Amidst all the examples of ethnocentrism in culture, the Asian culture should be mentioned across all the nations of Asia. Throughout the continent, the way of eating is to use a pair of chopsticks with their meal. These people might find it extremely necessary to find people in other societies like the American society, eating using spoons, forks, knives and more. Since these nations use chopsticks to eat they meals, they might find it foolish for the other cultures to use utensils that are same as chopsticks; yet they do accept the fact that people use diverse utensils for eating. This instance is not something that can be termed extreme that could lead to a genocide or a war, yet it is adequate in noticing the gap between these cultures for people to find their manner of eating as the natural or the best manner of typically consuming their food.
Every human, to some extent are observed to be ethnocentric. Anthropologists usually define ethnocentric as something evaluating the other cultures as per the preconceptions originating in the standards as well as the customs of an individual’s own culture. An ethnocentric individual is the one who believes that people, customs, and conventions of their own race or nationality are better than those of the other races. In terms of social studies, ethnocentric refers to a person who prefers a specific culture or race over all others.
The term ethnocentrism is used by anthropologists to define the opinion that one’s own manner of life is natural or correct. Some people would simply term it as cultural ignorance. Ethnocentrism thus means, that one might see their culture as the correct manner of living. For the people who have not experienced other cultures profoundly, ca be stated to be ethnocentric of they feel that their lives are the most common and natural manner of living. Some of the cultures might be same or even overlap in terms of ideas or concepts, yet some individuals are in a way, shocked to experience diversit8ies that they might encounter with people culturally diverse than themselves. In some of the extreme scenarios, a group of people might look at other culture’s manner of livelihood and consider it not right; and because of it, the group might try to convert the other people to their own manner of livelihood.
As defined by sociologist William Graham Sumner (1906), ethnocentrism is described as something that involves a belief or attitude that a person’s own culture is better than all the other culture. Sociology explains ethnocentrism as something that is present in almost every human being. For instance, Americans say that people from England drive on the “wrong side of the road”, instead of the “other” side. Some individuals from a nation where dog meat is the standard fare might find it weird to see a dog in a restaurant of France as a pet and patron’s companion. Ethnocentrism can potentially lead to disdain or dislike for the other culture and could potentially cause misunderstanding or even conflict.
Ethnocentrism in the subject of social science and anthropology is meant to apply an individual’s own culture or ethnicity as the frame of reference to judge the other culture, practices, behaviors, people and beliefs in place of utilizing the standards of the particular culture that is involved. Since this kind of a judgement is at often times pessimistic, some individual also utilize the term to refer to a kind of belief that a culture is superior to all the others, or the fact, that some culture’s way of life is more correct that all the others. In a common use of the term ethnocentrism, can simply mean any culturally biased judgement. As an example, ethnocentrism can be most commonly seen in the portrayals of the Global South and the Global North.
A person is stated to be ethnocentric whose opinion is that their own manner of life is the natural one or the correct one. Sometimes it is also known as cultural ignorance in a person who disregards all the other manner livelihoods or their culture. This is for the people who have not been able to experience the other cultures profoundly enough to be able to come to a consideration of respect for the other culture or manner of living. Some culture does have overlapping principles or cultures, which makes an ethnocentric to consider to some extent about them; however, for the cultures that is vastly different, they are unaware of showing this consideration. This is what that might try to convert the people of other group and it can potentially lead to fearful war and genocide could be the catastrophic outcome if any group is unwilling to alter their manner of living.
The term & ethnocentricity had originated with William Sumner and it also refers to the belief of ethnocentrism; to be specific, it refers to a belief that the culture or ethnic group is more superior than any other’s. Individuals who are ethnocentric are biased in terms of their cultural norms, values as well as conventions. Ethnocentric people utilize their own cultural and ethnic groups as the basic standard by which they can judge the other cultures to which they are not completely aware of.
One of the prominent instances of ethnocentrism in society was British Imperialism; imperialism or the practice of taking over of the lands, and it was highly practiced by Europe dating far back as the 16th century. Even the colonies in the US were once controlled by the people of Britain.
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