Ethnocentrism: What It Is, Causes And Characteristics
Almost no one would like to admit that they have had a bad culture, but most would say that their culture is, without a doubt, the best. How curious that 99% of the world’s population was lucky enough to be born in the best place in the world?
Ethnocentrism is the belief that one’s own culture is the main reference from which to judge things Basically it is judging other cultures based on the stereotypes, beliefs and point of view that have been imposed on us since we can remember.
Below we will delve into this concept, understanding its causes, its consequences and contrasting it with the idea of cultural relativism.
Ethnocentrism, in its strictest sense, is the tendency of a person or a human group to interpret reality based on their own cultural parameters
This practice is usually linked to the bias of thinking that one’s own ethnicity and all its cultural characteristics are superior to other people’s ethnic traits. That is, it implies granting a higher value to one’s own culture compared to others, using standards of one’s own to judge the culture of others.
For practical purposes, ethnocentrism is a universal value. In every culture in general and in every person in particular, beliefs can be observed that exalt the ingroup and demonize or, at least, discredit foreign cultures, whatever the cut-off point to delimit between one’s own culture and another’s culture (p. e.g., Catalan culture vs. Castilian culture, Spanish culture vs. French culture, European culture vs. African culture…). This is because almost everyone tends to think that they were born in the best culture.
This belief can have all kinds of consequences. The “softer” ones would involve not bothering to learn about other people’s traditions or not risk trying the cuisine of other countries, seeing it as too exotic and dangerous for health. However, ethnocentrism has been associated with more serious consequences throughout history, such as racism, xenophobia, and ethnic and religious intolerance, although not necessarily so.
There are many investigations, both from anthropology and the social sciences, in which it is pointed out that ethnocentrism is a learned behavioral and thought pattern. The belief of seeing other cultures as worse or even inferior would be acquired by the individual as they develop in their cultural context of origin.
It is worth understanding that no individual, no matter how hard he tries, is separated from his culture Whatever it is, culture will permeate the characteristics of the individual, especially his or her personality, individual history, and knowledge. As a general rule, as one grows and establishes more relationships with the other members of the ingroup, the individual manifests greater loyalty to them, being more faithful to the socially imposed norms.
At the same time, ethnocentrism has an important transgenerational component, that is, it is passed from generation to generation. Stereotypes and perspectives of the world, no matter how false or exaggerated they may be, They are reinforced and fostered as time passes, inherited from parents to children and even becoming an important component of one’s own culture.
Basically, an important component of culture can be based on disparaging other cultures. This can be observed in many languages that use expressions based on stereotypes, as would be the case in Spanish with phrases such as “do the Indian” (play antics), “deceive like a Chinese” (deceive completely), “work like a “black” (working hard and exploited), “acting Swedish” (feigning ignorance) or “being dumber than Lepe” (being especially short of intelligence), among others.
From the field of social psychology, two theories have been shown as potential explanations of the phenomenon.
First of all, we have Social Identity Theory It suggests that ethnocentric beliefs are caused by a strong identification with one’s own culture, creating a positive and idealized vision of it. With the intention of maintaining this positive vision, people tend to make social comparisons with other ethnic groups, as if it were a competition, looking at them from a more critical and pejorative perspective.
On the other hand, we have the Realistic Conflict Theory, which assumes that ethnocentrism occurs due to the perception or experience of a real conflict between two or more ethnic groups. This occurs when a culturally dominant group perceives new members, belonging to an alien culture, as a threat.
Consequences
At first glance, ethnocentrism may seem like a trend that implies negative consequences. This is true to the extent that presupposing that other cultures are inferior to one’s own can motivate actions aimed at ending the outgroup In fact, ethnocentric visions are responsible for the great misfortunes of humanity, such as the Holocaust, the Crusades or the expulsion of the North American Indians from their lands. In all of these events, the dominant cultural group negatively highlighted foreign cultural traits, thus justifying ethnic cleansing.
However, and as surprising as it may seem, ethnocentrism can have its positive consequences, acting as a defense mechanism to preserve one’s own culture. An example of this would be not tolerating traditions and languages foreign to the territory since, in the long run, it could imply a process of cultural substitution and eventual elimination of the culture that was there before.
In fact, it is also thanks to ethnocentric ideas, regardless of the continent, that the creation of a single culture worldwide has been avoided. Since the world has been globalizing, there are many cultures that have ended up disappearing, fundamentally due to wanting to assimilate a globally homogeneous behavioral pattern. In response to globalization and the creation of a single culture, the various cultures of the world have been cultivating ethnocentric ideas, in which taking refuge in the idea that their culture is better allows even the smallest of them to continue existing.
Ethnocentrism and cultural relativism
Anthropology has tried to study all the cultures of the world in the most objective way possible This is why this science has fought to combat the ethnocentric vision, since it is not possible to study a culture and everything related to it considering it as something inferior or more primitive. Furthermore, taking into account that it is common for anthropologist to use participant observation to learn more about a culture, an ethnocentric bias would be a burden on their study, preventing them from learning about the ethnic group in question.
However, as we have already mentioned, ethnocentric behaviors, which are not racist or xenophobic, are a universal pattern. Everyone shows, to a greater or lesser extent, this bias, unable to avoid thinking that their culture of origin is better and that of others is strange. It is difficult to be European and not see the cultures of other continents as more primitive and savage or, seen from the other direction, it is difficult to be Japanese and not see Europeans as more dirty and messy.
In contrast to the idea of ethnocentrism is cultural relativism, its most opposite vision. This current of thought, rather understood as a properly anthropological way of acting, It involves accepting the idea that no culture should be judged by the standards of another For example, we cannot judge African tribal cultures from a European, Western, white and Christian perspective, since we will always end up “losing” the other culture.
However, completely accepting the cultural traits of the ethnic group studied runs the risk of accepting behaviors that, regardless of the culture they come from, are not acceptable as they violate human rights, individual freedom and ethics. For example, being extremely cultural relativist could make us justify stoning in Islamic countries (“it is their traditions”), bullfighting (“art is something very relative”) or female genital mutilation (“it is their culture and we must respect it”).
