Ethnocentrism
Culture shock can be an excellent lesson in relative values and in understanding human
differences. The reason culture shock occurs is that we are not prepared for these differences.
Because of the way we are taught our culture, we are all ethnocentric. This term comes from the
Greek root ethnos, meaning a people or group. Thus, it refers to the fact that our outlook or
world view is centered on our own way of life. Ethnocentrism is the belief that one’s own
patterns of behavior are the best: the most nature, beautiful, right, or important. Therefore, other
people, to the extent that they live differently, live by standards that are inhuman, irrational,
unnatural, or wrong.
Ethnocentrism is the view that one’s own culture is better than all others; it is the way all people
feel about themselves as compared to outsiders. There is no one in our society who is not
ethnocentric to some degree, no matter how liberal ad open-minded he or she might claim to be.
People will always find some aspect of another culture distasteful, be it sexual practices, a way
of treating friends or relatives, or simply a food that they cannot manage to get down with a
smile. This is not something we should be ashamed of, because it is a natural outcome of
growing up in any society. However, as anthropologists who study other cultures, it is
something we should constantly be aware of, so that when we are tempted to make value
judgments about another way of life, we can look at the situation objectively and take our bias
into account.
Ethnocentrism can be seen in many aspects of culture--myths, folktales, proverbs, and even
language. For example, in many languages, especially those of non-Western societies, the word
used to refer to one’s own tribe or ethnic group literally means “mankind” or “human”. This
implies that members of other groups are less than human. For example, the term eskimo, used
to refer to groups that inhabit the arctic and subarctic regions, is an Indian word used by
neighbors of the Eskimos who observed their strange way of life but did not share it. The term
means “eaters of raw flesh,” and as such is an ethnocentric observation about cultural practices
that were normal to one group and repulsive to another. On the other hand, if we look at one
subgroup among the Alaskan natives we find them calling themselves inuit, which means “real
people” (they obviously did not think eating raw flesh was anything out of the ordinary). Here,
then, is a contrast between one’s own group, which is real, and the rest of the world, which not
so “real.” Both terms, eskimo and inuit, are equally ethnocentric--one as an observation about
differences, the other as a self-evaluation. However, inuit is now seen as a more appropriate
term because of its origin.
Another example of ethnocentrism in language can be found in the origin of the English term
barbarian. Originally a Greek word, the term was used to refer to tribes that lived around the
edge of ancient Greek society. The Greeks referred to these people as barbars because they
could not understand their speech. Bar-bar was the Greek word for the sound a dog makes, like
our word bow-wow. The Greeks, in a classic example of ethnocentrism, considered those whose
speech they could not understand to be on the same level as dogs, which also could not be
understood. They did not grant such people the status of human being, much as the word eskimo
gives those people subhuman status. Shifting from language to myths and folktales, we find a good example of ethnocentrism in the
creation myth of the Cherokee Indians. According to this story, the Creator made three clay
images of a man and baked them in an oven. In his haste to admire his handwork, he took the
first image out of the oven before it was fully baked and found that it was too pale. He waited a
while and then removed the second image; it was just right, a full reddish brown hue. He was so
pleased with his work that he sat there and admired it, completely forgetting about the third
image. Finally he smelled it burning, but by the time he could rescue it from the oven it had
already been burnt, and it came out completely black!
Food preferences are perhaps the most familiar aspect of ethnocentrism. Every culture has
developed preferences for certain kinds of food and drink, and equally strong negative attitudes
toward others. It is interesting to note that much of this ethnocentrism is in our heads and not in
our tongues, for something can taste delicious until we are told what it is. We have all heard
stories about people being fed a meal of snake or horse meat or something equally repugnant in
American culture and commenting on how tasty it was--until they were told what they had just
eaten, upon which they turned green and hurriedly asked to be excused from the table.
CPU
80386
80486
Pentium
TEST OF TABLE FORMATTING
Speed
Price
DX-25
DX-33
$80.00
AMD
DX-40
$80.00
Intel
DX-50
$180.00
DX2-66
$250.00
Intel
66
$750.00
90
$900.00
Brand
Intel
Comment
$60.00
w/Math Co-Processor
w/Math Co-Processor
w/Math Co-Processor
w/Math Co-Processor