Body Ritual Among The Nacirema

We all will one day face the reality of growing older. There are many aspects of this change that will affect us in a large way. According to the Merck Manual of Health and Aging, 1.5% of Americans are 85 or older. This research states that the number of people 100 years or older could rise from 1 out of 5,578 in the year 2000, to 1 out of 472 in the year 2050. It brings out that women have a longer life expectancy than men, among people aged 65 and older in the year 2000, there were 70 men for every 100 women. For people aged 85 and older the figure was 41 men for every 100 women. The site goes on to say that approximately 11% of Americans aged 65 and older are below the poverty line. (The Merck Manual of Health and Aging:

The author here has mentioned “Shrine”, which in fact, is not a temple or any religious place but rather it is a bathroom and the ritual performed in the shrine are the daily activities that we do in the bathroom. The author has focused on the chest or a box that is built in the wall of the shrine. It refers to the cabinet and the charms and the magical potions in the chest are the medicines. The medicine men and the herbalist, by this, the author means the pharmacists who can understand the labels written outside the medicine bottles. The font under the charm box is the sink where we wash our hands and face with the water from the tap. The water temple of the community is the water tank from where the water is distributed in different houses.

From looking at the graph above I can predicted that in the next 26 years the life expectancy is going to increase. The reason for this is because there will be better technology around. People will start to know more about their health, meaning they will know what to do if they become sick. The hospitals will have better equipment which will mean that people will get better quickly. This will also mean that the machines that were used 10-20 years ago would not have been as strong as it will be now and over the next 26 years. There will be more advertisements on TV on how to have a healthy diet which will be helpful to a lot of people.

“Culture is sometimes described as a lens through which we view the world, meaning that one’s culture influences their perceptions and interactions in everyday life” (Davis, 2006). Every culture has different beliefs and customs

In the essay “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema”, anthropologist Horace Miner depicts a group of people known as the “Nacirema”, but is referring to Americans, whose cultural beliefs are deeply rooted in the perspective that the human body is prune to sickness and disfiguration. Consequently, a substantial part of their lives is spent on unusual rituals and customs to improve conditions of the body that are filled with magical components. Moreover, Miner uses the Nacirema’s unusual culture to establish his view that we simply could not judge another culture that it is different from our own, as opposed to another anthropologist Malinowski’s point that we can judge another culture since we are

In “The Challenge of Cultural Relativism”, James Rachels presents six claims that have been made by cultural relativists. One of the six claims that Rachels presents in section 2.2 of the article is that different societies have different moral codes. I believe that Rachels thinks this claim is true. Section 2.1 of the article does a good job at explaining this idea. In this section, Rachels gives several examples of the differences that can be found in moral codes of different people groups throughout time. One of the specific examples he mentions is the different burial rituals of the Greeks and the Callatians. The Greeks perform a ritual that includes burning the dead. The Callatian ritual consists of eating the dead. The Greeks and Callatians, while encountering each other, both stated that the other’s ritual was inhumane. This disagreement, according to Cultural Relativism, is okay and to be expected because the two moral codes come from two drastically different societies. A modern example of this claim is that up until recently in China, small feet were praised and larger feet were frowned upon for women. Radical efforts to prevent women’s feet from growing included foot-binding. This method of prevention caused women to constantly be in pain. Women’s foot size in the United States isn’t emphasized like the way it used to be in China. Therefore, citizens of the United States believe that Chinese foot-binding was a barbaric method, while people in China would think

A tradition is known to be a spread of rituals or beliefs passed from generation to generation that can vary from family to family. Traditions are meant to not lose the culture within oneself but while at it, a tradition can interfere with personal interactions. Not all traditions are worth keeping when one's satisfaction is taken away. For example, in the book “Like Water for Chocolate” by Laura Esquivel, it can be noticed how traditions can go as far to an extent.

The author’s purpose in writing this article was not to show the “Nacirema” as an example of how extreme human behavior can become, but how an outside perspective can affect your perception of an alien culture. If one were to look at the “Nacirema’s” cultural behaviors regarding physical appearance and health without any insight or knowledge of the specific beliefs or values of that culture, they might seem bizarre and even incomprehensible. By showing behaviors and “rituals” performed by this unknown tribe, Miner allowed others to see that the way studies were representing distinctive cultures was narrowminded and defective. Without the proper comprehension of the basis of any society, huge cultural misunderstandings could occur. Of

After reading Horace Miner’s Body Ritual Among the Nacirema I cannot say that I would want to be part of the tribe. A huge reason would be that I could never go from my own Christian faith to the religious practices of the Nacirema. My second reason for not wanting to be part of the tribe is that I could never be subjected to the horrific medical practices and “magical potions” used on every citizen in the tribe.

All throughout history African Americans have been discriminated against and always been at a disadvantage, whether it be in the courtroom, with police officers, or just trying to be a normal American citizen. Recently many minority players are taking a stand against the prejudice injustices that they face on an everyday basis. In response to the injustices they face, using their national fame, the athletes are raising awareness by taking a knee during the National Anthem, in an attempt to peacefully protest. This bold form of protest has only occurred a handful amount of times, because of not only the national criticism that is to follow but the repercussions as well. Many American citizens, veterans and government officials are taking

Cultural relativism is the way society separates right from wrong within a culture. What we describe as “good” and “bad” is based off of our cultural beliefs. Cultural relativism argues that no culture is better than any other and all their beliefs are equally valid. The way that modern society is has made it possible for almost everything to be justified.

Cultural relativism is one of the core concepts of anthropology. Are there any limits to this concept? If so, what are they? Is there a place in anthropology for the idea of universal human rights?

No matter how hard we try, or how much we study, it is pretty much impossible to become an expert on all the world’s cultures. It is possible however, to be enlightened on a few cultures through some effort and understanding. That is just what we did, through interviewing three people who were raised in cultures different from ours. The following are results from what we learned about different cultural dimensions.

The culture of a place is an integral part of its society whether that place is a remote Indian village in Brazil or a highly industrialized city in Western Europe. The culture of Japan fascinates people in the United States because, at first glance, it seems so different. Everything that characterizes the United States--newness, racial heterogeneity, vast territory, informality, and an ethic of individualism-- is absent in Japan. There, one finds an ancient and homogeneous society, an ethic that emphasizes the importance of groups, and a tradition of formal behavior governing every aspect of daily living, from drinking tea to saying hello. On the surface at least, U.S. and Japanese

The general study of humans and their ways of life is called Anthropology. Anthropology have four classic subdivisions: Cultural (or socio-cultural) Anthropology, Archaeology, Linguistics Anthropology and Biological (or physical) Anthropology. He or she who typically had some training in each of these four classic subdivisions in fact, have connected them to one another within a large field anthropology study. Moreover, he or she can use the theoretical knowledge and findings of anthropology to solve real-world problems surrounding human beings or human customs. Anthropologist has an idea that the beliefs and practices of a culture should be understood within the context that particular culture’s background, history and current events surrounding it called Cultural relativism. The main objective of this final research paper is examining my own culture from etic (i.e. outsider’s) perspective and another culture from emic (i.e. insider’s) perspective to clearly show my personal understanding of cultural relativism. Specifically, I will examine the rites of passage in African American girls/women lived reality and effects of the intersectional race, class and gender oppression in America coupled with discussing Japanese different rituals comparison to American outlook into death and the afterlife. All in all, rites of passage are done differently and makes a difference in its own society.