The position that elements of a culture should be viewed and understood on their own terms rather than in terms of some assumed universal standard that holds across cultures is called

The position that elements of a culture should be viewed and understood on their own terms rather than in terms of some assumed universal standard that holds across cultures is called cultural relativism.

Explanation:

Cultural relativism refers to the idea that a people's behaviors, values, beliefs, and practices must be understood within that people's culture, instead of being judged by others according to the standards a different culture. For instance, when missionaries first arrived in Africa with the purpose of "educating" and "civilizing" the natives, they were shocked by those natives' nudity - especially the women's. Those missionaries were clearly not practicing cultural relativism. They were judging those people according to their own European/Christian standards, seeing nudity as a sin. Had they been more open-minded, they would have learned about the natives culture, and understood that it was not a sinful behavior to them.