Thursday, October 27, 2011
The Nacirema
When first reading "Body Ritual Among the Nacirema", you're taken back by all of the things described. It seems like he's talking about a culture and people that are wild and uncivil. It explained how they use a bundle of hog hairs to clean their mouth, along with magical powders for their teeth. That seems crazy. It also talks about holy mouth men and their daily ceremonies that involve much discomfort and torture. Reading these things makes us have a impression that they are very uncivilized. Then, I finally realized that the article was talking about Americans. Narcirema spelled backwards. Those hog hair brushes were toothbrushes. The magical powders representing fillings. The holy mouth men were the dentists. This shows that we can read something with one certain perspective, and have a totally a different thought about it than if we looked at it in another view. Realizing that the article was talking about Americans, shows us that we can judge and create perspectives of something so quickly without really knowing the meaning behind it. I personally read that article thinking those people were crazy and wild, until realizing their rituals and culture are my own everyday actions and culture. Those "crazy people" are us.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
When talking about social norms, it's all about the point of view. Social norms everywhere can seem weird and pointless to people who aren't living within that culture. But the people in that culture living with those social norms don't know any other way to live, so the customs seem natural and second nature. Unless you look at the things you do from an outside perspective, they will never seem out of place or unnatural, because you have been raised to think of these traditions as routine and anything but special.
ReplyDelete