Human Communication

Human communication is very important in the interaction between people within the society and in fact, it is the glue that holds the society together. Without communication, all other elements of society such as religion, government, culture, and organization would be non existent. Instead, there would only be chaos as everybody tried to fend for themselves without any concern for others. Communication is therefore very important for all human societies to function effectively and it has even become more important today due to globalization which has forced people to start communicating across cultures as opposed to when people only used to communicate within their own cultures.

Cultural relativism propagates the notion that all faiths, norms, and principles or values are relative to individuals within their own social contexts. This is to say that what is believed to be morally wrong in one society or culture may not be deemed to be so in another. The need to have cultural relativism in the world has come out of a desire to better understand the cultures which are not our own and to treat them as having equal value. This is a direct effect of globalization as cultures which previously functioned apart from one another have now been forced to come together (Johansson, 205). This means that however much people might feel about other cultures, they have to accept them because not to do so would mean losing the benefits that come with the new world order. Coming to accept other people’s cultures as being equal to the one which one practices can be very difficult and many have for various reasons found it hard to internalize the idea or sense of cultural relativism.

It is often very difficult to embrace cultural relativism if one believes that one’s culture is superior to all other cultures and that the practices of others are not in accordance with one’s view of the world. This creates a bias which is very difficult to get rid of due to the fact that these beliefs are a permanent part of what this individual thinks. Furthermore, it is difficult to internalize cultural relativism when one is not in direct contact with the other cultures which would otherwise have helped in doing this. People tend to spend most of their lives in places where their own cultures are dominant and rarely do they travel to places other than these to experience other cultures. Doing so would be of great help in the process of the internalization of cultural relativism because they would be able to experience other cultures.

Many societal forces affect the cultural boundaries of individuals and these vary from society to society. In some societies, cultural boundaries are affected by the religion practiced by individuals in this society. Religions within certain societies have a tendency of creating boundaries especially when it comes to matters dealing with other religions. Some consider those who practice other religions to be unclean and because of this there is very minimal cultural interaction with them. Moreover, cultural boundaries tend to be created due to prejudices displayed by some people against other cultures because of the differences in the practices between their cultures. For example, in some cultures, women play very prominent roles in the society and are quite vocal while in others, women tend to stay in the background, with no visible roles other than towards their families (Winn, 171 – 172). In this case, people from both of these cultures may view each other with great prejudice because they do not understand why each of them does what they do. They do not understand that the terms ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ have very different meanings in different cultures and what is considered right in one is not necessarily right in the other.

Societal forces which drive cultural boundaries are manifested in the daily communication of individuals. Sometimes, these forces manifest themselves consciously and at other times, they appear unconsciously. We tend to display what our own cultures have taught us about other cultures and this is done even in times when we do not intend to display such characteristics. It is normal for people to believe that their culture is far superior to all others and this is made very obvious when we communicate. An good example of this is when former President George Bush labeled those countries suspected of sponsoring terrorism as The Axis of Evil. This did not go well with these countries the majority of which are Muslim states. President Bush most likely did not intend it to sound like he was declaring war on Islam but this is what it sounded like to most Muslims in the Middle East. We always have to be careful in the way we communicate so that the message being conveyed is not received in a negative light.