The novelist Virginia Woolf once said, "on or about December 1910, human character changed." (see Jackson Lears). She was kidding about the specificity of the date but in earnest about the change.

One of the books I often recommend to readers is 2009’s The Wayfinders, which is the published collection of anthropologist Wade Davis’s Massey lectures. In those lectures — which is to say, in that ...

Manipulating cultural differences to divide and exploit people remains unfortunately widespread in our world today. Cultural difference reflects attempts to make sense of varied human experiences and ...

Cultural relativism’s empty notions of justice, rights, and welfare have defeated objective truths brought by realism in political argument. Philosopher Bernard Williams once said that “we all have a ...

Aside from a small assortment of political extremists, religious fanatics, and rabid ideologues, few today are more certain of their position, or less open to the views of others, than those who ...

In the early 1970s, renowned anthropologist Clifford Geertz published his most influential book, The Interpretation of Cultures. The book was widely read throughout the social sciences and humanities, ...

The world’s nations today, both modern and otherwise, are as caught up in religious controversy as they ever were. A century ago Progressives confidently looked forward to a future when disputes about ...

Universal human rights or cultural imperialism? Divide clouds the debate over World Cup hosts “Everyone has their beliefs and cultures. We welcome and respect that. All we ask is that other people do ...

Exploring the disconnect between the experiences of immigrant parents in education and the environment their children will experience Here’s some mail I’ve been meaning to reply to, from a U.S. reader ...

If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories and [for] men who claim to be bearers of an external objective truth, then there is nothing more relativistic than fascist attitudes. —Benito ...