There are several varieties of cultural relativism in anthropology, of which three
concern us here. The first is the ‘relativity of ethics’ according to which the standards of
right and wrong or good and bad are relative to the cultural background of the person
making the judgement. Second, the ‘relativity of knowledge’ has it that one’s
interpretation of events is relative to one’s cultural background, since the concepts and
theories one uses to understand the way the world works are conditioned by culture.
Third, the term relativist often refers to a person who has the view that each culture is
unique, that no generalisations can be derived from studying different cultures, and that
each culture can only be understood in relation to the historical background of that
culture. This may be called ‘historical relativism’ (Hatch 1983:9–11).
Cultural relativism is a controversial theory and has evoked a series of criticisms and
counter-criticisms, but we shall not concern ourselves with such a debate (see, for
example, Geertz 1984; Hatch 1983). I am only interested in showing that cultural
relativistic thinking permeates Japanese elites’ perceptions of Japanese culture in relation
to other cultures and, in particular, Western civilisation. For this purpose, it will be useful
to know the background against which cultural relativism developed as a perspective on
world cultures in order to show the interesting parallels between anthropologists’
concerns several decades ago and Japanese business elites’ concerns today