Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Nacirema


Religious
 I think that his adjective is the best one to describe Nacirema culture. One can see throughout the whole paper how Nacirema people are so close to their religion. For example, this sentences show that Nacirema people take their time improving a spiritual health “a considerable portion of the day are spent in ritual activity.” Another, proof of their religion passion is that every family has at least one shrine.

Dogmatic
As a consequence of be a religion society, they can also can be describing to be dogmatic because they have beliefs that are indisputable and no one can go against them. For example, “The fact that these temple ceremonies may not cure, and may even kill the neophyte, in no way decreases the people's faith in the medicine men.” It clearly shows how Nacirema people follow 100% their religious rules, and they do not seek for alternative solutions; Moreover, they do not seek for scientific expiations.

Inequitable
“No matter how ill the supplicant or how grave the emergency, the guardians of many temples will not admit a client if he cannot give a rich gift to the custodian.” This kind of behavior must not be allowed in any culture around the world because a human life is priceless. It very unjust that only rich people can have access to health benefits

Incredible
Nacirema people are very extraordinary because they have a very different than my own culture; moreover, with all their eccentric rites they have survive for long time, and actually Horace Miner seems to be surprised of Nacirema when on his conclusion said “It is hard to understand how they have managed to exist so long under the burdens which they have imposed upon themselves”

Culture
The word culture is not an adjective, but it can describe Nacirema people because the article shows that they have shared their ideas, values and beliefs for generations.  



1) I am not America, but I been living in this culture for last 3 years, and many of my relatives are Americans. At the first moment I could not believe that the Horace Miner was describing the behavior of America culture because I described the bad side of Nacerima culture. Then I realized the American culture could not be so perfect, and if I start looking, I can find many negatives things in my own culture

2) Honestly   I do not feel qualify to say if any of my words reflect ethnocentrism because from my point of view I think that I did I good judgment about the “Nacerima culture”, but I know that I could be totally wrong.

3) I think that I cannot replace one of the words that I used because Religious, Dogmatic,  Inequitable, Incredible and culture can describe American culture (and even my own culture)

4) Avoiding ethnocentric judgments is very important in this globalized word because we have to interact with other cultures, and if we are ethnocentric, we can create conflicts and problems for absurd reasons. One should not judge another cultures from his/ her personal cultural bias because a culture can have some habits and behavior that right and acceptable for them, but can be wrong and unacceptable for one. I think that is possible to completely avoid personal cultural bias for anthropologist because they are trained to do it. Probably sometimes they make mistakes, but most of the times they are able to make a judge of a culture.

4 comments:

  1. I liked your choice of the work "inequitable", which I think is highly accurate and another way of describing a culture of a non-egalitarian nature. "Culture", on the other hand, wasn't really valid. You are being asked to define a culture. This is like saying a culture is a culture. :-)

    There is some bias in your word choice, but the only negative one is perhaps "dogmatic" which suggests judgement on your part. On the other hand, "Incredible" could be taken positively or negatively, though to be honest I'm not sure how much this word actually tells us about the culture? "Incredible" could mean a lot of things.

    Good final discussion.

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  2. they word that I wanted to use was enculturation because it seems that the culture has passed that behavior through generations.

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    Replies
    1. But all cultures do that. You are trying to describe this particular culture in terms of how is it unique and recognizable in the world of cultural anthropology.

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