Confronting the Demons of Ethnocentrism 17 Jun From the ‘remastered’ series, Confronting the Demons of Ethnocentrism first appeared on the old version of Tales From the Hood on Saturday, 31 May, 2008. * * * * *
My colleagues and I have a tendency to think of ourselves as ‘liberal’, ‘open-minded’, ‘cosmopolitan’, ‘multi-cultural.’ Because of our work, we are able to enjoy the feeling that we perceive the reality. We analyze and deconstruct and apply various psychological, political, and social science theories to what we hear in the news or encounter. We package the world and it’s problems into neat little categories and assign solutions that seem exceedingly obvious (e.g. don’t bomb innocent civilians). We are in touch with the real issues. Some of us revel in being misunderstood by our neighbors or railed against by indignant right-wing radio evangelists. We buy free-trade coffee; we make our offices “paperless”; we boycott athletic wear companies who – we have heard – use sweatshop labor in Bangladesh or Ghana; we adorn our Jettas or Civic hybrids with bike racks and stickers that read “Give Peace a Chance.”But there comes a point when it becomes (temporarily) impossible to maintain an air of open-minded relativism. At some point you will encounter another culture that drives you crazy, and it will not be pretty. An accomplished professor of chemistry whom I had the opportunity to interview several years ago, sharing his perspective on a general lack of belief in God among his colleagues (he was a devout Christian) had this to say: “For staunch atheists I can think of only one cure: strip them naked and drop them off, without food or water, in the middle of a remote jungle. Within one week they will believe in God.” There are many things that I can’t claim to understand about God. I do, however, know what it is like to be stuck in the jungle. And whether that jungle is a literal one, a concrete one, or simply a metaphor for an impenetrable tangle of cultural signals, the effect is the same: within a very short time even the most staunchly relativistic among us will doubt our beliefs. We will face the demons of ethnocentrism. Oh yes. It is one thing to sit in the relative comfort, cleanliness, peace and quiet of a classroom on the campus of a public liberal arts university and arrive at the conclusion that economic and social inequity in the world is, at the end of the day, the result of ethnocentrism. It is one thing, in such a setting, to feel exhilarated by one’s own ability to deconstruct this ethnocentrism for what it is. It is easy to feel a sense of smug enlightenment – we understand what far too many of our elected leaders and non-elected peers have either never understood or are simply ignoring: that third-world poverty is the result of ongoing oppression and exploitation of less developed countries by more developed countries.
My colleagues and I have a tendency to think of ourselves as ‘liberal’, ‘open-minded’, ‘cosmopolitan’, ‘multi-cultural.’ Because of our work, we are able to enjoy the feeling that we perceive the reality. We analyze and deconstruct and apply various psychological, political, and social science theories to what we hear in the news or encounter. We package the world and it’s problems into neat little categories and assign solutions that seem exceedingly obvious (e.g. don’t bomb innocent civilians). We are in touch with the real issues. Some of us revel in being misunderstood by our neighbors or railed against by indignant right-wing radio evangelists. We buy free-trade coffee; we make our offices “paperless”; we boycott athletic wear companies who – we have heard – use sweatshop labor in Bangladesh or Ghana; we adorn our Jettas or Civic hybrids with bike racks and stickers that read “Give Peace a Chance.”But there comes a point when it becomes (temporarily) impossible to maintain an air of open-minded relativism. At some point you will encounter another culture that drives you crazy, and it will not be pretty. An accomplished professor of chemistry whom I had the opportunity to interview several years ago, sharing his perspective on a general lack of belief in God among his colleagues (he was a devout Christian) had this to say: “For staunch atheists I can think of only one cure: strip them naked and drop them off, without food or water, in the middle of a remote jungle. Within one week they will believe in God.” There are many things that I can’t claim to understand about God. I do, however, know what it is like to be stuck in the jungle. And whether that jungle is a literal one, a concrete one, or simply a metaphor for an impenetrable tangle of cultural signals, the effect is the same: within a very short time even the most staunchly relativistic among us will doubt our beliefs. We will face the demons of ethnocentrism. Oh yes. It is one thing to sit in the relative comfort, cleanliness, peace and quiet of a classroom on the campus of a public liberal arts university and arrive at the conclusion that economic and social inequity in the world is, at the end of the day, the result of ethnocentrism. It is one thing, in such a setting, to feel exhilarated by one’s own ability to deconstruct this ethnocentrism for what it is. It is easy to feel a sense of smug enlightenment – we understand what far too many of our elected leaders and non-elected peers have either never understood or are simply ignoring: that third-world poverty is the result of ongoing oppression and exploitation of less developed countries by more developed countries.
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