How best to see outside your own culture, beyond the ideas in vogue?

[Hobbes' Choice]

The method allows us to make claims, yes? I assume you subscribe to it, and you seem to have used it to make claims. According to you, "it does not undermine the truth" and "it shows the truth for what it is." You seem to be ignoring the fact that you sound like every other culture. I think what I mean to ask is: is relativity relative?

The idea of cultural relativism makes no specific claims. Is your brain dead, you sound like everyone else.

That isn't what I asked. Not does it make claims, but does it allow us to make claims. There is a difference.

It allows us to expose claims for what they are, but there is no absolute objective position from which to assert the truth or falsity of beliefs. That does not mean that we have to free of ourselves of belief, as long as we accept that belief is aspiration and NOT factual.

For example Nazi Germany demanded that Jews were inferior. For a short historical period within the Reich, this was an established fact. However relativism would unpack that position rendering that as "ONLY" part of a belief system.
By contrast the US constitution holds that we are all created equal, and this also can be accepted as factual. Relativism would also unpack that and demonstrate that to be nothing more than an belief.
But you can still be a relativist and assert equality as an aspiration, and argue for it, and have reasons to assert it; but neither equality or racial superiority ought to be claimed as factual - just positions to take or reject.

Only cultural relativism is equipped to understand culturally specific arguments. It's pointless to say they are right or wrong in absolute terms, as that would be to completely misunderstand reality. Cultural logic is not factual, it is interested, and naturally biased towards the culture that generates it.

Objectivists, misunderstand relativism. Even some people claimming to be relativists, approaching it as an absolute can fail in this.

[Jaded Sage]

Yeah, I think I was saying that people mistakenly approach it as an absolute. That was my main focus, how to avoid it. Now that that's solved, how about this, and keep in mind, in my opinion, often the excellence of an idea is measured in terms of its radicality. Why not treat the fact that beliefs are not facts as a belief? On second thought, something is still nagging at me. I think what I want to do is get into relativism or relativity itself, in general, not cultural, or moral, etc. How, for instance, do we distinguish between fact and belief? Isn't a fact a universally and absolutely held belief? I realize these two questions are a little simplistic. I had a better point, but I forgot it.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Yeah, I think I was saying that people mistakenly approach it as an absolute. That was my main focus, how to avoid it. Now that that's solved, how about this, and keep in mind, in my opinion, often the excellence of an idea is measured in terms of its radicality. Why not treat the fact that beliefs are not facts as a belief? On second thought, something is still nagging at me. I think what I want to do is get into relativism or relativity itself, in general, not cultural, or moral, etc. How, for instance, do we distinguish between fact and belief? Isn't a fact a universally and absolutely held belief? I realize these two questions are a little simplistic. I had a better point, but I forgot it.

That way lies madness.
So things simply don't regress. You can have an egg inside a chicken, but there is not a egg in an egg.

Isn't a fact a universally and absolutely held belief?

Absolutely not. It is a fact that the earth goes round the sun, but it used to be universally and absolutely held as a belief that the earth was the centre of the universe.
A fact is a "justified true belief", according to some philosophers. Personally I prefer to avoid 'belief' altogether considering a "belief" as a thing taken as true without sufficient support as factual.
I try to seldom declared facts, and when pressed slink off and assert statements and educated opinions where possible, offering to support those opinions with what I have learned to be "true". Facts are so because of their robustness.

[Jaded Sage]

Yeah, I think I was saying that people mistakenly approach it as an absolute. That was my main focus, how to avoid it. Now that that's solved, how about this, and keep in mind, in my opinion, often the excellence of an idea is measured in terms of its radicality. Why not treat the fact that beliefs are not facts as a belief? On second thought, something is still nagging at me. I think what I want to do is get into relativism or relativity itself, in general, not cultural, or moral, etc. How, for instance, do we distinguish between fact and belief? Isn't a fact a universally and absolutely held belief? I realize these two questions are a little simplistic. I had a better point, but I forgot it.

That way lies madness.
So things simply don't regress. You can have an egg inside a chicken, but there is not a egg in an egg.

Isn't a fact a universally and absolutely held belief?

Absolutely not. It is a fact that the earth goes round the sun, but it used to be universally and absolutely held as a belief that the earth was the centre of the universe.
A fact is a "justified true belief", according to some philosophers. Personally I prefer to avoid 'belief' altogether considering a "belief" as a thing taken as true without sufficient support as factual.
I try to seldom declared facts, and when pressed slink off and assert statements and educated opinions where possible, offering to support those opinions with what I have learned to be "true". Facts are so because of their robustness.

Oo! Madness! Let's check it out! We have nothing to fear except discovery. Also, check out the Philosophy of Science forum. Also, a justified true belief is knowledge. A belief is the assertion of a truth value: the statement that any given proposition is true or is false. It doesn't have to be that something is true. It can be that something is untrue. We could sum up your description "with insufficient support" as "unjustified." If I remember correctly, belief is synonymous with opinion.

But it would be more fun to explore relativity.

[duszek]

Statements about truth can only be working hypotheses burdened with a differing degree of doubt.

Guess
Opinion
Belief
Axiom

[duszek]

When I approach a new culture I collect my own empirical data and compare it to the hear-say.

Sometimes the empirical data outweigh the hear-say.
Then it is time to stand up and produce one´s own version of hear-say.

The empirical data that I collect feed the personal gut feeling.

It is only when two or more people are honest and open and trust each other that they compare their respective gut feelings and offer justifications.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Yeah, I think I was saying that people mistakenly approach it as an absolute. That was my main focus, how to avoid it. Now that that's solved, how about this, and keep in mind, in my opinion, often the excellence of an idea is measured in terms of its radicality. Why not treat the fact that beliefs are not facts as a belief? On second thought, something is still nagging at me. I think what I want to do is get into relativism or relativity itself, in general, not cultural, or moral, etc. How, for instance, do we distinguish between fact and belief? Isn't a fact a universally and absolutely held belief? I realize these two questions are a little simplistic. I had a better point, but I forgot it.

That way lies madness.
So things simply don't regress. You can have an egg inside a chicken, but there is not a egg in an egg.

Isn't a fact a universally and absolutely held belief?

Absolutely not. It is a fact that the earth goes round the sun, but it used to be universally and absolutely held as a belief that the earth was the centre of the universe.
A fact is a "justified true belief", according to some philosophers. Personally I prefer to avoid 'belief' altogether considering a "belief" as a thing taken as true without sufficient support as factual.
I try to seldom declared facts, and when pressed slink off and assert statements and educated opinions where possible, offering to support those opinions with what I have learned to be "true". Facts are so because of their robustness.

Oo! Madness! Let's check it out! We have nothing to fear except discovery. Also, check out the Philosophy of Science forum. Also, a justified true belief is knowledge. A belief is the assertion of a truth value: the statement that any given proposition is true or is false. It doesn't have to be that something is true. It can be that something is untrue. We could sum up your description "with insufficient support" as "unjustified." If I remember correctly, belief is synonymous with opinion.

But it would be more fun to explore relativity.

Your perspective is jumping all over the place. Belief to the holder of the belief is not 'opinion', it might be, but it is opinion to others not holding that belief.
The point about (I assume you mean) relativism (not relativity), is to be sufficiently self-critical to know that you see from a POV, and your language is always carefully used enough not to fall into universal use which is so common.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Statements about truth can only be working hypotheses burdened with a differing degree of doubt.

Guess
Opinion
Belief
Axiom

True - ( or is this a guess?)

[duszek]

It could be a guess, it´s entirely up to the speaker.

"True" can be either a guess or an opinion or a belief or an axiom.

Depending on how much doubt the speaker has about his own statement.

"True" is short for "the statement x is true".
Possibly true or probably true or surely true or undoubtedly true.

Statements about a culture are so general and vague that they can only be guesses and opinions.
They should not be beliefs or axioms.
Otherwise fanaticism develops.

[duszek]

I have a vague idea of what the British way of life is like based on the Inspector Barnaby series.

When I deal with a person from the UK I try to behave according to what I have observed in the films with Inspector Barnaby and it seems to work.

[Hobbes' Choice]

I have a vague idea of what the British way of life is like based on the Inspector Barnaby series.

When I deal with a person from the UK I try to behave according to what I have observed in the films with Inspector Barnaby and it seems to work.

I image you mean "Midsommer Murders? "
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118401/

Consider. Inspector Barnaby works in a small under populated rural area centred around a fictitious village called Midsommer. Despite being so small each and every week there seems to be a least one more murder, and/or serious crime.
Given that the murder rate in the Uk is low: 1 person in every 100,000 population, how representative do you think your view is?

[Walker]

Given that the murder rate in the Uk is low: 1 person in every 100,000 population, how representative do you think your view is?

Likely not as small as the odds Ghandi faced in standing up to authority, since he was one who perceived Reality.

Ghandi was a professional.

[duszek]

I generalize only the generalizable.
How to resolve conflicts, how to react to flippancy, what to say to a bar keeper or pub keeper when I enter. Etc.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Given that the murder rate in the Uk is low: 1 person in every 100,000 population, how representative do you think your view is?

Likely not as small as the odds Ghandi faced in standing up to authority, since he was one who perceived Reality.

Ghandi was a professional.

I heard of irrelevance. I've heard of non sequiturs, but this is a new level of oddness. How about "crazy sequitur"

The odds of Ghandi's success was 1 in 1.

[Obvious Leo]

I have a vague idea of what the British way of life is like based on the Inspector Barnaby series.

It's been a while since I was last in the UK but I suspect that your romantic image of the idyllic English village with its beautiful buildings and posh people might not be reflective of the real Britain. What about the east London high-rise estates full of unemployed violent skinheads who wrap themselves in the Union Jack and go "paki-bashing" on Friday nights by way of entertainment. No doubt this is also an inaccurate cliche but to imagine the British as a homogeneous culture of tea-sipping toffs is as naive as imagining a homogeneity in any other culture, including my own. I'm quite familiar with the cultural stereotype which attaches to Australians, and I can't deny that this stereotype contains a kernel of validity, but the stereotype is more like an exaggerated caricature of our culture than a true representation of it. I've no doubt that this phenomenon is probably universal. Are all American families like the Brady Bunch?