the behavior of the Nacirema. Medicine men making potions and priests making sure water is holy are all things that I have heard about before. What really took me aback was the holy mouth man. I was shocked at the torture these people go through because of their beliefs in certain magic rituals. I’ve never had a cavity before‚ so just the thought of someone grinding holes in my teeth makes my mouth hurt. However‚ I guess if I was raised believing that these sort of mouth rituals could make help me
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Ethnocentrism & Ritualistic Behavior in the Nacirema Culture Ethnocentrism is defined as a belief that one’s own culture is superior. This article uses metaphors’ to describe our own well to do American society. As we read the article we automatically judge and think that the Nacirema’s are barbaric people who seem very uneducated and masochistic‚ when in fact we follow the same practices. As we read this article‚ we see the Nacirema as a masochistic culture which gave their possessions for
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Nacirema HR 582 Managing Global Diversity Patsy A. Shepherd March 22‚ 2012 In Body Ritual Among the Nacirema‚ Horace Miner writes about the strange rituals that people do in America. While reading the story I was almost fooled‚ but as read further I realized the spoof of Nacirema; Nacirema is American spelled backwards and the references in the myth are the backward strange American everyday rituals. Miner’s word usage made it obvious it was just a myth‚ words like magical‚ fascination
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In "Body Ritual among the Nacirema" Miner is ridiculing how much society cares about their appearance. He talks about the unnecessary rituals that we go through just to please society. An example the author uses is how people are never pleased with what they have. Everyone is trying to fit in with what society thinks is right. Since society has its own perception of what is beautiful women try and do whatever it takes to fit into that definition. This is why women get breast implants or breast
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Miner’s view‚ “The Nacirema have an almost pathological horror of and fascination with the mouth‚ the condition of which is believed to have a supernatural influence on all social relationships”(Miner). Miner is correct‚ we choose to keep our mouths clean‚ I consider this relevant for the reason that this has become a routine‚ this is necessary‚ but there are other activities we do for example‚ clothing and making sure we look our best which is honestly just a custom. If I am right about this concern‚
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After realizing “Nacirema” is American spelled backwards‚ it becomes evident that Miner is criticizing American culture. He describes the “tribes” behavior with a focus on changing personal appearance and magic-based rituals. Everybody goes to the “Latipso” to see “medicine-men” when they are sick and often are given potions or end up dead. This is like a looking glass into American culture. In our culture‚ there is a huge focus on physical features‚ but we don’t pray to fix it. Instead we take vitamins
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Ethnocentrism in Anthropological perspective - Avatar Using highly advanced technology to replicate and to creating false bodies which humans use to walk amongst the natives known as the Na’vi living in the planet Pandora hence the name ‘Avatar’. The story focuses on an ex U.S. soldier name Jake Sully who is wheel-chair bound‚ was called upon as a last resort to replace his late brother whom had trained for 3 years in a project which was invested with so much money that the researchers could not
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Anthropologists define a ritual as an act of social practices that are repeatedly performed but are not always associated with religious beliefs or practices. These rituals are not the same as the day to day normal activity a person partakes in but more of symbolic gestures performed in a specific manner by a specific order in doing them (Lavenda & Schultz‚ 2013). The Nacirema culture performs specific ritual acts on a daily basis and as I quickly realized American culture is not that much different
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Ethnocentrism is the tendency to believe that one’s ethnic or cultural group is centrally important‚ and that all other groups are measured on one’s own cultural value. Ethnocentrism happens when one culture or nation places itself at the top of a self proclaimed hierarchy of cultures and nations and subsequently assigns other cultures and nations equivalent or lower value based on that scale. In other words‚ it is the proneness to think other cultures are of lesser worth because it is different
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According to Potter & Perry (2014)‚ ethnocentrism is defined as “members of ethnic groups that display a tendency to view their own way of life as more valuable than others” (p. 111). Ethnocentrism can become a cultural conflict if a nurse does not understand the cultural differences and resorts to using their own values and beliefs when caring for a patient. It is
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