Examples Of Cultural Relativism And Ethnocentrism

Ethnocentrism is the belief in the superiority of one’s own group. It’s a universal habit that ethnocentric individuals tend to compare and judge other cultural practices to be inferior. Ethnocentrism encourages the solidarity in groups; it creates the feeling of belonging and drives the individuals to build pride in the group. However, ethnocentrism hinders the understanding of the cooperation with other groups. With the sense of superiority, there is little incentive to interact with the inferior groups. While making generalization about the culture and customs of others, ethnocentric individuals aren’t being aware that they tend to make false assumptions regarding the cultural differences. Furthermore, extreme ethnocentrism is likely to

Horace Miner, a American Anthropologist wrote an academic essay titled “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema.” In this article Miner described some of the bizarre rituals and practices of the “Nacirema” which the reader comes to find out that he is talking about North Americans. The way Miner goes into detail about how these people live makes them seem foreign. Thus making the norm for an American lifestyle seem odd because the certain type of lingo Miner uses to make this “tribe” more exotic then the actually are. His point in doing this is to show the reader how obnoxious anthropologist can be when they are explain a different culture. As a western civilization we are guilty of making other cultures seem strange and unrelatable by describing their

Ethnocentrism “are the principle of using one’s own culture as a means or standard by which to evaluate another group or individual, leading to the view that cultures other than one’s own are abnormal or inferior” (Ferris, Jill Stein)(78) . The attitude is that because we believe the same way then our cultures are the same as your friends culture if you go to different churches. The reality is that cultures are all different and worship in different ways. The culture I grew up in is going to a Baptist church, and going to church every Sunday. Then I have a friend of mine that believes in what I believe in, but we worship in different ways he is goes to a non-domination church. He believes we need to stand up, dance, and raise hands to worship, but I believe going to church to singing is my worshiping. The first time I went to my friend’s church I thought it was odd the way they did the service. This is because I had grown up only going to Baptist church services. I still disagree with the way they handle their services compared to what I am used to going to, but I respect it and will still go if I am invited to respect my friend. My understanding of ethnocentrism is that we need to get out of our own comfort zones and experience life and what it has to offer. Learn other cultures, respect them, and you might learn

In the book “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema” by Horace Miner, it describes the people of the Nacirema tribe; a North American group with a culture distinguished by their highly developed market economy as well as the immense amount of importance placed on the very specific ritual activity based around the human body’s appearance and impurities. Their customs and rituals are large part of who they are and when investigated closely this is very apparent as it gives more insight into who the Nacirema are as a whole.

This study examines Horace Miner’s essay “Body Rituals Among the Nacirema. While using the participant observation approach, he gives us a new perspective on the daily behaviors within this group of people. Exploring ethnocentrism and how we view cultures outside of our own.

'Body Ritual among the Nacirema' is an article by Horace Miner. In this article, Miner describes the way a particular tribe behaves. He talks of how the tribe performs strange rituals to very extreme levels. It becomes quite interesting when the reader notes that it is the American society he is talking about. He disguises 'the Nacirema' as American people. He also disguises the bathroom as a cleaning shrine, the medicine chest as the major device in the shrine and the hair on a stick as a toothbrush. Miner employs this style of writing to illustrate that Americans are ethnocentric people. There are several hints in this article which point to the fact that 'the Nacirema' actually refer to the Americans. For example, the word Nacirema when

People who are ethnocentric are judging other on the basis of their own culture, especially for language, behavior, customs, and religion.

Cultural relativism is the theory where there is no objective truth in morality, and moral truths are determined by different cultures. The primary argument used to justify cultural relativism is the cultural differences argument, which claims different cultures have different moral practices and beliefs, therefore, there is no objective truth in morality (Newton). After reading James Rachels The Challenge of Cultural Relativism, I find his criticisms to be persuasive because the argument made for Cultural Relativism is not sound from a logical point of view. You cannot draw a conclusion about what is factual based on what people believe is factual. Rachels also points out that even though cultures do in fact disagree about moral values,

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 the way society separates right from wrong within a culture. What we describe as “good” and “bad” is based off of our cultural beliefs. 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.

Ethnocentrism and cultural relativism are two contrasting terms that are displayed by different people all over the world. Simply put, ethnocentrism is defined as “judging other groups from the perspective of one’s own cultural point of view.” Cultural relativism, on the other hand, is defined as “the view that all beliefs are equally valid and that truth itself is relative, depending on the situation, environment, and individual.” Each of these ideas has found its way into the minds of people worldwide. The difficult part is attempting to understand why an individual portrays one or the other. It is a question that anthropologists have been asking themselves for years.

One must also beware of ethnocentrism, or a belief in the superiority of one 's own culture. Individuals who are ethnocentric frequently demonstrate disregard for other cultures.

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.

If we look at the world today, there are millions of cultures centered everywhere. With this much cultures in the world, everyone is bound to believe that they’re all different. Even though they are different in some aspects, all of them are similar to each other in some way. So if this is the case, do we as human beings have the right to judge these cultures as ethically wrong or just a cultural difference? Cultural Relativism is the belief that we cannot judge the cultural practices of other societies and that we should let them do as they please. But if we cannot judge them, does it make it right when they threaten the lives of others? Through the book Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, we begin to have a deeper insight this idea of

Different societies have different moral codes. Cultural relativism claims that ethics is relative to individuals, groups, cultures and societies. Relativism resists universal moral normal. The moral code of society determines what is right or wrong in that society. There’s no objective standard that can be used to judge one’s society code against another. Its arrogant to judge others cultures. We should always be tolerant of them. Cultural relativism for many people is a response to the complexity of moral issues and the number of different responses various. Groups our cultures have given to moral issues so for many when we look at just how different cultures have responded two different issues the way different cultures. All this diversity that there seems to be a response where we want to say well, maybe there isn 't some sort of absolute right or wrong maybe morality really is just relative to a different group that different people believe different things. In this paper, I will discuss the aspect of my culture from an outside perspective and discuss another culture from an inside perspective. In sociology, the principle is sometimes practiced to avoid cultural bias in research, as well as to avoid judging another culture by the standards of one 's own culture. For this reason, cultural relativism has been considered an attempt to avoid ethnocentrism. Cultural relativism is related to but often distinguished from moral relativism, the view that morality is relative to