By majoring in Business Communication and minoring in psychology, I can say that the appliance of Cultural relativism is seen a lot in both career fields, because these fields involve a lot of interaction with people that vary from different cultures, especially in a place like New York City. I am aware that some of the people I will come across, will not be from the same place I am from, or believe the same things I morally believe in, but this can’t become the devilment of separating people from getting to work together just because they believe in different cultural aspects. The moral standards sometimes can be hard to create a connection with different kinds of people, with this being sometimes the case it is important to keep in mind that it’s best to be culture sensitive. In not doing so problems and certain situations can come across.
One of the biggest disadvantages to cultural relativism in business communication and psychology that I’ve seen in my work environment as a communication major would be knowing the “right" way of “communicating" with people. It does sound like a broad disadvantage, but it is the main key of this career, for example a firefighter uses tools for his career, an architect uses numbers and diagrams, business com. and psychology majors must interact with people, we don’t focus on technology or equipment for our field but simply the interaction with others. Business Com. majors are mainly focused to get involved by networking with people all day. Someone from the same neighborhood as you, or someone your meeting across the globe. This is where Cultural relativism kicks in, how language barriers a cause of threat at times, or even the simple aspect of the right gesture. To continue with this disadvantage, I bring a simple example of the gesture of saying “Hello", in New York you say “Hello" by shaking someone’s hand, but in other places of the world you are seen “wrong", if you dare have any type of communication gesture with one another. This is where you think to yourself if you want to unknowingly enforce one kind of culturally valued morality of a simple factor like shaking someone’s hand.
Now, although Cultural relativism can have several more disadvantages then just this main one. Business communication and psychology can also introduce one main advantage in cultural relativism which would be that as networking and connecting with people we are able to learn different values and learn how each background is costumed to each culture. The more you learn, the less likely it is for you to do a “wrong" in interaction. Again, this may seem broad but since both careers focus on great interactions with others it is very important and a huge advantage in continuing in this career field. I would like to state that we should learn to respect one another no matter what career we choose. As humans, we are one and although we practice different religions, go by different cultures, different ethnicities, etc we need to keep in mind that culture relativism can belong anywhere.
Want to become a noodle contributor? Email: contributor@noodle.com