McKay Lewis
A4 Pullman
04/29/11
Tropical essay #1
For this essay there are two words that you will need to know the meaning or definition of because it is pretty much what the whole paper is about the first word is ethnocentrism and the second word or phrase is cultural relativism. Here are the definitions off dictionary.com.
Ethnocentrism: the belief in the inherent superiority of one's own ethnic group or culture.
Which just means that every culture around the world thinks that there way of doing things is the right or normal way like in Shakespeare in the bush before he even started telling them the story they had him pour them beer for them. Kind of like the kids in New York when they went to the Chinese restaurant. That is just the ways they do it so they think they are right
Cultural relativism: a concept that cultural norms and values derive their meaning within a specific social context.
Basically you should judge other people on the beliefs, traditions and ways of their country and not yours. This is the mistake the guy makes in eating Christmas in the Kalahari if he would have just stepped back and realized that, that just was the way they are, always joking around with each other than it would not have been an issue.
Just because the people in the Shakespeare in the bush see the story differently than the anthropologist does not mean that he has interpreted the story incorrectly it just means that they have a different way of thinking. I don’t mean to get all religious because the bible is a historical book so I am going with it in the bible when Jesus thought in parables he taught to specific groups of people at a time like farmers or fisherman. So when he taught the fisher man it was a way that they could understand it not meant for the farmers. And that is why some people miss the messages of what he is trying to say.
Back to the Shakespeare in the bush story it makes sense that they don’t understand because when Shakespeare wrote this play he was not writing it for the people of a tiny third world country he was writing is for a different country and time period.
I think that the Shakespeare one had more to do with the term Cultural relativism because in that story the anthropologist was judging them based on how his country saw the story and not their own country. And the eating Christmas and the Kalahari had a lot to do with the term Ethnocentrism because the anthropologist in that that story did not know they were joking and it was because he did not understand how things worked in that country.
In conclusion most countries have many differences but that does not mean that you have to leave the United States to be in a totally different culture. For example Utah is a lot different than states like California for reasons that don’t need explaining. And even farther than that you probably don’t even need to leave the state to be in a totally different culture like a small town like Genola (where ever that is) to big city like Salt Lake there are probably a lot of different styles of living. But no matter what you should judge people by the ways of their culture and not your own because we may see other countries as being really weird but I am sure it is the other way around to.