my mind with certain salient, indelible details: I could tell you that my sheets were a pale yellow, that Pearl Jam’s “Black” was playing, that “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” lay open beside my bed, that Polo cologne scented his neck, that he wore black slacks and a light blue button-down shirt, that I wore a large white t-shirt. But these details are cognitive fragments divorced from feeling, severed from any recollection of the fear that paralyzed me after I realized that any fight was futile. I recall these details as if I were viewing the scene from outside of my body, floating above it. I know I should be horrified, but I can’t feel anything. I’m numb.
What is trauma?
Trauma involves a threat to physical and psychological integrity in which the victim is overpowered, left helpless, with action granting no gain. The overpowering nature of trauma overcomes ordinary defenses, engulfing the psychic scaffolding that supports the self, devastating any sense of power, connection, and meaning; it devastates structures of identity and destabilizes the core beliefs that lend meaning to events; it desecrates the schemas through which the victim understands the world, damaging her conceptions regarding her place in humanity. Trauma undermines fundamental human bonds and connections, violating the self that is formed and composed in connection to others; it disfigures patterns of thought, behavior, and personality organization. Trauma teaches the victim that the world is not safe, that life is unpredictable and rife with danger against which she cannot defend herself. Clarity is replaced by confusion, safety with fear. The core experience of trauma is one of psychic disintegration; trauma damages the cohesion of normally integrated faculties, fragmenting functions, severing what was once intact.
Post-traumatic responses of disintegration can present in manifold and protean manners, their appearance mutable and erratic, often functioning outside of conscious recognition. The effects of trauma are cognitive, emotional, interpersonal, and physiological. The trauma victim may feel without remembering or remember without feeling. Factual memories may be severed from emotional memories, and physiological memories may be severed from cognitive memories. Trauma may sever the connection between head and heart such that the victim may feel without thinking and think without feeling.
Trauma produces intense and enduring alterations in physiological arousal, capacities of feeling, thought, and memory, splitting these normally combined capacities into what Judith Herman calls the dialectic of trauma. This dialectic reflects how trauma can split its victims into polar opposites between which they vacillate in the regulation of intimacy, emotion, arousal and memory. Survivors may alternate between numbness and vivid reliving, between constriction and intrusion, between excruciating arousal and numb fatigue. At times they feel deadened with all sensation blunted; at other times they are inundated with intense emotion.
In the aftermath of trauma, since the feelings surrounding the event are so threatening, menacing, and frightening, the survivor may shut herself off from all emotion, instead feeling insensitive, deadened, frozen, and blunted. Everything becomes flat and distant, removed from awareness. She may appear to be unaffected, but is in fact in a state of constriction, unable to access her emotion. Constriction is prominent when the victim can neither flee nor fight; she freezes and disconnects from her experience. When all defenses are overwhelmed, when all struggle is ineffective, the victim who is immobilized by helplessness submits, relinquishing resistance. A calm sets in as the mind is severed from the ravaged body, a stillness in which fear, anger, and pain dissipate. The mind anesthetizes itself, allowing the victim escape through altered consciousness.
In the state of intrusion, the survivor relives the trauma as if it persisted in the present, enduring and unabated by time. Memories interrupt current awareness, encroaching upon consciousness, infringing perception, imposing their form upon cognition as recollections are relived with urgent clarity and immediacy, insistent, intransigent, forceful and vivid. Hyperarousal is a state of constant, relentless alert in which the victim anticipates the return of danger; she is easily startled, vigilant, and watchful.
In the state of hyperarousal, she may mentally relive the event, as certain cues prompt memory, eliciting anxiety and fear. These flashbacks interrupt the continuity of time as an enduring present persists in awareness. Her sense of danger and terror may persist unabated by time as horror interjects sleep through nightmares.
Traumatic memory is often fragmented, a series of discrete pieces that don’t quite fit together. Unlike ordinary memory, traumatic memory often lacks narrative, evading attempts to create a linear, sequential story. It’s form may be a series of isolated images lacking context, or a succession of bodily sensations. It’s iconic, scary, and close.
Memories of the trauma, even when remote from conscious awareness, can be physiologically experienced and expressed. Sometime I feel like I’m suffocating, without recalling his hands pressing down hard on my windpipe. I’ve smelled Polo on a subway and broke out in a cold, panicked sweat. I’ve trembled when “Black” came on the radio.
The traumatic event may be like a film reel endlessly looping in the victim’s mind as she replays it, ripe with self-reprisal, in search of some opportunity she may have missed to protect herself: if only she had screamed louder, if only she had fought harder, if only she had trusted her intuition that danger was near. If only I had locked my window. For me, self-blame was preferable to the reality of sheer helplessness and betrayal. If I were to blame, if I were at fault, then the world could still be orderly and benign, just and fair.
The disintegration of psychic functions can be expressed in the disordering of interpersonal relationships. The trauma victim may both crave and fear closeness, seeking both isolation and connection, retreat and relation. She may depend and cling while recoiling in fear, terrified of both separation and association as she both needs and rejects. She may vacillate between withholding all trust, and trusting too readily, making her susceptible to repeated victimization.
Trauma disorders not only psychic functions, but also disintegrates the mental schema through which the victim understands her place in humanity, as the trauma violates the trust upon which social compacts are founded. As a breach of social bonds, trauma violates the victim’s trust in others (that someone could harm her so much, that there was no one to intervene and protect her) and often violates her trust in herself as well (undermining her confidence in her ability to protect herself, her ability to trust her own judgment).
My story
I’m sitting on the steps of the church where the Narcotics Anonymous meeting is being held, my hand is shaking from withdrawals as I bring my cigarette to my mouth. I don’t know how long I’ve been crying. It has been almost forty-eight hours since my last fix. He sits beside me, rubbing my back, speaking in soothing tones. He says he can help me through this; he asks me to follow him home. At first I’m wary, but he said, “You can trust me. I’m in recovery. I’m not like your drug friends who just use you for what they can get out of you. It’s the twelfth step, helping another addict. We’re in this together.”
I discounted my intuitions, ignored the suspicions aroused by his “forced teaming,” his inappropriate sense of “we”, and went home with him. It would be two years before I left.
He was so handsome, charming, passionate. I felt so special to have been chosen by him. He seemed so crazy about me, becoming so serious so fast as he planned for our future together. I felt protected and safe. I was flattered and grateful that he seemed to care so much. I felt as if his care could guard me from the world’s dangers.
Since childhood I dreamed of rescue. I would quickly become attached to older men that I idealized, obscuring my judgment, both willfully and unconsciously diverting my attention from signs that should have been warnings.
He was attracted by my vulnerability, my weakness, my need, and took advantage of the resulting power imbalance and through it exploited and controlled me.
In my case I can identify certain personality characteristics that inclined me towards relationships with controlling men, the vulnerabilities that predisposed me to victimization. But it is not only ineffective, but furthermore destructive, to investigate traits of women that may be factors in their own victimization, that may make some women vulnerable and susceptible to harm. The scary truth is that we can all be victimized.
I can now see the seeds of the end within the beginning, but I can only identify the pattern of abuse and control through a retrospective understanding. In hindsight I see certain subtle signs of entitlement and control that existed long before any overt, physical abuse. At the time, I wasn’t aware of what was slowly adding up. I’d acclimate, grow accustomed to something, and barely notice a gradual, incremental mounting of control and dominance. It started so slight, seemingly insignificant, but steadily mounted in minute increments, so slowly that I wasn’t aware of the emerging pattern.
I became adept at minimizing, diminishing, and excusing as I stifled and subdued my doubts. I grew accustomed to disowning my feelings, thoughts, and judgments, renouncing my assessments and appraisals.
The longer I stayed, the more I gave up for the sake of the relationship. I gave up so much. I surrendered my autonomy, abandoned my relationships with friends and family. And the more I gave, the more I became determined to make the relationship work, so that my sacrifices would not be in vain.
I couldn’t let go of the promise I saw in the early days, the dream I had of our life together. If only I could figure out what I did wrong and fix it, then everything would be ok again.
At first I felt comforted by his monitoring. But as I grew stronger, I began to feel smothered, stifled, trapped, gasping for a free breath, desperate for some privacy. I thought he was looking out for me, but really he was placing me within his domain, asserting his ownership.
About a year into our relationship, he was diagnosed with Hepatitis C. He began antiviral treatment, but the interferon and ribavirin caused flu-like symptoms, depression, and irritability. He began reminiscing about drugs. One night I walked into the bedroom and saw him smoking crack. I yelled. He hit me.
I became so focused on his emotional volatility and physical violence when he was high, that my attention was diverted from his actions when sober, the thinking, attitudes, and values that were present even when he wasn’t intoxicated. The entitled attitudes that fueled his drug use were present in sobriety as well. Maybe the crack did make him paranoid and violent, but he repeatedly chose to smoke it, knowing what it did to him and what he did to me. He demanded absolution for all actions committed under the influence, and when sober he wielded the threat of intoxication as a weapon to manipulate me.
When an abused woman dares to speak up and advocate for herself, it becomes evident how deeply entrenched the man’s control problem is. The control and abuse amplified as I grew stronger and tried to break away. He felt me pushing up against his authority, and this assertion of independence provoked him. He sought to reassert his dominance and ownership.
But when I tried to address any behavior of his that was bothering me, I ended up apologizing to him. The real issue and my feelings about it were never addressed. He turned around my objections so that they somehow became my fault, leaving me feeling even worse. When I did venture to challenge him, he sought to discredit and silence me: I felt bad about myself so I wanted him to feel bad about himself too; I was too sensitive, too thin-skinned, to easily upset; I was misinterpreting, misconstruing, misunderstanding, misreading, misapprehending, misjudging. Everything was somehow my fault. I lived in a state of vague, ill-defined guilt.
Sometimes the bruises were evident, but our few friends didn’t want to get in the middle, get between us or take sides. They said they wanted to remain neutral. But supposedly detached “neutrality” is not in fact truly impartial and nonaligned as it essentially sides with the abuser, serving his interests through attributing some fault to the victim, considering the problem to be mutual in origin, a shared and reciprocal dynamic that the two partners alone must work out. Silence is implicit, tacit denial of the victim’s reality. Silence means that help is unavailable, that the victim is isolated and abandoned.
My sense of isolation was mitigated by a letter from my mother. She wrote that she knew I was the expert on my own life, that she respected any decision I were to make, that she would support me through anything, and that despite our estrangement, I always had a home with her for as long as I needed it.
I told him that I wanted to stay with my mother for a week, that I needed a week to myself, a week to clear my head and think. I told him that I loved him and still wanted to be with him, but needed some time apart. I told him this with hesitancy, my resolve still tenuous. I didn’t think I could handle life on my own, didn’t think I was competent or capable.
His responses alternated between cajoling flattery, persuasive promises, and degrading insults. He told me how much he loved me, how I meant the world to him, that he would do anything for me; he told me how lucky I was to have him, that no one else would ever want me or be able to tolerate me; he accused me of abandoning him, using him and tossing him out. He knew my vulnerabilities and manipulated each one. Shame is a powerful tool for disempowering people.
During the week I stayed with my mother, he would come by around two or three in the morning and throw pebbles at my window until I opened it to talk to him. I would tell him that it was just a week, that I needed a week to clear my head and think things over. He would tell me that he needed me, that he was lost without me, that he couldn’t eat or sleep, that he would smell my perfume on the pillow beside him, roll over to embrace me, only to find that I was not there. He would persist until I let him in. One night I didn’t. He came in and raped me.
What is abuse?
Abuse is about the exercise of power and control. It can involve physical intimidation, threats, violence, sexual coercion, economic exploitation, attitudes of disrespect, contempt, superiority and entitlement. All forms of abuse are methods of obtaining the same goal, are all organized around power and control. Control involves domination, commanding restrictions of freedom, and the impeding of independence. Control, by its very nature, involves a violation of boundaries, the personally-defined protections of physical, emotional, sexual, and mental life, as the abuser fails to respect his victim as an entity separate from his own being. In violating boundaries, abuse involves a denial of the inherent self-determination and autonomy of the other, as the abuser sees his victim not as an end in herself but rather as a means to meeting his own ends, a mere instrument to be used in achieving his goals. The abuser seeks to manipulate his victim into meeting his desires and needs irrespective of his victim’s own wishes.
Although specific abusive tactics and techniques may vary, most occurrences of abuse share certain characteristics. They involve undermining the victim’s power and connections, devastating her sense of self, inducing fear, and making her grateful for any of the small kindnesses intermittently offered.
The abuser: the individual level
The abuser may harbor a mental schema of what constitutes abuse, a schema which is always a few increments more severe than his own behavior, in which the man is always more violent, and his partner always more blameless.
Abuse, by its nature, involves blocked empathy; the abuser is unable, or unwilling, to see himself through his partner’s eyes or otherwise assume her perspective. If the abuser were attuned to his partner’s mental and emotional state, it would be difficult for him to injure her. This lack of empathy is characteristic of the narcissist whose sense of self-importance is exaggerated. The narcissist demands deference and admiration, compliance with his expectations, as he disregards the feelings of others, even exploiting them to meet his needs. He considers actions and events only insofar as they refer to himself. That is, rather than asking what would make his partner feel good, he asks how he can influence her to act in manners that make him feel good. And so, rather than considering his partner to exist independent of her relation to him, he views her as an extension of himself, a possession to reflect well on him.
The abuser is thus focused upon his own gratification as he claims the right to physical, emotional, and sexual caretaking. The core aspects of abuse, the controlling behaviors and devaluing attitudes involved, reveal a sense of entitlement that is enacted in the abuser’s coercive exercise of privilege. The abusive man benefits from this entitlement, the coercive and manipulative dynamic that he creates. He gets without giving. Priority is granted to his concerns, with his goals prioritized. He creates a context in which daily decisions arise not from a negotiation of desires, but rather from his fiats alone. His partner dares not ask anything from him. Thus, the abuser’s behavior, far from irrational, may result from a conscious and purposeful weighing of costs and benefits.
The abuser, though, is not so self-focused that he disregards public opinion. He cultivates a positive public image that allows him to feel virtuous and upstanding, affecting social sanction for his abuse. People external to the abusive dynamic may see only this charming demeanor and tell the victim how lucky she is to be with him. Should she dare disclose his abusiveness to them, they assign blame to her, telling her that for such a decent, respectable man to hurt her, she must have really injured him in some manner. Thus, the abuser’s positive public image seemingly justifies his negative private behavior.
Integral to the privilege that the abuser claims from himself is freedom from accountability. He is exempt from the rules to which his partner is subject, with her behavior evaluated by standards different from those by which his own may be evaluated. Whereas her yelling is “hysterical,” his own yelling is a healthy venting of natural frustration.
The abuser justifies his behavior through fabricating the many excuses that constitute the mythology of abuse: he hits her because he himself was hit when young; he is jealous because a former girlfriend cheated on him; he is possessive because he fears abandonment; he explodes because he bottles up his feelings. He expects his partner not only to accept these justifications, but often to admit her own culpability as well.
Adopting the perspective of the abuser
We all see ourselves through others’ eyes, but when there exists a power differential, we are increasingly likely to see ourselves through the eyes of those with more power. In abusive relationships, by definition, there exists a power differential. The victim sees herself through the eyes of her abuser.
The abused woman may think, “if it gets bad enough, then I’ll leave.” She may hold on to an imaginary, perhaps undefined line, believing that if her abuser were ever to cross that line, then she would certainly leave. Her conception of what constitutes mistreatment may always be a few notches more severe that her abuser’s behavior, no matter how severe his behavior becomes. But the longer the abuse continues, the harder it is for her to leave. Despite escalations of abuse over time, leaving the abusive relationship becomes increasingly difficult because the victim loses her ability to define her own reality, to maintain a sense of reality independent of her abuser and the abusive dynamic.
Since abuse operates through isolation, the victim is often cut off from any potential source of support that may validate her own perception of reality. The abuser seeks to sever his victim’s connections to any potential sources of support outside of her relationship with him. Her isolation increases her dependency on him. Shut off from competing views, she comes to perceive the world through his eyes.
Lundy Bancroft describes how the abused woman adopts the abuser’s perspective, incorporating his outlook into her own such that when she does hear that small voice inside of her alerting her that something is wrong, very wrong, she suppresses that protective instinct. She comes to see herself entirely through the eyes of her abuser. In this manner, abuse redefines the victim’s perception of reality. She comes to doubt her perceptions, distrust her judgments. She becomes adept at suppressing her intuitions. She may muffle her inner voice again and again until it dares not speak. When she does acknowledge that something is wrong, she tells herself that it is not wrong enough, not wrong enough to justify objecting, let alone leaving. In rejecting and refuting her experience of mistreatment, in disowning her intuitions, the abuser’s reality replaces her own. As she comes to see herself through his eyes, internalizing his view of her and her role, she becomes alienated from any independent identity, any core sense of self separate from his conception of her.
The abuser defines his victim’s reality as his determination of that which is real, valid, and true supplants her own determination of reality, validity and truth. He characterizes and demarcates which perceptions are accurate and correct. In time she acquiesces and yields, conforming her views to the figure of his such that his perspective comes to demarcate and circumscribe hers. He undermines her experience of reality by creating “competing truths,” realities that contend with her own. If his asserted truth is strong enough and avowed over a long enough period of time, it may become her truth. His assertions of veracity undercut her certainty as they deny the legitimacy of her own perceptions. He posits himself as the self-ordained discerner of truth as he prescribes, shapes, and determines the validity of her assessments.
What is the abusive mentality?
Discussions of abuse and violence too often remain at the level of effects and consequences, omitting consideration and examination of the basic, foundational issues of underlying violent and abusive values and beliefs. Abuse extends from systems of values and beliefs which are shaped by a convergence of significant role models and other social influences. When we understand the abusive mentality, the machinations of abusive thinking, its operations, its objectives, and its sources, clarity replaces confusion and we deflate the abuser’s power.
The focus on feeling diverts attention from its proper focus on the abuser’s thinking, attitudes, and beliefs, the perceptions and interpretations that shape his abusive responses. Abuse is an attitudinal and behavioral problem, not an emotional one. Abuse is not a matter of feeling, but rather of thinking. We need not act on our feelings; we act in spite of our feelings all the time.
These thoughts, attitudes, and beliefs constitute the abusive paradigm. The abusive paradigm is a mentality, a lens through which the abuser views the world, influencing what he sees and notices, how he interprets that data, and the meaning he makes from it. This abusive mentality is shaped by the beliefs, perceptions, and attitudes that constitute the foundation of violence. At the core of the abusive mentality is a belief system that underlies and creates his feelings, informs and shapes behavior.
The making of the abusive mentality: the social level
A comprehensive evaluation of abuse must involve a consideration of the individual abuser within the context of a larger social system that supports his abuse. Analysis, thus, cannot rest at the individual level, but must also examine broader social structures, processes, and values, particularly the societal messages that endorse a culture of oppression.
The developing child becomes versed in certain shared understandings as he discerns the behaviors that are socially-sanctioned and elicit approval from his caretakers. The child observes the reactions of his caregivers, learning how they respond to his behavior. He thus learns to shape his behavior to elicit favorable expressions, learning the actions and traits that can or cannot be expressed and displayed.
As messages are encoded in behaviors, the child’s experiences of approval and disapproval shape his developing sense of morality. Values are transmitted as he learns his community’s standards through adult role models, media messages, his toys, and the peer influences that communicate cultural mores and affect the process of socialization. Although this transmission of values, standards, and mores can be benign, it can also be malignant as some cultural agents condone covert oppressive attitudes and even endorse overt abuse.
Through media portrayals and the attitudes displayed by adult role models, the child is trained in gender roles and expectations. The male child may learn that coercion and manipulation are compatible with care and love; he may learn that a woman’s “no” actually means “try harder.” Mistreatment of women is thus apparently socially sanctioned. The male child may come to link manhood with control and power over others; he may learn that respect is gained through domination and intimidation.
Masculinity is neither innate nor natural, but is rather crafted and constructed, influenced by social conditioning and the inculcation of cultural norms. As a socially-constructed paradigm influencing relations to self and world, masculine identity is thus a schema, possessing an underlying configuration and conceptual structure.
The media presents simplistic images to define masculinity, and within these narrow confines, violent masculinity is presented as a norm. Violence thus extends from a system of norms that, when carried to the extreme, constitute an abusive mentality. The social forces shaping this abusive mentality and the masculine paradigm are fundamental, strategic factors in the abuse against women.
The bag
The child learns which behaviors and characteristics evoke favorable responses from his caretakers and peers, which actions and traits cannot be displayed without evoking social sanction. And so he shapes his behavior accordingly, seeking positive reactions.
Into his “bag” he places the characteristics that he must hide from others, even coming to hide them from himself. The “bag” is Robert Bly’s metaphor for Jung’s shadow, the dark part of ourselves that holds the feelings and contains the characteristics that we disapprove of and disown. Bags are both individual and social in nature. Particular groups put certain characteristics in their bags. Women may put pride and anger in their bags. Men may put vulnerability and sensitivity in theirs. Men come to associate vulnerability with weakness, a susceptibility to that which might hurt them, but vulnerability also involves the openness that is a prerequisite for healthy, authentic relationship dynamics.
Child abuse: A Child called ‘It’
Trauma affects a psychic disintegration in its victims. The child who is raised in an abusive environment faces challenges in the primary development of integration. Child abuse obstructs integration through inhibiting the resolution of standard developmental conflicts. The child’s fragile, still developing psychological defenses are relentlessly assailed by the very people who ought to nurture him. The chronicity of fear and disempowerment undermines and devastates the child’s sense of self. When those in charge of the child’s custody and care not only fail to protect him, but in fact inflict harm upon him, the abused child must struggle to maintain a sense of trust when his caretakers are untrustworthy, and a sense of hope when he sees no way out.
Domestic abuse and child abuse share certain salient characteristics. The abusive parent, like the abusive partner, exercises power and control through physical intimidation, threats, violence, attitudes of disrespect, contempt, superiority and entitlement. The abusive parent’s empathy for her child is blocked; she narcissistically views her child not as an independent being with feelings and desires, but as a possession.
The abuser objectifies her victim as she strips him of name, of identity, of personhood, viewing him not as her child but as a bothersome thing. The processes of objectification and depersonalization enable and support violence through denying the victim’s humanity while shielding the abuser from culpability, allowing for a pristine conscience.
Abuse thrives within the context of isolation. The abusive parent, like the abusive partner, seeks to deprive the victim of any connections external to his relationship with her. The child is severed from any possible source of sustenance, increasing his dependency upon her and making him grateful for any of the small kindnesses intermittently offered.
The child’s sense of isolation is increased when other adults fail to intervene to secure his safety. The signs of abuse and neglect may be evident, blatant, and yet his teachers and other key adults may remain silent, thereby communicating that help is unavailable, that he is isolated within his nightmare, abandoned by his community, with no one to validate his reality.
On the rare occasion that any help is hesitantly offered, the helper finds himself up against the abuser’s positive public image; he sees a loving, virtuous mother doggedly caring for a recalcitrant child. The helper also comes up against the abuser’s “competing truths,” the explanations and justifications that mask and enable her abuse.
With no help available, the child must develop and rely upon his own emergent defenses. Within the chronicity of unpredictability and volatility, the pervasiveness of fear and helplessness, the child becomes unrelentingly vigilant, adept at detecting warning signs, alert to his abuser’s mental state, attentive to any cue that might predict his abuser’s intents. He monitors any slight, minor alteration in appearance, vocal intonation, demeanor, learning to read moods, tune into a twitching lip, an arched eyebrow, narrowed eyes.
Even the most abusive of circumstances becomes more bearable when the victim finds meaning within it. As the child endeavors to make meaning out of his suffering, to render his pain comprehensible, he assumes that he must harbor some intrinsic evil or depravity that is the cause of the abuse. This meaning mitigates some of the helplessness he feels, allowing him to arrive at some sense of control: if he is the source of the misery, he too could be the source of its abatement. He believes that if only he tries hard enough, he will receive the love and care he needs. This self-blame, though a distortion of reality, is functional as it allows the child to preserve the necessary belief in a world that is orderly and just.
Healing
Trauma splits its victims, creating a disconnect between normally integrated capacities and functions, producing disregulations in physical arousal, in emotional experience, in interpersonal relationships, creating a state of psychic disintegration. Thus, the aim of healing is integration. Healing occurs when the experience of trauma is assimilated into the larger narrative of life, no longer split off and separate from the overall flow of life. As she reconstructs the narrative of trauma, the victim develops a more complete and integrated version of reality, restoring the damaged structures of self.
The primary objective in healing from trauma and abuse is the establishment of physical safety, the secure conditions in which healing may begin. For me, this meant moving to an address unknown by my abuser. Next, the survivor’s sense of control ought to be enhanced even as her cognitive, emotional, and physiological responses may feel beyond her understanding, let alone control. My mother sought to restore my sense of control, to empower me by attuning my focus to that which was within my power: What will I wear today? What and when will I eat? Which TV channel will I watch? How long will I shower for? At first, even the smallest of daily decisions seemed challenging and futile, but my mother respected my judgment, supported my autonomy, and encouraged my self-determination. Once the survivor feels safe and has regained some sense of empowerment, her next task involves the restoration of connections with others, the restoration of the human bonds which trauma severs. Within environmental safety, empowerment, and connection, she may begin to reconstruct the psychic structures and faculties that were disintegrated by the trauma,
The process of healing from trauma can be long and arduous. Seemingly resolved symptoms can reemerge at times of stress, reasserting themselves into the survivor’s life. Thus, just as the symptoms of post-traumatic responses constitute a dialectic, so too does the process of healing. Steps may seem small and the pace may feel slow, but through the dialectic of healing, the processes of reemergence and resolution, the survivor moves towards integration, becoming whole again, with the split parts combined and harmoniously coordinated.
Sources:
Bancroft, L. (2002). Why does he do that? Inside the minds of angry and controlling men. New York: Penguin Putnam.
Herman, J. (1997). Trauma and recovery: The aftermath of violence from domestic abuse to political terror. New York: Basic Books.
Pelzer, D. (1995). A child called “it”: One child’s courage to survive. Deerfield Beach, FL: HCI Books.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Relativism, Objectivism, and Pluralism
One of the primary aims of most ethical systems is to minimize harm, however that harm may be understood. Both moral objectivism and moral relativism purport to do just this, but as we will see, both of these systems in fact justify harm, whether through direct infliction or the permission granted by passive acceptance. The objectivist, so convinced of his own right, may imprudently inflict moral tyrrany. The relativist, unconditionally tolerant of all practices, may remain idle in the face of atrocity. An evaluation of objectivist and relativist positions will demonstrate that their synthesis in the form of value pluralism is the ethical system best equipped to reduce injury in the context of cultural heterogeneity and individual rights.
To establish certain first principles of this argument and to provide a context for its claims, it is necessary first to understand the meaning and purpose of moral discourse itself. I will then introduce the positions of objectivism and relativism through their implicit ontologies and epistemologies as a framework for evaluating their construction. A consideration of descriptive relativism will explore its anthropological foundation as a base for its normative claims. These claims will then be evaluated within the context of human and international rights.
Moral discourse
To enter into moral discourse, we need not endorse supervening values or an objective standard by which all moral propositions can be evaluated, but we must assume that morality is not separate from and resistant to the methods of logic, reason, and argumentation.We must assume that the perspectives of objective and relative morality do not represent two incommensurable paradigms, with different definitions of terms and no premises in common, thus resisting any comparison or evaluation.
In this comparison and evaluation, we will accept certain metaethical constructions of the nature and function of ethics and morality. Let us understand ethics to mean the normative principles embodying the values and standards that we may employ as guides to conduct, behavioral regulation, the making of decisions, and the discernment of right and wrong action. This definition will allow us to differentiate the codes for conduct embodied by morals.
The ontology and epistemology of objectivism and relativism
Ethical judgments are, at their most fundamental level, an outgrowth of implicit ontological assumptions regarding the nature of reality and epistemological assumptions regarding the nature and extent of knowledge. The epistemological truth of a theory, though, does not directly imply its moral and ethical truth.
The ontological assumption of moral absolutism involves a single, true representation of reality that informs absolute moral laws independent of contextual factors, remaining fixed and permitting no exceptions. Truth is thus seen as enduring, constant, and unchanging. Reality exists independent of any interpretation of it. Moral laws are objective, embodying a truth that endures independent of interpretation.
Ontological relativism regards reality as holding no intrinsic properties but rather existing relative to our conception and perception of it. In simplest terms, “relativity” expresses a relationship of dependency such that one element (our knowledge of reality) depends upon another element (the perspective from which reality is viewed). Thus, we do not passively and neutrally apprehend objective truth, but rather actively construct any truth through the perspective paradigms of our culture (cultural relativism) or our individual biographies (individual relativism). All knowledge of reality is thus indirect, mediated through the structures of the mind which are themselves structured by cultural and individual factors. And so reality retains no independent existence and can be known only through our representation of it, known only as it is mediated by various conceptual schemes that structure perception. Thus, we do not see but rather we interpret. As truth is relative, it is thus variable.
This relativist construction of reality carries implications regarding what it is possible to know or hold as true. Epistemological relativism considers no truth to be objective and absolute. Rather, the truth value of any given proposition can only be evaluated through its own terms and definitions. Truth is context-dependent, with no particular context holding a privileged position. This is not equivalent to the skeptic’s doubt of the existence of truth. Truth exists, but only in relation to other truths such as that of one’s vantage point. The external world indeed exists, but can be known only as it appears.
To the relativist, all evaluations, even moral ones, are inextricably bound to and dependent upon the perspective of the evaluator’s frame of reference (whether we use culture or individual consciousness) such that statements of truth value must be qualified: something is true not in itself, but rather true within a particular framework, within whatever conceptual scheme that is employed in the classification of reality.
Objectivism
The objectivist position regards values as existing independent of the human mind. There exist certain moral facts which can be known and evaluated through faculties of human reasoning. Views regarding the source and nature of these fixed and stable moral facts vary by theory. Various objectivist theories have identified the source of these moral facts in human reasoning, nature itself, or in God. Through discerning the laws of reasoning, nature, or the divine, one may determine proper action in the form of moral propositions, the truth value of which can be objectively evaluated irrespective of person or context.
Thus, within objectivism, there exists an inherent and intrinsic morality or immorality within acts independent of who is acting, the context in which the act occurs, and the consequences of those actions. There exists a morality sovereign, autonomous, unfettered by, and detached from human opinion and estimation by which we can judge our actions. This morality, as objectively true, transcends any cultural or individual bias.
Ethical relativism
Ethical relativism is the study of moral variations over time and across conditions, viewing morality as contextually dependent rather than universal in nature, assessing ethical propositions by cultural or individual standards. Moral truth is an outgrowth of cultural and individual perspectives, true within the context within which it originates, in connection to and constructed by the conventions of a culture (cultural relativism) or the perspective of an individual (individual relativism). Ethical conduct is not simply true or false, reflective of objective moral facts akin to scientific facts, but is instead relative to individual or culture.
Problems in defining culture
If we are to claim that morality is dependent upon cultural context, it would serve us to understand what constitutes a culture. We cannot simply describe culture as a worldview, since cultural relativists, in saying that culture shapes our worldview, would then say nothing more than that our worldview shapes our worldview.
Culture is a means of conceptualizing the patterned activity of individuals living in groups as they symbolically interact through sets of beliefs and behavioral norms that are expressed through rituals, social structures, manners, dress, art, language, religion, politics and morality. Embedded within culture, expressed both explicitly and implicitly, we find belief systems regarding the nature of reality, what constitutes right and wrong conduct, and which values are to be maximized.
Defining “culture,” though, becomes increasingly problematic when we attend to how a single individual may identify with many groups according to differences of race, ethnicity, class, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion, political affiliation, and the other differences that contribute to ideological heterogeneity within any culture. To reduce our understanding of culture to any one of these factors is to fragment identity. With increasing diversity, cultural designations blur.
Mary Midgley describes blurring cultural designations as she challenges the concept of culture as a homogeneous, monolithic entity void of diversity among the individuals that comprise it. She depicts “American culture” as one comprised of many immigrant influences and demands that we attribute to other cultures the same diversity which we attribute to ourselves.[1]
Relativism’s roots in anthropology
Cultural relativism arose as a theoretical reaction to the destructive legacy of cultural imperialism. It was conceived of as an antidote to ethnocentrism, the judging of a group against one’s own standards, and represented an effort to transcend the limits that cultural paradigms impose upon perception. The methodological application of this perspective is the ethnography in which the observer immerses himself in another culture for an extended time, essentially replicating the process of acculturation. Ethnographies have created vivid portraits detailing dramatic cultural variation and diversity. When confronted with such differences, one might be inclined to call into question the existence of any universal (objective) standards common to all human culture. It is necessary to note, though, that anthropology asks different questions than does philosophy.
Descriptive cultural relativism
Descriptive relativism is perhaps a truism. Even the objectivist does not contend that cultures and individuals do not disagree as to what is morally right. But moral philosophy, as the systematic study and rational justification of morality, must move beyond the level of description to reveal underlying principles.
Moving from the descriptive to the normative
From this descriptive account of moral variation, anthropologists and some philosophers draw normative and evaluative conclusions that are not self-evidently true. We cannot automatically move from describing the existence of cultural difference to concluding that we cannot disagree. Although when evaluated through its own cultural context and framework, each system can be understood as functional and cultrally valid, it need not necessarily be morally valid.
Normative cultural relativism
The mere fact that we disagree as to what is right does not prove that there exists no right course of action. The belief that we cannot transcend our own cultural or personal perspective does not prove that there exists no transcendent, objective means of evaluation. That truth may be difficult to apprehend does not prove that truth does not exist. Truth may exist even if it remains inaccessible to human consciousness. Thus, descriptive relativity does not necessitate normative relativity. Even if we are inclined to endorse the descriptive truth expressed by relativist positions, we need not accept its normative truth, its consequences.
Normative cultural relativism involves evaluative claims that the validity of morality is relative to (dependent upon) the culturally-bound framework through which it was apprehended. Since all truth is necessarily apprehended through a framework, there exists no unmediated access to truth.
The claims of cultural relativism extend beyond the description of extant cultural differences, and into the normative contention that, when understood within its own context, any cultural practice is not only understandable but justifiable. Ethical relativism involves the normative contention that such disagreement is all that exists. Morality is not anchored in, reflective of, or existing in reference to any objective and thus universal standards. Moral propositions are expressions not of absolute truth, but rather of cultural or individual attitudes which cannot be separated from the circumstance of their origin. Morality, as culturally-defined, is thus culturally bound.
Different cultures have different moral standards, none of which is any better than the other, or any more true since there exists no objective morality against which it can be compared or otherwise evaluated. That which is good is in essence that which is approved of by the majority of people in one’s culture, the ideology of the dominant group; something is true when enough people believe it to be so. Thus, the truth and validity of any ethical proposition carries no independent truth value, only truth within a particular framework (epistemic claims)
Moving from cultural relativism to individual relativism
In accounting for ideological diversity and the many manners of affiliation, one might argue that whatsoever an individual preference may be, one can find a culture that condones associated practices and beliefs. A pedophile, for instance, may find moral support for his views in the culture of NAMBLA.
In considering the many manners of affiliation and dimensions of identity, a “culture” fragments in endless divisions and subdivisions until we are reduced to individual biography. Cultural relativism thus becomes individual relativism.
Individual relativism
Cultural relativism thus becomes individual relativism as each individual belongs to many subcultures and integrates the normative values of each to construct a personal morality. Morality then becomes a manifestation and expression of the confluence of factors that combine to constitute an individual identity and consciousness, with each individual constructing an idiosyncratic interpretation of reality such that morality can be understood as an outgrowth of individual histories.
If morality is understood as an expression of individual subjectivity, a manifestation of biography, does it retain any import above matters of taste and preference?
To regard morality as individually constructed is to disregard the impact of socialization upon the development of morality. Even if we are to conclude that through the confluence of infinite factors each individual is differentially socialized, we must still acknowledge the social construction of experience, the inherently public nature of perception, and the shared symbol system through which experience is sensed, structured, and expressed.
If, as Protagoras wrote, “man is the measure of all things,” how is man to adjudicate conflict within him when the proper course of action appears obscure? Morality functions in part to counsel action, constituting an authoritative guide of supervening values to which one may appeal when an individual’s conscience does not suffice to guide him.
To Midgley, cultural relativism devolves into “moral isolationism” (25), an untenable position.
Evaluating ethical relativism
Ethical relativism embodies a moral humility in its acceptance of diverse, or even divergent, values as it acknowledges the limitations of any ethical system. Its values reside in its promotion of tolerance and respect for cultural or individual self-determination.
The strongest challenge to relativism regards its internal inconsistencies. The relativist states: “all truth is relative.” Is the relative nature of truth to be understood as an absolute truth, or itself a relative truth? If absolute, then by definition there exists an absolute truth. If relative, it permits absolutes. Either way, relativism yields absolutism.
In qualifying all truth as relative, indisputably valid within the context of its origin, relativism seemingly resists argumentation and analysis, refusing to enter into moral debate by relieving us of the burden of explicating reasons or otherwise justifying our views.
The very act of communication is itself predicated upon shared definitions within a common paradigm. Relativism, though, in endorsing the inherent validity of diverse and even conflicting understandings of first principles, engenders an axiomatic isolation that in fact precludes communication through its circularity.
To Midgley, not only does relativism preclude communication, it prevents moral reasoning, giving us no reason to grapple with moral questions. In forbidding the adoption of a critical position, whether one of praise or blame, we lose the valuable information that knowledge of another culture, another way of life, can provide us about our own way of life, the insight we derive through the process of comparison.
The principles of relativity, once so optimistically endorsed by anthropologists, function to undermine our capacity to progress in degrees of truth. Philosophical inquiry does not require a belief that absolute certainty is possible, but it does entail a belief that there exist different degrees and approximations of truth, an ideal which we may approach but never reach. Thus, within relativism there is no moral “progress,” only moral variation and change; there is no social “reform,” only social alteration.
Since, to the relativist, standards of morality themselves change as culture changes, what was right yesterday (such as racial segregation) can be wrong today (in the climate of racial equality). But cultural values change because forces from within or without pose challenges to prevailing systems. The cultural relativist, in equating morality with dominant cultural views, in effect stigmatizes minority views as immoral. These vilified “immoralists” are often later lauded as agents of social change.
And so, as popular opinion changes, does a “just war” become “unjust”? Or does the view of the war as unjust reflect the accumulation of more factual information and thus a more reflective and accurate view? What may appear to be a moral disagreement may actually reflect a factual disagreement that results in different moral conclusions. As views change, as a practice is determined no longer to be just, we cannot say that our views have developed as that implies a greater approximation of truth; the relativist neither regresses nor progresses, only changes. This leaves no room for moral growth and development, the character growth that extends from questioning and searching for truth
Human and international rights
Are there some acts and practices which would be condemned by most people as indisputably immoral? Is there any shared humanity, any common standard, any fundamental human rights that must be defended when violated?
Midgley tells us that if we believe a given proposition to be a moral truth, it is incumbent upon us to apply it to all people. Not doing so is in fact demeaning, denying others the rights we demand for ourselves, implying that they are not worth the same moral consideration that we are worth since “morally as well as physically, there is only one world, and we all have to live in it” (28).
Cultural relativism prohibits humanitarian intervention because such involvement would entail an imposition of culturally-specific morality.
Cultural relativists seemingly regard cultural affiliation and membership as a matter of individual choice, but what the relativist regards as a culture’s ideology may in fact be the ideology expressed through political systems of domination, whose rule the relativist endorses by ascribing to them the power to define reality for those they subordinate. Lest relativism be employed to support tyranny, it must account for social asymmetry and the dynamics of oppression and exploitation by asking, “whose culture”? That of the assailant or that of the victim? Not all people choose to live as they do, as they are forced to, and we must be careful not to impute upon them beliefs and values which they may not hold. The beliefs and values of self-appointed political figures and repressive regimes may not represent the population they lead.
Are liberties conditional, and thus somewhat arbitrary, dependent upon whether one happens to live in a culture that supports freedom rather than a culture of oppression or fascism? Is my right to live as a Jew conditional upon having been born in contemporary America rather than in Nazi Germany?
Do there exist any universal rights? International human rights activists claim that human rights are by definition collective, common to all humanity, necessarily universal in nature if they are to be considered to be rights, not privileges. These rights exist independent of particular nationality, religion, and culture. This concept of common, collective humanity informs the concept of an “international community.”
Out of experiences with World War II, the United Nations formulated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, declaring that by virtue of being human, we each have dignity, worth, and value and are thus entitled to certain fundamental and inalienable rights irrespective of nation, race, religion or culture. This internationally-endorsed conception of fundamental rights is based on a common morality that transcends cultural differences, and informs matters of international relations such as when we are justified in intervening in the dealings of a sovereign state.
Most relativist oppositions to international interventions contest military involvement, but not all interventions need be coercive in nature. International organizations such as Amnesty International whose activities include talking to victims, observing trials, monitoring the media, and publicizing their concerns apply moral, not military pressure.
Whereas moral absolutism has been employed to justify inflicting harm, moral relativism has been employed to justify passivity in the face of harm. Relativism has been used to justify non-interventionist policies even when a state fails to protect its own citizens from harm, or is itself the agent of harm.
It is of great importance that we develop a moral system that minimizes harm. This system is neither absolutism nor relativism, but rather a synthesis of pluralism.
Value pluralism
Some theorists consider many cultural variations to be superficially dissimilar manifestations of common underlying values, certain cross-cultural commonalities representative of evolutionarily-based imperatives without which no group could survive. These values include concern for the common welfare of the group, reciprocity, care for the young, an expectation that under most circumstances the truth ought be told, and a prohibition against stealing and murder under most circumstances. Thus, for example, culturally divergent funereal practices can be understood as different manifestations of what the group considered to display a respect for the dead.
The same value may be manifested in different choices based upon our assessment as to which course of action will best realize these values.
But perhaps it appears overly reductionistic to condense all cultural diversity and dissimilar customs to manifestations of the same values, assuming the unanimous and universal adherence to a set of general principles, for this universalist moral condensation is hard pressed to account for how, if equality is a general principle, slavery exists in some cultures.
Value Pluralism is not itself a set of values, but rather a metaethical theory that recognizes the worth, significance, and usefulness of multiple, equally valid values out of which we may construct a rational (though perhaps not objective) framework within which these values may be ordered when we are weighing alternatives. We may value justice, honesty, and the sanctity of life. Although the particular value to be maximized may vary by circumstance, the values themselves persist. A moral truth need not be an objective truth, but it must be a guide to conduct. We may thus respect many different ideas while condemning the violation of basic human rights
[1] Mary Midgley, “Trying Out One’s New Sword,” Ethics: Theory and Contemporary Issues, Barbara MacKinnon, ed. Fifth Edition (Belmont; Thomson, 2007) 25-28.
To establish certain first principles of this argument and to provide a context for its claims, it is necessary first to understand the meaning and purpose of moral discourse itself. I will then introduce the positions of objectivism and relativism through their implicit ontologies and epistemologies as a framework for evaluating their construction. A consideration of descriptive relativism will explore its anthropological foundation as a base for its normative claims. These claims will then be evaluated within the context of human and international rights.
Moral discourse
To enter into moral discourse, we need not endorse supervening values or an objective standard by which all moral propositions can be evaluated, but we must assume that morality is not separate from and resistant to the methods of logic, reason, and argumentation.We must assume that the perspectives of objective and relative morality do not represent two incommensurable paradigms, with different definitions of terms and no premises in common, thus resisting any comparison or evaluation.
In this comparison and evaluation, we will accept certain metaethical constructions of the nature and function of ethics and morality. Let us understand ethics to mean the normative principles embodying the values and standards that we may employ as guides to conduct, behavioral regulation, the making of decisions, and the discernment of right and wrong action. This definition will allow us to differentiate the codes for conduct embodied by morals.
The ontology and epistemology of objectivism and relativism
Ethical judgments are, at their most fundamental level, an outgrowth of implicit ontological assumptions regarding the nature of reality and epistemological assumptions regarding the nature and extent of knowledge. The epistemological truth of a theory, though, does not directly imply its moral and ethical truth.
The ontological assumption of moral absolutism involves a single, true representation of reality that informs absolute moral laws independent of contextual factors, remaining fixed and permitting no exceptions. Truth is thus seen as enduring, constant, and unchanging. Reality exists independent of any interpretation of it. Moral laws are objective, embodying a truth that endures independent of interpretation.
Ontological relativism regards reality as holding no intrinsic properties but rather existing relative to our conception and perception of it. In simplest terms, “relativity” expresses a relationship of dependency such that one element (our knowledge of reality) depends upon another element (the perspective from which reality is viewed). Thus, we do not passively and neutrally apprehend objective truth, but rather actively construct any truth through the perspective paradigms of our culture (cultural relativism) or our individual biographies (individual relativism). All knowledge of reality is thus indirect, mediated through the structures of the mind which are themselves structured by cultural and individual factors. And so reality retains no independent existence and can be known only through our representation of it, known only as it is mediated by various conceptual schemes that structure perception. Thus, we do not see but rather we interpret. As truth is relative, it is thus variable.
This relativist construction of reality carries implications regarding what it is possible to know or hold as true. Epistemological relativism considers no truth to be objective and absolute. Rather, the truth value of any given proposition can only be evaluated through its own terms and definitions. Truth is context-dependent, with no particular context holding a privileged position. This is not equivalent to the skeptic’s doubt of the existence of truth. Truth exists, but only in relation to other truths such as that of one’s vantage point. The external world indeed exists, but can be known only as it appears.
To the relativist, all evaluations, even moral ones, are inextricably bound to and dependent upon the perspective of the evaluator’s frame of reference (whether we use culture or individual consciousness) such that statements of truth value must be qualified: something is true not in itself, but rather true within a particular framework, within whatever conceptual scheme that is employed in the classification of reality.
Objectivism
The objectivist position regards values as existing independent of the human mind. There exist certain moral facts which can be known and evaluated through faculties of human reasoning. Views regarding the source and nature of these fixed and stable moral facts vary by theory. Various objectivist theories have identified the source of these moral facts in human reasoning, nature itself, or in God. Through discerning the laws of reasoning, nature, or the divine, one may determine proper action in the form of moral propositions, the truth value of which can be objectively evaluated irrespective of person or context.
Thus, within objectivism, there exists an inherent and intrinsic morality or immorality within acts independent of who is acting, the context in which the act occurs, and the consequences of those actions. There exists a morality sovereign, autonomous, unfettered by, and detached from human opinion and estimation by which we can judge our actions. This morality, as objectively true, transcends any cultural or individual bias.
Ethical relativism
Ethical relativism is the study of moral variations over time and across conditions, viewing morality as contextually dependent rather than universal in nature, assessing ethical propositions by cultural or individual standards. Moral truth is an outgrowth of cultural and individual perspectives, true within the context within which it originates, in connection to and constructed by the conventions of a culture (cultural relativism) or the perspective of an individual (individual relativism). Ethical conduct is not simply true or false, reflective of objective moral facts akin to scientific facts, but is instead relative to individual or culture.
Problems in defining culture
If we are to claim that morality is dependent upon cultural context, it would serve us to understand what constitutes a culture. We cannot simply describe culture as a worldview, since cultural relativists, in saying that culture shapes our worldview, would then say nothing more than that our worldview shapes our worldview.
Culture is a means of conceptualizing the patterned activity of individuals living in groups as they symbolically interact through sets of beliefs and behavioral norms that are expressed through rituals, social structures, manners, dress, art, language, religion, politics and morality. Embedded within culture, expressed both explicitly and implicitly, we find belief systems regarding the nature of reality, what constitutes right and wrong conduct, and which values are to be maximized.
Defining “culture,” though, becomes increasingly problematic when we attend to how a single individual may identify with many groups according to differences of race, ethnicity, class, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion, political affiliation, and the other differences that contribute to ideological heterogeneity within any culture. To reduce our understanding of culture to any one of these factors is to fragment identity. With increasing diversity, cultural designations blur.
Mary Midgley describes blurring cultural designations as she challenges the concept of culture as a homogeneous, monolithic entity void of diversity among the individuals that comprise it. She depicts “American culture” as one comprised of many immigrant influences and demands that we attribute to other cultures the same diversity which we attribute to ourselves.[1]
Relativism’s roots in anthropology
Cultural relativism arose as a theoretical reaction to the destructive legacy of cultural imperialism. It was conceived of as an antidote to ethnocentrism, the judging of a group against one’s own standards, and represented an effort to transcend the limits that cultural paradigms impose upon perception. The methodological application of this perspective is the ethnography in which the observer immerses himself in another culture for an extended time, essentially replicating the process of acculturation. Ethnographies have created vivid portraits detailing dramatic cultural variation and diversity. When confronted with such differences, one might be inclined to call into question the existence of any universal (objective) standards common to all human culture. It is necessary to note, though, that anthropology asks different questions than does philosophy.
Descriptive cultural relativism
Descriptive relativism is perhaps a truism. Even the objectivist does not contend that cultures and individuals do not disagree as to what is morally right. But moral philosophy, as the systematic study and rational justification of morality, must move beyond the level of description to reveal underlying principles.
Moving from the descriptive to the normative
From this descriptive account of moral variation, anthropologists and some philosophers draw normative and evaluative conclusions that are not self-evidently true. We cannot automatically move from describing the existence of cultural difference to concluding that we cannot disagree. Although when evaluated through its own cultural context and framework, each system can be understood as functional and cultrally valid, it need not necessarily be morally valid.
Normative cultural relativism
The mere fact that we disagree as to what is right does not prove that there exists no right course of action. The belief that we cannot transcend our own cultural or personal perspective does not prove that there exists no transcendent, objective means of evaluation. That truth may be difficult to apprehend does not prove that truth does not exist. Truth may exist even if it remains inaccessible to human consciousness. Thus, descriptive relativity does not necessitate normative relativity. Even if we are inclined to endorse the descriptive truth expressed by relativist positions, we need not accept its normative truth, its consequences.
Normative cultural relativism involves evaluative claims that the validity of morality is relative to (dependent upon) the culturally-bound framework through which it was apprehended. Since all truth is necessarily apprehended through a framework, there exists no unmediated access to truth.
The claims of cultural relativism extend beyond the description of extant cultural differences, and into the normative contention that, when understood within its own context, any cultural practice is not only understandable but justifiable. Ethical relativism involves the normative contention that such disagreement is all that exists. Morality is not anchored in, reflective of, or existing in reference to any objective and thus universal standards. Moral propositions are expressions not of absolute truth, but rather of cultural or individual attitudes which cannot be separated from the circumstance of their origin. Morality, as culturally-defined, is thus culturally bound.
Different cultures have different moral standards, none of which is any better than the other, or any more true since there exists no objective morality against which it can be compared or otherwise evaluated. That which is good is in essence that which is approved of by the majority of people in one’s culture, the ideology of the dominant group; something is true when enough people believe it to be so. Thus, the truth and validity of any ethical proposition carries no independent truth value, only truth within a particular framework (epistemic claims)
Moving from cultural relativism to individual relativism
In accounting for ideological diversity and the many manners of affiliation, one might argue that whatsoever an individual preference may be, one can find a culture that condones associated practices and beliefs. A pedophile, for instance, may find moral support for his views in the culture of NAMBLA.
In considering the many manners of affiliation and dimensions of identity, a “culture” fragments in endless divisions and subdivisions until we are reduced to individual biography. Cultural relativism thus becomes individual relativism.
Individual relativism
Cultural relativism thus becomes individual relativism as each individual belongs to many subcultures and integrates the normative values of each to construct a personal morality. Morality then becomes a manifestation and expression of the confluence of factors that combine to constitute an individual identity and consciousness, with each individual constructing an idiosyncratic interpretation of reality such that morality can be understood as an outgrowth of individual histories.
If morality is understood as an expression of individual subjectivity, a manifestation of biography, does it retain any import above matters of taste and preference?
To regard morality as individually constructed is to disregard the impact of socialization upon the development of morality. Even if we are to conclude that through the confluence of infinite factors each individual is differentially socialized, we must still acknowledge the social construction of experience, the inherently public nature of perception, and the shared symbol system through which experience is sensed, structured, and expressed.
If, as Protagoras wrote, “man is the measure of all things,” how is man to adjudicate conflict within him when the proper course of action appears obscure? Morality functions in part to counsel action, constituting an authoritative guide of supervening values to which one may appeal when an individual’s conscience does not suffice to guide him.
To Midgley, cultural relativism devolves into “moral isolationism” (25), an untenable position.
Evaluating ethical relativism
Ethical relativism embodies a moral humility in its acceptance of diverse, or even divergent, values as it acknowledges the limitations of any ethical system. Its values reside in its promotion of tolerance and respect for cultural or individual self-determination.
The strongest challenge to relativism regards its internal inconsistencies. The relativist states: “all truth is relative.” Is the relative nature of truth to be understood as an absolute truth, or itself a relative truth? If absolute, then by definition there exists an absolute truth. If relative, it permits absolutes. Either way, relativism yields absolutism.
In qualifying all truth as relative, indisputably valid within the context of its origin, relativism seemingly resists argumentation and analysis, refusing to enter into moral debate by relieving us of the burden of explicating reasons or otherwise justifying our views.
The very act of communication is itself predicated upon shared definitions within a common paradigm. Relativism, though, in endorsing the inherent validity of diverse and even conflicting understandings of first principles, engenders an axiomatic isolation that in fact precludes communication through its circularity.
To Midgley, not only does relativism preclude communication, it prevents moral reasoning, giving us no reason to grapple with moral questions. In forbidding the adoption of a critical position, whether one of praise or blame, we lose the valuable information that knowledge of another culture, another way of life, can provide us about our own way of life, the insight we derive through the process of comparison.
The principles of relativity, once so optimistically endorsed by anthropologists, function to undermine our capacity to progress in degrees of truth. Philosophical inquiry does not require a belief that absolute certainty is possible, but it does entail a belief that there exist different degrees and approximations of truth, an ideal which we may approach but never reach. Thus, within relativism there is no moral “progress,” only moral variation and change; there is no social “reform,” only social alteration.
Since, to the relativist, standards of morality themselves change as culture changes, what was right yesterday (such as racial segregation) can be wrong today (in the climate of racial equality). But cultural values change because forces from within or without pose challenges to prevailing systems. The cultural relativist, in equating morality with dominant cultural views, in effect stigmatizes minority views as immoral. These vilified “immoralists” are often later lauded as agents of social change.
And so, as popular opinion changes, does a “just war” become “unjust”? Or does the view of the war as unjust reflect the accumulation of more factual information and thus a more reflective and accurate view? What may appear to be a moral disagreement may actually reflect a factual disagreement that results in different moral conclusions. As views change, as a practice is determined no longer to be just, we cannot say that our views have developed as that implies a greater approximation of truth; the relativist neither regresses nor progresses, only changes. This leaves no room for moral growth and development, the character growth that extends from questioning and searching for truth
Human and international rights
Are there some acts and practices which would be condemned by most people as indisputably immoral? Is there any shared humanity, any common standard, any fundamental human rights that must be defended when violated?
Midgley tells us that if we believe a given proposition to be a moral truth, it is incumbent upon us to apply it to all people. Not doing so is in fact demeaning, denying others the rights we demand for ourselves, implying that they are not worth the same moral consideration that we are worth since “morally as well as physically, there is only one world, and we all have to live in it” (28).
Cultural relativism prohibits humanitarian intervention because such involvement would entail an imposition of culturally-specific morality.
Cultural relativists seemingly regard cultural affiliation and membership as a matter of individual choice, but what the relativist regards as a culture’s ideology may in fact be the ideology expressed through political systems of domination, whose rule the relativist endorses by ascribing to them the power to define reality for those they subordinate. Lest relativism be employed to support tyranny, it must account for social asymmetry and the dynamics of oppression and exploitation by asking, “whose culture”? That of the assailant or that of the victim? Not all people choose to live as they do, as they are forced to, and we must be careful not to impute upon them beliefs and values which they may not hold. The beliefs and values of self-appointed political figures and repressive regimes may not represent the population they lead.
Are liberties conditional, and thus somewhat arbitrary, dependent upon whether one happens to live in a culture that supports freedom rather than a culture of oppression or fascism? Is my right to live as a Jew conditional upon having been born in contemporary America rather than in Nazi Germany?
Do there exist any universal rights? International human rights activists claim that human rights are by definition collective, common to all humanity, necessarily universal in nature if they are to be considered to be rights, not privileges. These rights exist independent of particular nationality, religion, and culture. This concept of common, collective humanity informs the concept of an “international community.”
Out of experiences with World War II, the United Nations formulated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, declaring that by virtue of being human, we each have dignity, worth, and value and are thus entitled to certain fundamental and inalienable rights irrespective of nation, race, religion or culture. This internationally-endorsed conception of fundamental rights is based on a common morality that transcends cultural differences, and informs matters of international relations such as when we are justified in intervening in the dealings of a sovereign state.
Most relativist oppositions to international interventions contest military involvement, but not all interventions need be coercive in nature. International organizations such as Amnesty International whose activities include talking to victims, observing trials, monitoring the media, and publicizing their concerns apply moral, not military pressure.
Whereas moral absolutism has been employed to justify inflicting harm, moral relativism has been employed to justify passivity in the face of harm. Relativism has been used to justify non-interventionist policies even when a state fails to protect its own citizens from harm, or is itself the agent of harm.
It is of great importance that we develop a moral system that minimizes harm. This system is neither absolutism nor relativism, but rather a synthesis of pluralism.
Value pluralism
Some theorists consider many cultural variations to be superficially dissimilar manifestations of common underlying values, certain cross-cultural commonalities representative of evolutionarily-based imperatives without which no group could survive. These values include concern for the common welfare of the group, reciprocity, care for the young, an expectation that under most circumstances the truth ought be told, and a prohibition against stealing and murder under most circumstances. Thus, for example, culturally divergent funereal practices can be understood as different manifestations of what the group considered to display a respect for the dead.
The same value may be manifested in different choices based upon our assessment as to which course of action will best realize these values.
But perhaps it appears overly reductionistic to condense all cultural diversity and dissimilar customs to manifestations of the same values, assuming the unanimous and universal adherence to a set of general principles, for this universalist moral condensation is hard pressed to account for how, if equality is a general principle, slavery exists in some cultures.
Value Pluralism is not itself a set of values, but rather a metaethical theory that recognizes the worth, significance, and usefulness of multiple, equally valid values out of which we may construct a rational (though perhaps not objective) framework within which these values may be ordered when we are weighing alternatives. We may value justice, honesty, and the sanctity of life. Although the particular value to be maximized may vary by circumstance, the values themselves persist. A moral truth need not be an objective truth, but it must be a guide to conduct. We may thus respect many different ideas while condemning the violation of basic human rights
[1] Mary Midgley, “Trying Out One’s New Sword,” Ethics: Theory and Contemporary Issues, Barbara MacKinnon, ed. Fifth Edition (Belmont; Thomson, 2007) 25-28.
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