Cultural practices Essay

Culture, ethnocentrism and heathenish relativity are the three terms which form the basis of this essay. There is an effort to define each of these terms in as precise cosmosner as possible. More everyplace some discussion on forgiving attitudes and characteristics precedes the final answer to the question brush aside we judge a cultural practice as ripe(p) or wrong ? The answer is affirmative Yes, all cultural practices cannot be considered equal and beyond reproach, judging them as mightily or wrong is surely acceptable.Definitions Culture is defined as, the totality of mental and physical reactions and activities that characterize the behavior of individuals composing of a social group together with and individually in relation to their natural environment, to other groups, to members of the group itself, and of each individual to himself. ( Heuristic device) Ethnocentrism is defined as tendency to look at the world, mainly from the perspective of ones own glossiness. It often entails the belief that ones own flight or ethnicgroup is the most of the essence(predicate) and/or that some or all aspects of its finishing are superior to those of other groups. ( Ethnocentrism). Cultural relativity is the principle that an individuals beliefs and activities should be interpret in terms of his own culture. ( Cultural relativism). It is important to note over here that the five civilizations of human history is the mother of all cultural practices. individually civilization devised a behavioral pattern which suited the local geographic, economic and political conditions. The roots of all ethnicgroups claiming to have their own and independent culture can be traced back to these five civilizations. They are essentially offshoots of the basic civilization. Discussion It has been proved beyond doubt that the major negative characteristics of human race are his greed and his ego. He always wants to dominate over his fellow humans and other living specie s. On the other hand, one of the high hat qualities of human beings is to make our globe a worth living place. Those who devised the cultural practices were in like mannerhuman beings and hence all cultures have something that can be called good and something that can be called bad or not acceptable. A few examples will prove this point. The Indus valley civilization, firmly advocates the theory of do it and let live. Hinduism, a faith originating in the Indian sub-continent advocates only vegetarian food. The argument is, why kill a fish, chicken or an animal when your stomach can be filled with vegetables and cereals, without making any compromise on the nutritive values? So far so good. The equivalent culture has a caste system. The post of a human being is decided by the virtue of his birth. If he is born in a higher caste, he has the world at his feet, and if he is born in a lower caste family, then he is treated as an untouchable, who will never get any opportunity in life sentence to improve his position. The European culture. time European intelligence has been instrumental in framing the highly developed technical world of today, full of comforts, the same Europeans havesucked the blood of the third world population by establishing colonies, for centuries together. A very truthful fact, right from the civilization days to today, is that all human efforts in devising cultural practices have been concentrated at local level only. No culture has a global approach. The Indus valley civilization is perhaps an riddance to this. The practices are laid down for a particular group of people residing in that particular geographic area. In the entire history of human evolution, man has never lived like asingle species. Needless to say, betterment of life and peaceful co-existence were the aims of any cultural practices. Hence, evaluation of any culture should be do on a very basic question, does it allow others to exist peacefully? The two systems o f cultural perceptions, namely ethnocentrism and cultural relativism have very less significance. While ethnocentrism places ones own culture as the only best cultural relativism closes the doors for judgments about other cultures. Ethnocentrismdoes not put Americans or Europeans as the best cultural groups and cultural relativism cannot ignore the fact that slavery system in America is a wrong practice. These perceptions are irrelevant because no culture is supreme or the best, and no culture is so complete in itself . Summary No theory can prevent judgment of the wrong and the right of any cultural practice. Simply because no culture is flawless, when assessed on humanitarian and global grounds. Any practice which preserves the peaceful co-existence and helps in bettermentof life will always be applauded and any practice which promotes injustice, cruelty and domination over others, will always be turned down. If Americans speak up in an ethnocentric way that they are the indire ct dominators of the world affairs, they are mistaken. It was Europe yesterday, America today and tomorrow may belong to some other culture. Similarly if Asians think that there is no need to pass judgment on any other culture because every culture is complete on its own, they are also wrong. They ought to pass a judgment and raise a voice against the wrongcolonization and slavery of Europeans and Americans respectively. No theory can stop passing judgments over any cultural practice. Judgments are necessary. They always help in improving upon the negative aspects of any culture. Works cited page 1) Heuristic device and cultural relativism, wikipedia the innocent(p) encyclopedia, 12 02-07, Retrieved on 14-02-07. http//en. wikipedia. org/wiki/cultural_relativism 2. Ethnocentrism, wikipedia the free encyclopedia, 10-02-07, Retrieved on 14-02-07, http//en. wikipedia. org/wiki/etnocentrism