Why We Can Judge Cultures: Beyond the Cultural Relativism of the Age By James Reed

Cultural relativism is the doctrine that there are no objective criteria by which to judge cultures; that values and philosophies are dependent upon the cultures that they are found in. That doctrine is the foundation of postmodernism and contemporary sociology. However, it is internally incoherent, and self-undermining, but not in the way that most anti-relativist philosophers attack it.  The fact is, that the cultural relativist Leftoid is assessing other cultures being equal, made naturally from their own position. Nothing else is possible. But that is the paradox, because an assessment of cultures is still being made, which is intellectual imperialism: who are they to make such pronouncements!  

If there is one culture which asserts that there are absolute truths, say Western Christian culture, then according to the relativist, that culture is true relative to its foundations. But, that means that Western Christian culture is absolutely true! Hence relativism collapses!

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/05/is_any_one_culture_superior_to_others.html

“Recently, while apologizing to "indigenous peoples" and denouncing Christians — without the all-important historical context — Pope Francis declared, "Never again can the Christian community allow itself to be infected by the idea that one culture is superior to others[.]" 

This — claiming all cultures are equal — is a dangerous position, not least as it leads to relativism and the abnegation of Truth. 

For most Western people today, the word culture conjures at best superficial differences — "exotic" dress or food.  In reality, however, cultures are nothing less than entire and distinct worldviews with their own unique sets of right and wrongs, often rooted in a religion or philosophy.

Indeed, for some thinkers, such as essayist T.S. Elliot, "culture and religion" are inextricably linked and "different aspects of the same thing." 

Culture may even be described simply as that which makes life worth living. ... [N]o culture can appear or develop except in relation to a religion. ... We can see a religion as the whole way of life of a people, from birth to the grave, from morning to night and even in sleep, and that way of life is also its culture. [From Elliot's Notes Towards the Definition of Culture, 1943, p.100-101, emphasis in original.]

Similarly, for Anglo-French historian Hilaire Belloc,

Cultures spring from religions; ultimately the vital force which maintains any culture is its philosophy, its attitude toward the universe; the decay of a religion involves the decay of the culture corresponding to it — we see that most clearly in the breakdown of Christendom today.

In short, cultures bring much more than, say, the convenience of having Indian cuisine down the street.

The fact is, all values traditionally prized by the modern West — religious freedom, tolerance, humanism, monogamy — did not develop in a vacuum, but rather are inextricably rooted to Christian principles that, over the course of some two thousand years, have had a profound influence on Western epistemology, society and of course culture.

While they are now taken for granted and seen as "universal," there's a reason why these values were born and nourished in Christian — not Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, or Confucian — nations.  Even if one were to accept the widely entrenched narrative that the "Enlightenment" is what led to Western progress, it is alone telling that this enlightenment developed in Christian — as opposed to any of the many non-Christian — nations.”