Why Do Men Barbecue?: Recipes for Cultural Psychology

By Richard A. Shweder

Book Overview

Why do American children sleep alone instead of with their parents? Why do middle-aged Western women yearn for their youth, while young wives in India look forward to being middle-aged? In these provocative essays, one of the most brilliant advocates of cultural psychology reminds us that cultural differences in mental life lie at the heart of any understanding of the human condition.

Drawing on ethnographic studies of the distinctive modes of psychological functioning in communities around the world, Richard Shweder explores ethnic and cultural differences in ideals of gender, in the life of the emotions, in conceptions of mature adulthood and the stages of life, and in moral judgments about right and wrong.

Shweder, a cultural pluralist, dares readers to broaden their own conceptions of what is good, true, beautiful, and efficient and to take a closer look at specific cultural practices--parent/child cosleeping, arranged marriage, male and female genital modifications--that we may initially find alien or disturbing. He invites us to reject both radical relativism (the view that whatever is, is okay) and imperial visions of universal progressive cultural development (for example, the idea that "the West is Best") and to engage in more deeply informed cultural critique.

The knowable world, Shweder observes, is incomplete if seen from any one point of view, incoherent if seen from all points of view at once, and empty if seen from nowhere in particular. This work strives for the "view from manywheres" in a culturally diverse yet interdependent world.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 067401135X
• ISBN13: 9780674011359
• Release Date: May 2003
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 430 Pages
• Weight: 1.12 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Challenging and important

This is a very powerful and evocative book. His chapter on female genital mutilation alone makes it worth purchasing. For most college educated folks with cultural relativist leanings, this book may be rather vexing... Rick is a prickly fellow and sometimes he relishes in disemboweling relativists and universalists alike. But he provides a wonderful and reasoned voice to serve as the counterpoint in many of classic ethical and moral debates of our time. An excellent book if you are teaching upper level undergraduates.