Ethnocentrism

I enjoyed reading your posts about ethnocentrism.  As many of you pointed out, it is extremely difficult to put aside our ethnocentric attitudes in order to truly understand another culture.  Horace Miner's article, originally published in 1956, on the Nacirema was meant as a satirical look at anthropological accounts.  However, it is used today to help us understand issues of ethnocentrism and cultural relativism by asking ourselves how others might see us.


Most people don't think about it, but we all experience cultural differences on a regular basis. Most of us are part of numerous cultural subgroups and we adapt our behavior as we move between those groups. School, work, family, friends - each of these environments comes with its own culture. Yet, usually, we move seamlessly between them and that is because all of these environments are familiar to us because we have grown up with them. By the time we start working, we are familiar with working because of what we have learned from our family, from television, and other sources. We know something about being "professional," and therefore, adapt to it pretty quickly, or most of us do.

It's when the culture is so different from our own that we have difficulty. Richard Lee's and Napoleon Chagnon's stories are important for two reasons. First, as some of you pointed out, what is seen as inappropriate behavior in one culture can be seen as appropriate in another. Many of you talked about the authors, and your own, feelings superiority. I would argue that we are taught to feel superior. That is part of our culture. With the !Kung, cooperation is critical for their survival. They depend on each other and therefore cannot afford for individuals to feel superior. In our culture, independence is critical. Because of our economy, we must go where the jobs are. Extended families are difficult to maintain because of the expense and the difficulty in moving a large family across the country for a new job. We need to be independent to take advantage of economic opportunities. We start teaching our children at a young age to be independent, to prepare them to move out of their parents home when they reach adulthood. We also teach children that it is good to be the best, to stand out from the crowd. Think about how we give awards for just about everything. Kids get trophies and certificates for performing well. Everything is a contest. We are preparing them for the world they will enter as adults. So, those feelings of superiority are an adaptation to a cultural environment. Now, just because it's an adaptation that helps people succeed in our culture, doesn't mean it's always "good." In fact, while we want our children to stand out, we don't want them to be arrogant, aggressive, demanding, or violent. That's the other end of the spectrum that Chagnon encountered with the Yanomamo. Again, their behavior was an adaptation to an environment characterized by chronic warfare. Our culture is a tricky cultural balancing act between these two "extremes." We try to balance our independence and feelings of superiority - not always very well - with cooperation and feelings of equality. This is an ongoing tension in our culture. I have studied schools for 20 years and have found the attempts at cooperative learning very interesting. On the one hand, we want to teach our children to work well with others, and on the other hand we reward them for individual achievements. And, particularly with boys, we want them to be physical, (athletes) aggressive, and go-getters. This is the reason that teachers struggle with developing successful cooperative learning activities. We just don't do cooperation very well. This is a good example of "ideal" culture vs "real" culture. Anthropologists are interested not only in what people do, but what people think they should do. So, we may think we should be cooperative and equal, yet in reality, it doesn't really work for us, most of time.  We can pull it out when we need it like the cooperation we are seeing now among those affected by the hurricane and subsequent flooding.  The point I am trying to make here is that when thinking about your own culture, it is important to think about what we think we should do (be cooperative and treat others as equals) and what we actually do (act independently and treat others not as equals). They are not always the same thing. And when there is a difference between the two, it doesn't mean that we are "bad" and we should change our behavior. It means that there are two competing ideals, and maybe the tension is necessary.


Second, Lee's story in particular demonstrates how difficult it is to truly understand another culture, even for anthropologists. It is very difficult to get out of our own cultural mindset. It is such a huge part of who we are and we think of our beliefs and behaviors, not as our culture, but as the "right" way of living. If we didn't think it was "right" we wouldn't adhere to our cultural norms. My goal for this course is to help students think of culture as just that, culture, and to focus not so much on "right" and "wrong" behavior. When looking at a cultural groups behavior that is different than your own, try to understand that behavior before judging it.

Studying anthropology can help us try to understand why cultural differences exist and what causes those differences. Hopefully, once we understand some of the basics of culture and cultural diversity, when we encounter cultural difference we may not know exactly why a people do what they do, but we know what questions to ask to learn why. This is particularly important now as the world has become a much smaller place due to technology, communications, emigration, and ease of travel. So, before saying "ooh, that's strange" or "I couldn't live like that," stop and ask your self why that group might be behaving in a way that is different than your own behavior. A number you explained how you were able to do just that in developing a better understanding of the Middle East and Islam.


Good work!