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Is it possible for an individual to be without ethnocentrism?
Ethnocentrism involves using the ideas and beliefs of one particular culture to judge other cultures.
It is so similar to pride in the sense that we loath it in other people/cultures; but we are hardly conscious of it in our own culture.
Our beliefs and worldview is as a result of years of living in our community and seeing things done in a particular way; years of familiarity with the material culture, social structure, religion, history, philosophy and ideals.
We usually percieve our culture as the logical, reasonable and normal way to live; and we often wonder "How anyone could ever live like THAT?!"
It is usually the chief enemy of marriages. The husband has grown up in a different home environment, under different circumstances, and with a different experience. He would wonder why the wife is behaving in a certain manner that is contrary to his ways; and so does the wife.
Is ethnocentrism inevitable?
kev twilliger
Physical attraction and the complex decision tree choices we make socially are inherently self-biased or alternately altruistic with an undercurrent of self benefit.
Karl Meyer
Phil Atwood II
Anna Gower
Anna Gower
A phrase for this philosophy was cultural anthropology and became very prominant in the 1990's out of a university in Hawaii, native american studies and maori studies in New Zealand.
For example in NZ maori culture in the past was judged from a european or UK cultural perspective it was now being studied with the cultural values of the culture which spurned it, maori culture. Then this viewpoint is presented to other people from other cultures as an academic study.
I'm trying to remember the first thesis my mother Mina Mckenzie was involved with these discussions. It is her analogy the 5 directions. These anthropologists were looking for a way to view and look after the treasures in there museums. I believe one of the upshots of this process was the asking of the maori preserved heads held in foreign museums to be returned.
I hope this makes sense.
chen xin
your example makes me think a lot .it can't help leting me think 'is an american's english level better than a noenglish-speaking person.i don't thnk so .
i think it is a question of tolerance.when we think at a hight of world .your people are my people .your culture is mine.then we won't have a differernce.now with the developement of the tecnology.people from differert countries can talk freely exchange our ideas.then we are getting much in commom we are towards the same.
if this is the year a thousands year ago.we don't learn about each other .when we koncked.what will we do i think we will metch each other .because we just have fearness.
so communication can make us learn more about each other.then we can feel much safer!
walter crockett
Christopher Melvin
When the power goes out, all bets are off and we will revert to the local nature of things. Technology makes the virtual, possible. In the past, such a notion would be virtually impossible because the technology did not exist.
chen xin
only can u answer this can we find out the problem.take china as example .i am a chinese,i live in china what i can all telated to china .so i have fellings with china here i can play with my friends i can chat with my relatives.day by day i am fallng love with china .then i have the ethnocentrism.suppose i was born in japan .and from the early time i am related to tokyo.to islands.then i think i will fall in love with japanese!
so remembe existence is the original of things .when we are one year old we know nothing .when we are twenty we know almost everything.that is it
Nicholas Lukowiak 50+
Great thoughts here*
Eric Schmidt
1. Can you not judge?
2. What do I call 'familiar'?
3. How am I taught to react to the 'unfamiliar'?
Can we not judge? To a certain degree. We judge others in our thoughts - even others within our culture.
Do I know what is familiar to me? We develop this based on what is made available to us.
What is my reaction to the 'unfamiliar'? This is developed by how it is presented when it is made available to us.
If I eat only 10 oranges and 1 apple every day, this will be my familiar ideal. If a friend ate 9 oranges and 2 apples everyday, I can relate to him easily. If I saw someone eat 9 apples and 1 orange, I would say in my mind 'ah, interesting. I don't think I could live that way, but I see that he does.' If a teacher (who eats only oranges) said, "beware of those who eat vegetables" I would be confused. "What's a vegetable?"
And then my friend who ate 9 oranges said, "I have someone wonderful I want you to meet! He eats Apples, but also cucumbers!" "What's a cucumber?" All three of us meet and we all talk of apples. I am given a cucumber, sliced. I try it and because of the generosity I am experiencing, I become happy with this new experience and I agree with my friend. "Yes, this is a wonderful person. This is an odd yet wonderful ... well, what is a cucumber?" "It is a vegetable." Now, I have information where I need to make a 'grown-up' decision about. A teacher who ate only oranges, not even apples said to avoid vegetable people. That teacher did not show me love for a pure orange diet. I decide the teacher is wrong. "A pure orange thinking is wrong." I thank my friends and leave. Before I arrive home, I am attacked by a man and killed. The last thing I hear is "Long Live Cucumbers."
What we have is the first question being the most important. Can we not judge? Should we judge? We live on a planet we want to categorize efficiently, but the distance from me to you might just be an odd yet wonderful meal.
Gross Ryder
This is possible when one starts by undergoing a critical examination of one's cherished values - the source of these values - whether internal or socially imposed and their contrast to value systems of different kinds of people or cultures.
"Mass culture is a constant assault upon this autonomy. This assault causes despair of the Kierkegaardian kind - and this despair is not a mood but a structure that belongs to a seized garrison - not an accidental feature but part of it, fundamental to it. It is the goal of mass culture to bury any rebellious movements and to take that part of the culture where we have begun to reflect and understand and to reverse this and make it unconscious. The parts of our culture that we can understand and reflect on are just those tiny garrisons - surrounded by the mass of the culture."..Rick Roderick ( Philosophy and Human Values)
Yvette Patacsil
2. Overriding concern with race. I think both of these things are not good for human beings. You can have an overriding concern with race I suppose without arrogance, but not with the belief that your group is superior. I just wish we could finally overlook the color of skin and the cultures we come from; we'd see that people are pretty much the same.
Yvette Patacsil
People grow up absorbing the behaviors and values of whatever culture they are in and consider anything outside to be "different", while at the same time feeling different and apart themselves... which I think is part of the beginning of ethnocentrism. (Please note that even within cultures social stratification occurs often which seems, to say this behavior begins within us early and exists even in our own families) Until humans can see themselves as being one with all things and each other, we will continue to have this problem.
Feyisayo Anjorin 50+
Madhav Bhamidipati
Madison Fitzmaurice
Ken brown 30+
Madison Fitzmaurice
Ken brown 30+
Helen Hupe 30+
Feyisayo Anjorin 50+
Helen Hupe 30+
l aresu
Obey No1kinobe 50+
I guess it is difficult to assess other values, traditions, separate from your own values. Perhaps you can be open and empathic but I'm not sure we need to accept things as reasonable that clash with our core values.
I wouldnt say our culture is particularly logical. Some aspects are positive and some negative. Same as other cultures, more or less on different dimensions.
Raquel Sommer
Also, I would like to add that I do not believe that making comparisons is always wrong. For example, if I apply for any job, I expect and agree to be compared to others. Whether or not I am chosen does not make me more or less human than another. Bad and good humans, ethnocentric ones or more universal ones, cruel or kind, ugly or pretty, we are all equally human, and all of our judgments of each other are partial and temporary...
I get the feeling I am going in a circle. My conclusion now is that we are all ethnocentric, inevitably, and that being conscious of this is a key to becoming free of it.... with this thought I sign off and go back to my life.
Dan Geurin 10+
Even as an educated adult, I have to ask myself to take a step back and see my own motives, pre-conceived notions, and insecurities when looking at a situation.
The propaganda in the news and advertising often taps into our own ethnocentric and egocentric tendencies to pull at us to lean in a direction.
We are not a blank slate. This being said, many ideas of other have been carved deep into our minds and remain a part of us forever.
Anna Ruiz
Yes, *you and I* know why, don't we?
Why can't we *grow up* to evolve as a species? And what might that look like in the real world? One of the reasons why is that we are still programmed by our roots....including what it means to be a husband and a wife.
bart hsi
JP Piert
Although some villages do have a wife in a marriage as the leader,
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and others have the man place his foot on the bride to be, at a wedding ceremnoy (seen video only) - - -
ethnocentrism (ethcm) will exist unless another culture is 100% accepted.
If in as a redeeming view of more efficient or a more desirable cultural way is accepted by all but one person (there) - then ethcm exists.
Even if that other cultural influence is judged by the first as less desirable but veered to by just one in the first culture, leaving all - culturally , then again ethcm (people-centering-their - ism) exists as well.
--- I have been:
Traveling every state this side of the MI river, over 40 years and a couple over:
- An only "people" without ethcm (a" people without a country", although citizens within, here, and) herein are found as taught as and do exist in their beliefs such as "spirit will be poured out on all flesh"
And I believe this is about further invloving looking for a day of less and less ethnocentrism comfortably 'disturbing' cultures of say a man marrying while placing his foot on the neck of the new bride, and such throughout a marriage.
JM Monaghan
As to the point of marraige, this is what makes a good sitcom. If husband wife and familiy are all the same, they would be boring!! The trick is acceptance and understanding. Extreme ethnocentrism to the point of prejudice and racism is not inevitable in all situations.
Just so you know, many of my students have responded to this question. They are 10th graders from Pennsylvania learning about European History and grasping the ideals of what culture is. Thanks for the opportunity to be involved in this discussion.
Miguel PEZ
Kunuthur Srinivasa Reddy
george lockwood 20+
wendy breunig
However, this is an area in which it pays to be conscious of that judgement, and to consciously suspend it.
Jake Wolfe
There is exactly no reason or right to judge other cultues. They are all incomparable and radical in they're own ways. Everyone is made in an image that reflects a higher "being." Who are we to make a negative comment towards others? Either we are ignorant or have a good amount of jealousy towards others cultures, ideas and beliefs. In the end ethnocentrism leans towards the inevitable side, but its our decision to make the right choice and build our world up instead of tearing it down by pointing out flaws.
John Moonstroller 20+
What do you think?
John.
Jake Wolfe
John Moonstroller 20+