[meteorite-list] ethnocentrism, OFF-TOPIC!

From: Sharkkb8_at_aol.com <Sharkkb8_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:44:15 2004
Message-ID: <9e.16973be2.286fa9ee_at_aol.com>

 
Anyone who doesn't want to read about "ethnocentrism", please stop reading
NOW, and DELETE!! Anyone still interested, let's go off-list.

Michael, I used to agree with every concept you expressed, right down to the
last comma and mispeld wird ;-) but extensive travel in the real world has
forced me to confront some of these beliefs, and rethink many of them.

<< The entire concept of a "3rd world" is ethnocentric - we (the "modern
world") contaminate their economic systems >>

But which is preferable in your view - leaving so-called "Third World"
economies alone, to struggle by themselves (and you've gone to great lengths
to acknowledge their poverty) or exposing them to the choice of democratic
and market-based economies, to theoretically allow them to share in the
prosperity of the rest of the free world? Neither choice is without a
price, but which price is greater?

If I will fully admit that there is a danger in ethnocentrism as an
out-of-control international doctrine, that it is undeniably wrong to
indiscriminately trample other cultures and impose one's own. That's a
given. But at the same time, will YOU be willing to admit that if the <<
eons of tradition, ways, language, kinship practices, values, religion,
economic practices >> of many so-called "third-world" countries are isolated,
and never, ever, ever allowed to evolve and adapt, their standard of living
will never improve, not to mention religious intolerance, nor despicable
treatment of women, nor inadequate medical care, nor....? In some of
these countries, slavery is still common practice. Should Westerners view
that as something that should be changed, or would that be "ethnocentric" of
us? You may say, "well, slavery is just part of their culture, which is
different from ours, we need to be tolerant of that". Well, slavery was part
of OUR culture too, in the mid-1800's, but defending it with a "cultural
sensitivity" argument is something a "19th Century Southern Aristocrat" would
do, to use your own analogy. The elimination of slavery was a social
change, unwillingly forced on a group of people who had fervently held it as
part of their << tradition, ways, language, kinship practices, values,
religion, economic practices >>, but you don't think that the elimination of
it was wrong, do you?

Worries about ethnocentrism are wellfounded. But it sounds to me like you
are saying,

"Sure, a more democratic governmental system works for US, prosperity works
for US, but THEIR culture is different, it's simpler than ours. We should
just leave them alone, even if their infant (and adult) mortality rate is
horrific, even if their poverty is unspeakable, even if they have little hope
of fighting disease. After all, THEY can't be expected to be able to handle
the same sort of economic evolution that WE did, when we were a struggling
little 'third-world' colony in the late 1700's".

THAT sounds pretty "ethnocentric" to me.

I just think that those of us who live (by a sheer accident of birth) in fat,
cushy Western societies aren't being particularly helpful or noble by
ignoring oppression and poverty and disease and social inequality and slavery
and hopelessness elsewhere, all so that we can feel all warm and fuzzy and
"culturally sensitive".

Let's go off-list to kick this around, if there are any takers. (Although
I'm leaving tomorrow night to spend eight days in a Melanesian culture, Beqa,
which has evolved from a poverty-stricken, cannibalistic, warlike society
into a relatively peaceful, prosperous, democratic, market-based economy.
Maybe we should discuss whether that transformation was a good thing or a bad
thing, Michael?)

Gregory
Received on Sat 30 Jun 2001 06:17:18 PM PDT