Ethnocentrism And Cultural Relativity Essay example -- essays research

It is always troublesome not to understand another culture, especially, in new-made York City where we live in a society that is rapidly changing. The City has increasingly brought people of various cultures, to interact closer with each other. This interaction outhouse be either verifying or negative depending on the level of sensitivity and respect people have for other culture stems. These two types of behaviors ar related to two important concepts known as ethnocentrism and cultural relativity.Ethnocentrism is the attitude of prejudice or mistrust towards outsiders that may exist within a group (in-group) in relation to other (out-group). (Harper-Collin Dictionary of Sociology). Importantly, there are also three levels of ethnocentrism a positive one, a negative one, and an extreme negative one. The positive definition defines ethnocentrism as the point of view that ones own way of life is to be preferred to all others (Herskovits 1973 21). There is nothing harm with such feelings, because it characterizes the way most individuals feel about their own cultures, whether or not they verbalize their feelings (Herskovits 197321). It is this point of view that gives people their sense of people-hood, group identity, and set in history. Ethnocentrism becomes negative when ones own group becomes the center of everything, and all other are scaled and rated with reference to it(Herskovits 197321). It reaches extreme negative sorting when a more powerful group not only i...