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The body rituals of the nacirema summary
The body rituals of the nacirema summary
The body rituals of the nacirema summary
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The Body Ritual of the Nacirema
It is human nature to describe one's own culture as the most advanced and most intellectual. Unfortunately, it is also common practice to look down upon the practices of another culture because they are not similar to one's own traditions. The ability to do this can sometimes be a damaging characteristic for society as a whole. Horace Miner realized the implications of egocentric views and wrote a groundbreaking essay to open society's eyes to their biases.
'The Body Ritual of the Nacirema' was written by Horace Miner for shock value. The article describes the rituals of a people which on the surface seem to be barbaric and highly out of date for that time at which the article was written. Some of the rituals described were women voluntarily baking their heads in ovens and visits to a 'holy-mouth man', which were extremely painful and costly, in order to gain social acceptance from their peers. Another unheard of tradition described in this essay was that of the sick people going to a temple where they had to give very large gi...
The term “ethnocentrism,” meaning the sense of taken-for-granted superiority in the context of cultural practices and attitudes, described the way Europeans looked at their “culture” as though they were superior to all others. Westerns even stated that non-Westerns had no culture and that they were inferior to the culture that was building in Europe.
The focal point of the shrine is a box or chest which is built into
In Horace Miner’s article, “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema”, he talks about a tribe and describes their odd behavior. He tells about how the tribe performs these strange daily rituals and how their peculiarity is extreme, but in fact he is actually speaking of Americans as a whole (Miner). Miner uses this style of writing to more effectively prove his point: that Americans are ethnocentric.
In the last ten years many young and talented high school basketball players have chosen to enter the NBA draft. These 17 and 18 year olds decide to skip college, and instead they choose to take a big risk and enter the NBA, hoping to become stars and earn millions of dollars. In many cases, these youngsters’ careers are a failure because they don’t turn out as talented as they thought to be. They end up spending only a few seasons in the NBA because they are not good enough to compete at that level. Many of them have to move on to doing other things, such as playing basketball overseas, doing everyday jobs, or going back to college to earn a degree.
When we critic something to be wicked or upright, better or worse than something else, we are taking it as an example to aim at or avoid. Without ideas like this, we would have no structure of comparison for our own strategies, no chance of earning by other’s insights or faults. In this space, we could form no decisions on our own actions. If we admit something as a good fact about one culture, we can’t reject to apply it to other cultures as well, whatever conditions acknowledge it. If we reject to do this, we are just not taking the other’s culture beliefs
The article equips the reader with the tools needed to better understand other cultures, in terms of their own beliefs and rituals. Miner’s original approach does create a certain level of confusion that forces the reader to critically evaluate his purpose. “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” by Horace Miner ultimately brings people together, by illuminating the eccentricities present in all
Did you know that there are roughly 550,000 male high school basketball players, 15,000 are good enough to make it to play college basketball, one third of that or 5,000 play well enough to make it to division I which is the highest in the NCAA basketball league, and only around 348 go on to play one game in the NBA. On the other hand there are rare cases of players having extraordinary talents and making the jump from high school basketball straight to NBA without any college experience. The debate on this topic is two sided, the first being that the jump from high school to the NBA should not be allowed and the second being that they should be able to do what they want.
Early years of America were tough and brutal. Two areas of early America emerged superior,Virginia and Massachusetts. Jamestown, although with its trials, paved the way of learning of how to establish a colony. Boston also had its teachings of trade, allie,s and religion. But what I believe shaped these colonies the most was location. The second most influencing aspect was trade, which was dictated by location.
The early age entry rule, has been blamed for taking away the talent that made NCAA basketball popular over the last 40 years (Hughes, 2013). Recently many of the most talented basketball players have entered the NCAA with no intention of playing a second, third, or fourth year. The NBA permits players to be drafted at an age that many have considered is too young to live the lavish lifestyle of a professional player. This has been cause for the big debate of should the NBA change the eligibility to 20 years of age and two years removed from high school.
In the article, Body Ritual among the Nacirema, by Horace M. Miner, some of these same problems are faced.
There are almost 7 million Americans in the United States that suffer from Coronary Artery Disease today. The prognosis for many of these patients depends upon the major therapeutic option of medical management that they choose to receive, the most essential variables that predict the prognosis and likelihood for future events are the extent and severity of the disease at the time of diagnosis. Basically, this translates to mean that the more abnormal the scans and tests are, the higher the prognosis is going to be for future coronary events to occur and therefore the higher the prognosis is going to be for a shorter life span, the lower the progression of the disease the higher the chance is going to be for a longer life span for the patient. A higher risk patient is going to be one with extensive defects from the disease, a patient with little to no defects is going to be low risk, and those with limited defects are going to be at a more intermediate risk. Whether it is because of their familial history of the disease or because of risk factors such as smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or obesity really does not matter considerably because many of the 500,000 deaths that occur from this disease could be prevented if more of the risk factors were prevented. This disease is the number one killer of both men and women older than 65 years of age because coronary artery disease in contracted as a result from the narrowing of the coronary arteries that feed the heart, and when those arteries become clogged and cannot supply enough blood, oxygen and nutrients in the coronary arteries, people develop chest pains, also more commonly known as angina which is a secondary condition of having Coronary Artery Disease. . These t...
The word ordeal has been used several times when talking about initiation rituals and it is fitting to do so. Ordeal implies an extremely serious and severe situation of test or trail, which in its simplest description fits that of initiation rituals perfectly. In fact several anthropologists have used the word ordeal to describe the events of initiation rituals, while most do not limit their use of the word to only the experience of pain but rather the ritual in its entirety. When describing the Gisu circumcision rituals Suzette Heald brings to the reader’s attention clarity of the ordeal like nature of initiation rituals. Within the Gisu community this rite of passage for adolescent males is described as being a test of the individual (Heald 1982). The process is drawn out over several months of preparation, the earliest stage involving the preparation of costumes and dancing; this stage of the ritual is associated with “searching for imbalu” or in other words the gradual awaking of intent in the individual, boys have the opportunity to drop out at this stage without the consequences of societal disgrace (Heald 1982). The costume is especially significant as its purpose is to make the boys appear ‘wild’ (Heald 1982), and thus plays an important role in the liminal stage of the ritual (Morinis 1985). The liminal period is essential when it comes to the infliction and
In conclusion, Huntington's approach of outlining the cultural differences between the West and Islam doesn't entirely explain the present world Jihadist terrorism and response of the US and its allies to it. The inclination of his paradigm is that one culture must win and another must lose. His hypothesis thus promotes political actors, policy makers and citizens to understand cultural dissimilarities as devastating and to support such differences. Consequently, his civilizations approach may not provide a standard paradigm, but it may add to realist and liberal approaches to explain international relations. – 3
... learning about ancient medical practices in Egypt, therefore I have decided to continue research and expand my paper into a twenty page research paper for my final research paper at the end of the semester. In my next portion of my ten page paper I will explore the other topics stated in my thesis. My final paper will merely be a continuation of the topics that I have written about in this paper. I will explore and go into depth with the topics of human embalmment and its significance to the work of modern medicine today. I would also like to compare modern day embalmment for funerals with embalmment rituals used in Ancient Egypt. Another primary focus for the next installment of this paper will be a detailed argument of why it would be a wonderful and scientifically beneficial idea to fund and continue research of medical practices in Ancient Egypt.
In the end, what we learn from this article is very realistic and logical. Furthermore, it is supported with real-life examples. Culture is ordinary, each individual has it, and it is both individual and common. It’s a result of both traditional values and an individual effort. Therefore, trying to fit it into certain sharp-edged models would be wrong.