Ethnocentrism In America

Main stream America is materialistic and most of our advances come from the sciences, suggesting heavily to western peoples that the best and most reasonable path of logic to follow is science itself. Most ancient cultures, like the cultures most often found in India, China, or even Tibet, are based on hundreds of thousands of years old traditions and logic that doesn’t fit into the sciences, so we feel like our culture is the best culture, also known as ethnocentrism, because it has produced the greatest advances in technology, which is the era we are currently in, and thus we feel like other cultures are “beneath” our own. In reality, however, there are many important aspects to human life that need fulfilment that the materialistic, western

Similar to how the opossum will play dead in a stressful situation in order to avoid being pursued by a predator, or how the skunk sprays to ward off predators with the foul smell, humans band together to fight our greatest enemy: nature. In the western world, we have managed to remove ourselves from the most stressful dangers of living in nature, so it is possible to support one’s self with only the few we hold dearest, usually one significant other and their immediate children. Most western people live with their families spread across a great distance, seeing them once or twice a year. On the other hand, indigenous peoples, such as the Hopi or even their ancestors the Puebloans, live in smaller groups with less available resources, so many religions and cultures find ways to instil a deep belief in these people that utilitarian marriages are vital to their well-being. These smaller groups of people usually divide up the daily chores, following the biological coping mechanism to relieve the stress on other family members. We see this mechanism in the western world as well; often-times we see families splitting up household chores so that the responsibility doesn’t all fall on one member, but we don’t rely on this technique for much of the day. Usually, the children go to school and spend most their day away from family members, and the parents go to work and spend most of the day around