Cultural relativism asserts that every culture has its own set of customs and beliefs, and that culture must be understood by the standards and values of the people within that culture. Anthropologists think that things that might seem cruel or irrational in our own culture must be seen through the lens of cultural relativity, and that all cultures have practices or beliefs that can be seen by others as repugnant or incomprehensible.
After reading the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights, explain whether you think that cultural relativism can coexist with the idea of universal human rights. Is it possible for anthropologists to promote human rights without imposing, for example, their own Western values and ideas of human rights?