Ethnocentrism and Cultural Relativism
I’ve always tried to stay on the side of cultural relativism, which I define as remembering the context and culture you’re in instead of immediately judging something. I view ethnocentrism as something that stems from racism or a type of nationalism, that your culture is the best and every other culture is subordinate or “bad.” However, I find myself thinking a lot about the politics of cultural relativism and how it can be problematic. For example, I can easily disregard a certain behavior (cat calling for example) as simply a part of a culture that doesn’t necessarily have bad intentions. But female circumcision however, or child brides is harder for me to keep in the realm of cultural relativism. But again, I think my culture (specifically a fairly liberal, feminist environment) has instilled in me a type of judgement I have a difficult time withholding. For example, I was taught more that Islamic women who wear hijabs were forced to and were in fact victims, rather than acknowledging that these women wear hijabs for their own reasons and have as much authority as the next person. The way we construct narrative around these behaviors or customs is very important in how we take on ethnocentric or culturally relative ideologies, and interestingly, I believe they are bred from the same source. Ultimately I think both ethnocentrism and cultural relativism are ignorant of really understanding another culture and made to merely make your own culture look better. Ethnocentrism is an obvious culprit, but I think cultural relativism is just as guilty. Mind you, this is a very pessimistic view, but I think it says, oh my culture allows for me to be able to give room for understanding something different, and in that way it kind of has a superior, pretentious motivation from a seat of privilege.
I find myself encountering more moments of ethnocentrism when at the dinner table with my host family, but specifically with the other gringos staying in the house. For the past couple of weeks there have been 3 older men, ranging from their late 40s to 70s and from the United States. I don’t find myself ever disagreeing with my host family, only these men from my own country. I find myself reminding myself to keep these men in their own culture and generation, instead of jumping to my usual ethnocentric flash judgement of them. I mainly disagree with their conceptions of international affairs, gender, and the presidential candidates. I find myself remaining mostly silent when I hear them say something I disagree with, and I feel a little pang in my stomach when one of my host sisters translates what they are saying into spanish. I want to shout out, hey not all people from the United States think that, or at least not me. And then I get hit with another thought, why do I feel the need to defend the states, or more accurately, myself and my views? Honestly these men kind of intimidate me and then I get attacked with thoughts of how my own age and environment has contributed to my own views and thoughts, and how these men might respond with statements of how I’m just naive and young and don’t know anything about life – in that way I feel the need to hold back and not share my views, because I’m just a kid right? Maybe they need to hold some culturally relative thoughts reserved just for me…