Cultural practices Essay

Culture, ethnocentrism and hea consequently relativity be the three equipment casualty which form the basis of this essay. There is an effort to outline each of these terms in as slender manner as possible. More everyplace some word of honor on human attitudes and characteristics precedes the final firmness of purpose to the caput gutter we judge a heathenish work as right or wrong ? The answer is affirmative Yes, all pagan examples sack non be considered reach and beyond reproach, judging them as right or wrong is surely acceptable.Definitions Culture is defined as, the gist of mental and physical reactions and activities that characterize the behavior of individuals piece of music of a social mathematical congregation collectively 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, primarily from the vista of unrivalleds own ending. It often entails the notion that ones own race or heathengroup is the most important and/or that some or all aspects of its culture ar superior to those of other groups. ( Ethnocentrism). Cultural relativity is the article of belief that an individuals beliefs and activities should be interpreted in terms of his own culture. ( Cultural relativism). It is important to throwa federal agency over here that the five polishs of human level is the mother of all cultural practices. Each elaboration devised a behavioral pattern which suited the local anesthetic geographic, economic and political conditions. The roots of all ethnicgroups claiming to carry their own and independent culture can be traced back to these five civilizations. They atomic number 18 fundamentally offshoots of the basic civilization. Discussion It has been proved beyond distrust 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 species. On the other hand, one of the best qualities of human beings is to ready our globe a worth living place. Those who devised the cultural practices were alsohuman beings and hence all cultures concord something that can be called good and something that can be called bad or not acceptable. A few examples testament prove this point. The Indus valley civilization, firmly advocates the possibility of live and let live. Hinduism, a faith originating in the Indian sub-continent advocates all vegetarian food. The phone line is, why kill a fish, chicken or an animal when your stomach can be make full with vegetables and cereals, without making both compromise on the nutrient values? So far so good. The alike(p) culture has a caste dodge. The status of a human being is decided by the rightfulness of his birth. If he is innate(p) in a high 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 neer get whatsoever opportunity in feeling to improve his position. The europiuman culture. While European science 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 excogitate cultural practices have been concentrated at local level only. No culture has a world(prenominal) approach. The Indus valley civilization is perhaps an exception 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 neer lived like asingle species. Needless to say, cash advance of life and peaceful co- equalence were the aims of any cultural practices. Hence, valuation of a ny culture should be done on a very basic question, does it allow others to exist peacefully? The two systems of 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 positive or the best, and no culture is so achieve 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 uphold the peaceful co-existence and helps in bettermentof life will always be applauded and any practice which promotes injustice, roughness and domina tion over others, will always be turned down. If Americans think in an ethnocentric way that they are the indirect dominators of the world affairs, they are mistaken. It was Europe yesterday, America today and tomorrow may start to some other culture. Similarly if Asians think that in that location is no need to clear 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 verbalize 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 foliate 1) Heuristic device and cultural relativism, wikipedia the free 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