What is Ethnocentrism and how can we overcome it?
For many centuries, groups of individuals have been forming and sharing a set of ideas, behaviors, and non-biological social practices that passing on from generation to generation, have formed a cultural heritage responsible for shaping the value judgments and decision-making of each individual or group at the elaborated chess table that is the world.
Perceiving and understanding a particular culture is not an easy task, mainly because cultures from a macro perspective have been consolidated for too long and with too many variables that would be extensive and complex work ahead to obtain a scientific result for the question.
Culture helps societies to organize themselves along lines that standardize our behavior in the family, workspace, communities, or in daily social life but they can also act as a trap for progress, especially with the growing trend of globalization and the ease of migration of social groups. The trap happens when an idea of absolute truth is formed around the respective culture, making the individual impervious to new inputs, whether through disinformation, revolt or sense of threat. These ideas are of course influenced and created by our upbringing experiences, and exposure to ideas.
This phenomenon is what we call Ethnocentrism — to apply one’s own culture as a frame of reference in order to judge other cultures, practices, behaviors, beliefs, and people instead of using the standards of the particular culture involved.
For example, how would you cope if you were face to face with an Asian native convincing you that dog meat is a great lunch option but you can’t help feeling repelled by the idea to the point of ruining the delicious beef steak on your plate, or how you would deal with saying goodbye to a loved one but with a three-day funeral of feast, food and drink as practiced in Ghana? Refusing these ideas is in our survival instinct, however, there is nothing wrong with looking at them without an idea of threat behind it.
In contrast, freeing oneself from ethnocentrism is an enriching journey within the reach of all of us.
The first step to avoid ethnocentrism is to understand that my culture and my value judgment are the results of my personal experiences and my education, which varies from individual to individual and mainly from society to society. Each developed a hierarchy of values that tends to be close to our own community. In order to absorb a different culture, it is beneficial to assume that our truth is subjective and to be prepared to be confronted with different truths.
Connecting with different cultures also gives us the opportunity to have face-to-face interaction with people, helping us to hear their perspectives firsthand. This gives us a wonderful opportunity to ask questions you may have about the culture and teach them everything they want to know. The key here is to respect and listen to how you would like to be respected and heard.
Refrain from falling for the misconceptions of how popular culture portrays different cultures, whether in cinema, literature or any form. Often the information that comes from other cultures already has a western filter, displaying itself from the author’s perspective and not giving a faithful perspective of a particular culture.
Finally, learning to enjoy differences is a very useful piece of advice that helps you embrace and appreciate people that are different from you. In addition to stimulating the mind and personal development, it is a great tool to better understand the world we live in, prevent and overcome ethnic and racial divisions and enhances effective communication around the world.