I had just taken a bite of my homemade lunch pastrami sandwich with tart mustard; it was maybe 12:30 pm one mostly sunny day, a Wednesday or a Thursday; I was at work thinking about work and my kid's soccer games; I suddenly remembered that I had been really ethnocentric the last 12 years.
Yeah, me. Ethnocentric. Thinking, believing, not even considering for long periods of time that other people had a chance at being right in the ways that they thought and acted, that only my culture was right, the correctly appointed way to live in the 21st century or maybe for all time, the proper way to think, the proper way to spend, the proper way to vote, and of course due course in going to war. Whether you were for the war or against it, we as Americans were the arbiters of our own military fate: we consult ourselves. Others? Good luck.
I hadn't always been ethnocentric. There were times in my life before, past decades, when I saw how South Americans thought that their posture was prime, and possibly it was.
For twelve years since thinking for sure the United States was the absolutely best thing, or even the only legitimate thing, on earth, or the known universe (even though I spent time pining for the sports that I missed back in the US of A). There was a bit of time in 2005 where I considered alternatives. Places and ideas different than my native home of America were thrust upon me.
So, maybe some people or whole cultures in South America could be better.
Or Europe.
Certainly Western Europe. There are eastern Europeans who are confident that they have better values, history, background precedents.
Asian societies? There are many. For those with religious proclivities, the Holy Lands of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and others offer their cultural gifts, which provide their ethnocentric worldviews. Within Christianity and Judaism and other derivative sects there are sacred and consecrated places, with their own mini-cultures, of which many from all lands in the 21st century ensconce themselves within these ethno-centered universes of belief and practice.
Western Hemisphere, Oceania, swaths of Africa, all have their peoples with beliefs that they are the ones that have the answers to earth's needs and problems. At least they are convinced for themselves, maybe not for everyone else.
Like certain Americans. We the Best. We the Chosen.
We the Mighty. Might makes the ethnocentric more assured, that's for sure.
The macro-culture of the earth is a US based, or Western-based reality, steeped in socio-political self-assurance, military-economic strength and control, and documented and rule of law regulated constitutions and agreements making all well.
Ethnocentrism is in. For those who can make it work.
It has been working for me. And a few billion others.
At least flowing through my veins and synapses for years at a time.
OK sure, there may have been some brief analyses on my part of other cultures, beliefs, and possible answers in other forms in the last twelve years. But they were categorically dismissed out of turn.
That is what ethnocentrists do.
Welcome to the club. Does this mean you?
It probably does. And you might be right in your staunch ethnocentrism; we might be right to be ethnocentric. We might be the best thing there is. Then again, things can change.
But you don't always have to think so, that our way is the way. You might consider some other options.
Just thinking. That is probably a good thing.
Yeah, me. Ethnocentric. Thinking, believing, not even considering for long periods of time that other people had a chance at being right in the ways that they thought and acted, that only my culture was right, the correctly appointed way to live in the 21st century or maybe for all time, the proper way to think, the proper way to spend, the proper way to vote, and of course due course in going to war. Whether you were for the war or against it, we as Americans were the arbiters of our own military fate: we consult ourselves. Others? Good luck.
I hadn't always been ethnocentric. There were times in my life before, past decades, when I saw how South Americans thought that their posture was prime, and possibly it was.
For twelve years since thinking for sure the United States was the absolutely best thing, or even the only legitimate thing, on earth, or the known universe (even though I spent time pining for the sports that I missed back in the US of A). There was a bit of time in 2005 where I considered alternatives. Places and ideas different than my native home of America were thrust upon me.
So, maybe some people or whole cultures in South America could be better.
Or Europe.
Certainly Western Europe. There are eastern Europeans who are confident that they have better values, history, background precedents.
Asian societies? There are many. For those with religious proclivities, the Holy Lands of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and others offer their cultural gifts, which provide their ethnocentric worldviews. Within Christianity and Judaism and other derivative sects there are sacred and consecrated places, with their own mini-cultures, of which many from all lands in the 21st century ensconce themselves within these ethno-centered universes of belief and practice.
Western Hemisphere, Oceania, swaths of Africa, all have their peoples with beliefs that they are the ones that have the answers to earth's needs and problems. At least they are convinced for themselves, maybe not for everyone else.
Like certain Americans. We the Best. We the Chosen.
We the Mighty. Might makes the ethnocentric more assured, that's for sure.
The macro-culture of the earth is a US based, or Western-based reality, steeped in socio-political self-assurance, military-economic strength and control, and documented and rule of law regulated constitutions and agreements making all well.
Ethnocentrism is in. For those who can make it work.
It has been working for me. And a few billion others.
At least flowing through my veins and synapses for years at a time.
OK sure, there may have been some brief analyses on my part of other cultures, beliefs, and possible answers in other forms in the last twelve years. But they were categorically dismissed out of turn.
That is what ethnocentrists do.
Welcome to the club. Does this mean you?
It probably does. And you might be right in your staunch ethnocentrism; we might be right to be ethnocentric. We might be the best thing there is. Then again, things can change.
But you don't always have to think so, that our way is the way. You might consider some other options.
Just thinking. That is probably a good thing.
Re-read it. Thanks, me.
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