Intercultural Intelligence

Elisabeth Plum characterises Intercultural Intelligence  and states for a successful intercultural communication one should:

• Understand the situation, realising that there are cultural differences that are influencing the situation
• Stand back and analyse how to react to the situcation drawing knowledge from general knowledge about culture meetings and intercultural communication.( but often in reality situation demands immediate action and the analysis comes afterwards) and specific knowledge about the present cultures.

Thomas Hylland Eriksen talks about ethnocentric perspective thereby someone judge another culture by taking as starting point his/her own culture. Everything discovered during this process will be according to one's own cultural standard.
This perspective is totally understandable because no one can be tabula rasa when looking at another culture but i think if u analyse another culture totally through this method will it not imply that  we will tend to say automatically what is good and bad according to our own set of beliefs?It can also implies that anybody from my particular culture would be able to have the same findingds if all the information analysed will be according to the culture's norm and beliefs?Is it not easier to fall into the inferior and superior trap?

Cultural Relativist Perspective states that all cultures have the same worth and recognises all cultures as equally  good. We should use our own horizon of understanding and be aware of our prejudices and try to understand other cultures before making our own opinions and it is important to meet people as individuals.

Cultural Relativism is an interesting way of looking at culture i agree with the concept that every culture is worth . For instance if a cultural practices causes harm or can endanger people lives than i dont think it is a good thing. Such as genital circumcition is considered as barbaric but if we look at wars for instance and soldiers sent to Irak or Afghanistan is it not as barbaric??!!But at the same time This perspective preconises trying to understand but understanding does not mean agreeing. One can respect an culture or cultural practice and disagree.