Apple. Coca-Cola. Google. Louis Vuitton. BMW.
The power of these brands is not just in the number of people who consume them. It's also a matter of excellent image management and careful attention to semiotics--the study of meaning-making.
This blog provides a public place to write about how mass culture and branding can be explained by examining what it is that they signify. Texts deal with dinosaurs, Cosmopolitan magazine, zombies, pornography and Nazis--among other things.
I found this article to be quite interesting for a few reasons. Firstly, something that stood out to me is their fundamental belief that life is about physical pain and physical suffering. The author describes their belief to be that "the human body is ugly and that its natural tendency is to debility and disease." Then the author mentions that to counter such events from taking place, they practice powerful rituals. This way of living intrigues me because the way I see it, it might not be as if they desire such pain or suffering, they may not wish for the bad to happen upon them, but it is something that they may perhaps greatly fear. It might be the fear of the unknown or the fear of the worst that causes them to be so devoted in the traditions that they practice. This leads me to ask, what was the root of such a fear or belief? Whereas some cultures seek to emphasize beauty and beautify all things in life and seek harmony with nature, the Nacireina people can only see that the human body is ugly weaken. There may be a social scientific explanation for how or why the Naciereina people live with the fundamental belief that the human body is ugly and weak, and that is what I would want to understand. It is also interesting to me why they find the mouth or oral aspects of the body to be so fascinating. It leads me to ask also, why the mouth? What physical characteristics about the mouth make it so defining and important to the Naciereina people?
This passage simply validates the saying “there’s nothing new under the sun” or something of that sort. The rituals and practices of the Nacirema are quite bizarre, but what takes the cake for me is how bizarre they may find it to know that there are people in the world who embrace their body, is actually fond of intercourse, and don’t jab “magically treated” needles into their faces annually. It’s easy for me to classify this group as a bunch of sadistic individuals merely trying to nourish their nauseating desires. But who am I, or who are we, to judge? This is a tradition that has been upheld for probably many centuries, and as the author of this passage pointed out, it’s quite interesting how they existed for so long despite the intensity of the practice. On such note, I have to give credit to Byron’s comment. His attitude doesn’t jump to judgment on the practices of these people, but is instead intrigued on the “whys and how’s”. Why are they disgusted by the body? Can there be a psychological explanation to this? Who knows? All we know is their primary belief that the body is nowhere near perfect and it needs to be accounted for. And obviously, they are capable of going to extremes. Interesting read!
The strange beliefs and rituals of the Nacirema culture are interesting and unheard of to me, very unique such as the their belief that “the human body is ugly and that its natural tendency is to debility and disease”. Their strong reliance on magic, ceremonies and rituals to escape such characteristics seems strange. However something that caught my attention was the way these people place importance on gender and social class when preforming such rituals. If someone who wanted to participate in these rituals was unable to provide a noble gift they were unable to receive any services. The different treatment women received as oppose to men was also very interesting to read about. I was unsure what the author meant by “special women” but the fact that they only received rites four times during a lunar month made me want to know more about why this was. The way in which these people carried themselves and protected their bodies is so sacred. In reading this passage I could not help but to imagine these people undergoing such rituals and imagining what they looked like so I goggled and the images I found some that depicted what the mouth ritual looks like when being performed. It seems to me that if it was not for civilization as the author states at the end these types of rituals could be customs of ours in today’s society, which is why the author bestows such importance on the fact that we should not judge a culture that differs from our own.
This article was extremely unique in the format it was written in. I think Horace Miner took a stab at other anthropologists on how they can over exaggerate the customs in other present of past cultures. I’m no anthropologist but I never heard of the Nacirema. It seems like Miner created this civilization to template how the United States culture is. “They are a North American group living in the territory between Canadian Cree...and...Mexico.” Just be reading that you can understand he is just talking about the United States. “Tradition states that they came from the east” just simply refers to the pilgrims that came to the United States. If you did not know what the article is truly referring to and read this article, you might think this culture seems ancient and bizarre when in fact it’s not. Miner’s format and wording just makes it seems that way. All of the customs that the “Nacirema” has a United States counterpart to it. He says the Nacirema has a highly developed economy but he is referring to the United State’s capitalism. The “medicine men” he is referring to are simply just doctors. What I really liked was how he said that the Nacirema had masochistic tendencies. The rest of the information in that paragraph, in my opinion, is a very unorthodox way to explain the idea of shaving. He then explains the idea of psychiatry and ideal body image in bizarre ways. All of these concepts that seem unnatural to us is actually used in our everyday society. I also found it interesting how you can simply take a normal thing used in everyday society and make it seem abnormal as possible.
I think it is quite brilliant that this American Anthropologist has the ability to describe behaviors and/or rituals of the American people, and change the language where our perception as a reader begin to question this particular culture of “Nacirema.” It wasn’t until Miner began to write that the “vestal maidens who move sedately about the temple chambers in distinctive costumes and headdress” that I began to realize that in America these vestal maidens would be known as nurses. The “latipso ceremonies” to us American’s known as the hospital, is where the really sick people go to recover. A sentence that spoke volumes to me as a “Canadian Cree” is the statement that “no matter how ill the supplicant or how grave the emergency, the guardians of many temples will not admit a client if he cannot give a rich gift to the custodian.” Now this may seem ignorant of these people who will only treat those who have money to be seen in the temple. America continues to operate in such a manner that the hospital system caters to those who have insurance and those who don’t have insurance will not be treated into selected hospitals. It is quite apparent that these “magic-ridden people” that have procedures to remove fat from overweight women, increase breast sizes as well as use magical materials to avoid pregnancy are the same methods that women use in America. From an outsider, these rituals would seem peculiar. Thus, it is important not to judge other cultures that may appear to be foreign as these behaviors are just as similar to our own when you are open to seeing it.
Wonders shall never end...It is a privileged for me to read this article, because i wouldn't believe such bizarre and evil cultural practices is still carried out in our modern day society. I understand it is not good to judge other peoples cultural believe and practices, but that of the nacirema, is more than just a cultural practice.I will term this "A RITUALISTIC/SATANIC ACT".There is nothing that is as worse as an individual deliberately inflicting pains on his/herself. There are some communities who does practice cannibalism. So should we say oh it is a cultural practice and we shouldnt judge?.Hell no, there are some practices that shouldnt been encouraged in our society, even if we say the owner of the body has a right to it.Because this type of practice can linger gradually into family homicide. A child who due to its developmental capacity, cannot make judgement and decision, and He or She is been persuaded to practice such act, at the process can loose His/her life. My suggestion is that the nacirema needs a psychological therapy, so they can come out from their primitive ignorance.
I found this article pretty interesting, first of all because I was able to read about a group of people that I have never heard of, or so I thought, whom practiced the Nacirema. As I read the article, at first I was shocked about the cruelty and pain that people could endure over their beliefs, and how in a modern day society people could still believe in magic and charms. I cringed while I read some of the things that these people endure in their lives such as the visits to the Holy-Mouth-Men, which the author says must involve a certain amount of sadism. But, as I continued to read I realized that our civilization is not much different than out own, in fact it is our own. We are supposed to visit the dentists once or twice a year, we are given medicine from doctors which sometimes we don’t even know what it does, and we have people who are so disgusted by their own image that they feel they need to receive plastic surgery to make them feel more beautiful. Eventually, from reading comments posted earlier, I was able to figure out this piece was written about Americans, Nacirema is American spelled backwards. I found these piece to be written very interestingly by the word choice that Miner used, like how we idolize Washington, or Notgnihsaw, who we attribute to cutting down a cherry tree in his early life. Overall, I believe, Miner does a great job by showing how close minded we can be.
It is amusing how there are people that are among us in this world with such different everyday lifestyles. These Nacirema people are bizarre but caught my attention with their lifestyles. These people have many strange rituals or practices that they continue to do besides the fact that they either inflict pain or according to people like us consider crazy. Practices such as putting hog hairs along with powder into our mouths would not be seen as “normal” in our society but not surprisingly is a common ritual in theirs. They have strange but rather interesting beliefs or rituals that while reading almost seems hard to pull away from. Although there are many people who think these cultures are the absolute opposite of our culture in a few ways we are both alike. These people all have a job in their society, and as strange as a “holy-mouth-man,” seems to us it is just a more intense and assumingly less intelligent dentist. These people also pray to shrines which many cultures all over the world do the same. Another comparison might be their “charms.” These “magical materials,” is just another word for medicine which we all use today. This culture is immensely interesting to learn about from putting the women’s heads into ovens to scraping the faces of the men with a sharp instrument but nevertheless we must accept their lifestyles and instead of ridiculing theirs beliefs we will accept and try to learn more about their culture.
This piece of writing was very interesting and I somewhat found it funny. Reading about the cultural hero, “Notgnihsaw,” I somehow realized it spells Washington backwards. Therefore, I realized Nacirema is American backwards. Miner then exaggerates the American culture, talking about certain professions, how people view themselves, and what our culture has lead to, which I also agree to what he’s revealing. Miner wrote, “Poorer families imitate the rich by applying pottery plaques to their shrine walls… shrine rooms of the more wealthy are walled with stone.” I believe Miner is telling how the American culture spends their wealth just to show it off while the lower classes try to look as wealthy, revealing how the culture take pride in wealth. Secondly, Miner talks about certain professions such as doctors, pharmacists, and dentists. I kind of felt that Miner finds these certain professions to be somewhat useless as he states “the people seek out a holy-mouth-man once or twice a year… despite the fact that their teeth continue to decay.” I think he’s trying to exaggerate how people only go to the dentist and pay for fillings, knowing that their teeth will still decay just to look good for public. Overall, this piece of writing I believe was the exaggerate the American culture and how it’s shaped our people to do certain practices such as salons, strip clubs, and nursing homes which lead to new jobs. I personally like how Miner did this piece because it shows the reader what our society is doing and gives us an interesting view overall. My favorite, however, is the end where Miner states that all of these customs that we do brought about an advanced civilization with several great discoveries/inventions to come, stating the beauty it created.
I found this article to be very intriguing and disturbing. The rituals that the Nacirema practice seem quite horrific to us, and yet these rituals have been with them for hundreds of years. I realize that we just read about what the practices are, but seeing as we are not the Nacirema, we fail to understand the meaning and implications behind all of the practices. So before making any judgments about it, it is important to truly learn all of their beliefs and their reasoning behind doing the rituals. We learned a few things, such as their belief in magic and how they believe the “human body is ugly and that its natural tendency is to debility and disease. I would think that they do not do these rituals just for the sake of it- there is much culture and meaning behind all of this that we could never truly understand unless we were the Nacirema or we studied it for many years. There were also similarities to our culture as well- they had their own doctors and dentists, even though their methods were rather harsher than ours would be. I thought that the last quote of the article was also very interesting and true, as it stated, “ Looking from far and above, from our high places of safety in the developed civilization, it is easy to see all the crudity and irrelevance of magic. But without its power and guidance early man could not have mastered his practical difficulties as he has done, nor could man have advanced to the higher stages of civilization.” This article was very interesting, as I have never heard of the Nacirema people before, and it was interesting to see a completely different way of life and culture. Out of curiosity, I also wonder about the quality of life of these people. In the article, it stated that they were quite masochistic, and I wonder how much happiness they had in their life. Perhaps they are satisfied with their way of living, but I wonder at their quality of life.
I thought this piece was an interesting glance into the lifestyle of people whom are not normally discussed or in my case even considered. I often forget that rituals and things normal to me or strange to me, can be the exact opposite for somebody of another culture. In this case that culture is the Nacirema. One of the most shocking things to me about the Nacirema was how they hide their pregnancies and rarely nurse their babies. To my culture pregnancy is a joyous occasion that is often celebrated with things like baby showers, not hidden and cursed. I also found it wild that these people are so convinced by their medicine men that they will physically mutilate themselves because they believe it is for the best. I also thought the part about how most women will never see their husbands naked very often or at all to be shocking as in many other societies the body is celebrated and shown off. It made me laugh though that one similarity exists between our societies, the fact that women can make a living showing off their breasts to others. I really found it hard to believe that a society like the Nacirema still can exist with the rapid spread of information we have today. I would have figured by now, they would have picked up on other ideas, religions and medicine practices.
I think it’s interesting how different the Nacirema’s views on the human body has remained so extreme over their existence. In our own culture today the body is seen as beautiful and is treated much differently, yet at the same time there are still many people who dislike their body and undergo activities to make themselves more appealing like the Nacirema. While our society is much less extreme about it, there is that similarity that we must do things to change our natural appearance, for example the growing popularity of plastic surgery. It’s also interesting that the medicine men are revered and trusted as people do with doctors today. Doctors and medicine men both are trained to treat the citizens in their respective culture. They also speak their own language you could say, that the normal citizen does not understand, like the Latin based taxonomy in medicine. Although in our society, doctors go about medicine and surgery in a much gentler way, there again is a similarity between the two. Doctors aren’t perfect, like the medicine men, but people trust them because in both societies, they are the only ones who the citizens can turn to help them. Lastly I find it interesting that children are afraid of both doctors in our own culture, and the medicine men within the Nacirema. Although this could be for different reason, it’s funny to see how although this Nacireman culture is so extreme, there are still similarities in the way that people treat specialists who can help heal them, or make them more appealing, as well in the similar dissatisfaction of the human body.
I found this article to be quite interesting for a few reasons. Firstly, something that stood out to me is their fundamental belief that life is about physical pain and physical suffering. The author describes their belief to be that "the human body is ugly and that its natural tendency is to debility and disease." Then the author mentions that to counter such events from taking place, they practice powerful rituals. This way of living intrigues me because the way I see it, it might not be as if they desire such pain or suffering, they may not wish for the bad to happen upon them, but it is something that they may perhaps greatly fear. It might be the fear of the unknown or the fear of the worst that causes them to be so devoted in the traditions that they practice. This leads me to ask, what was the root of such a fear or belief? Whereas some cultures seek to emphasize beauty and beautify all things in life and seek harmony with nature, the Nacireina people can only see that the human body is ugly weaken. There may be a social scientific explanation for how or why the Naciereina people live with the fundamental belief that the human body is ugly and weak, and that is what I would want to understand. It is also interesting to me why they find the mouth or oral aspects of the body to be so fascinating. It leads me to ask also, why the mouth? What physical characteristics about the mouth make it so defining and important to the Naciereina people?
ReplyDeleteThis passage simply validates the saying “there’s nothing new under the sun” or something of that sort. The rituals and practices of the Nacirema are quite bizarre, but what takes the cake for me is how bizarre they may find it to know that there are people in the world who embrace their body, is actually fond of intercourse, and don’t jab “magically treated” needles into their faces annually. It’s easy for me to classify this group as a bunch of sadistic individuals merely trying to nourish their nauseating desires. But who am I, or who are we, to judge? This is a tradition that has been upheld for probably many centuries, and as the author of this passage pointed out, it’s quite interesting how they existed for so long despite the intensity of the practice. On such note, I have to give credit to Byron’s comment. His attitude doesn’t jump to judgment on the practices of these people, but is instead intrigued on the “whys and how’s”. Why are they disgusted by the body? Can there be a psychological explanation to this? Who knows? All we know is their primary belief that the body is nowhere near perfect and it needs to be accounted for. And obviously, they are capable of going to extremes. Interesting read!
ReplyDeleteThe strange beliefs and rituals of the Nacirema culture are interesting and unheard of to me, very unique such as the their belief that “the human body is ugly and that its natural tendency is to debility and disease”. Their strong reliance on magic, ceremonies and rituals to escape such characteristics seems strange. However something that caught my attention was the way these people place importance on gender and social class when preforming such rituals. If someone who wanted to participate in these rituals was unable to provide a noble gift they were unable to receive any services. The different treatment women received as oppose to men was also very interesting to read about. I was unsure what the author meant by “special women” but the fact that they only received rites four times during a lunar month made me want to know more about why this was. The way in which these people carried themselves and protected their bodies is so sacred. In reading this passage I could not help but to imagine these people undergoing such rituals and imagining what they looked like so I goggled and the images I found some that depicted what the mouth ritual looks like when being performed. It seems to me that if it was not for civilization as the author states at the end these types of rituals could be customs of ours in today’s society, which is why the author bestows such importance on the fact that we should not judge a culture that differs from our own.
ReplyDeleteThis article was extremely unique in the format it was written in. I think Horace Miner took a stab at other anthropologists on how they can over exaggerate the customs in other present of past cultures. I’m no anthropologist but I never heard of the Nacirema. It seems like Miner created this civilization to template how the United States culture is. “They are a North American group living in the territory between Canadian Cree...and...Mexico.” Just be reading that you can understand he is just talking about the United States. “Tradition states that they came from the east” just simply refers to the pilgrims that came to the United States. If you did not know what the article is truly referring to and read this article, you might think this culture seems ancient and bizarre when in fact it’s not. Miner’s format and wording just makes it seems that way. All of the customs that the “Nacirema” has a United States counterpart to it. He says the Nacirema has a highly developed economy but he is referring to the United State’s capitalism. The “medicine men” he is referring to are simply just doctors. What I really liked was how he said that the Nacirema had masochistic tendencies. The rest of the information in that paragraph, in my opinion, is a very unorthodox way to explain the idea of shaving. He then explains the idea of psychiatry and ideal body image in bizarre ways. All of these concepts that seem unnatural to us is actually used in our everyday society. I also found it interesting how you can simply take a normal thing used in everyday society and make it seem abnormal as possible.
ReplyDeleteI think it is quite brilliant that this American Anthropologist has the ability to describe behaviors and/or rituals of the American people, and change the language where our perception as a reader begin to question this particular culture of “Nacirema.”
ReplyDeleteIt wasn’t until Miner began to write that the “vestal maidens who move sedately about the temple chambers in distinctive costumes and headdress” that I began to realize that in America these vestal maidens would be known as nurses.
The “latipso ceremonies” to us American’s known as the hospital, is where the really sick people go to recover. A sentence that spoke volumes to me as a “Canadian Cree” is the statement that “no matter how ill the supplicant or how grave the emergency, the guardians of many temples will not admit a client if he cannot give a rich gift to the custodian.” Now this may seem ignorant of these people who will only treat those who have money to be seen in the temple. America continues to operate in such a manner that the hospital system caters to those who have insurance and those who don’t have insurance will not be treated into selected hospitals.
It is quite apparent that these “magic-ridden people” that have procedures to remove fat from overweight women, increase breast sizes as well as use magical materials to avoid pregnancy are the same methods that women use in America. From an outsider, these rituals would seem peculiar.
Thus, it is important not to judge other cultures that may appear to be foreign as these behaviors are just as similar to our own when you are open to seeing it.
Wonders shall never end...It is a privileged for me to read this article, because i wouldn't believe such bizarre and evil cultural practices is still carried out in our modern day society. I understand it is not good to judge other peoples cultural believe and practices, but that of the nacirema, is more than just a cultural practice.I will term this "A RITUALISTIC/SATANIC ACT".There is nothing that is as worse as an individual deliberately inflicting pains on his/herself. There are some communities who does practice cannibalism. So should we say oh it is a cultural practice and we shouldnt judge?.Hell no, there are some practices that shouldnt been encouraged in our society, even if we say the owner of the body has a right to it.Because this type of practice can linger gradually into family homicide. A child who due to its developmental capacity, cannot make judgement and decision, and He or She is been persuaded to practice such act, at the process can loose His/her life. My suggestion is that the nacirema needs a psychological therapy, so they can come out from their primitive ignorance.
ReplyDeleteI found this article pretty interesting, first of all because I was able to read about a group of people that I have never heard of, or so I thought, whom practiced the Nacirema. As I read the article, at first I was shocked about the cruelty and pain that people could endure over their beliefs, and how in a modern day society people could still believe in magic and charms. I cringed while I read some of the things that these people endure in their lives such as the visits to the Holy-Mouth-Men, which the author says must involve a certain amount of sadism. But, as I continued to read I realized that our civilization is not much different than out own, in fact it is our own. We are supposed to visit the dentists once or twice a year, we are given medicine from doctors which sometimes we don’t even know what it does, and we have people who are so disgusted by their own image that they feel they need to receive plastic surgery to make them feel more beautiful. Eventually, from reading comments posted earlier, I was able to figure out this piece was written about Americans, Nacirema is American spelled backwards. I found these piece to be written very interestingly by the word choice that Miner used, like how we idolize Washington, or Notgnihsaw, who we attribute to cutting down a cherry tree in his early life. Overall, I believe, Miner does a great job by showing how close minded we can be.
ReplyDeleteIt is amusing how there are people that are among us in this world with such different everyday lifestyles. These Nacirema people are bizarre but caught my attention with their lifestyles. These people have many strange rituals or practices that they continue to do besides the fact that they either inflict pain or according to people like us consider crazy. Practices such as putting hog hairs along with powder into our mouths would not be seen as “normal” in our society but not surprisingly is a common ritual in theirs. They have strange but rather interesting beliefs or rituals that while reading almost seems hard to pull away from. Although there are many people who think these cultures are the absolute opposite of our culture in a few ways we are both alike. These people all have a job in their society, and as strange as a “holy-mouth-man,” seems to us it is just a more intense and assumingly less intelligent dentist. These people also pray to shrines which many cultures all over the world do the same. Another comparison might be their “charms.” These “magical materials,” is just another word for medicine which we all use today. This culture is immensely interesting to learn about from putting the women’s heads into ovens to scraping the faces of the men with a sharp instrument but nevertheless we must accept their lifestyles and instead of ridiculing theirs beliefs we will accept and try to learn more about their culture.
ReplyDeleteThis piece of writing was very interesting and I somewhat found it funny. Reading about the cultural hero, “Notgnihsaw,” I somehow realized it spells Washington backwards. Therefore, I realized Nacirema is American backwards. Miner then exaggerates the American culture, talking about certain professions, how people view themselves, and what our culture has lead to, which I also agree to what he’s revealing. Miner wrote, “Poorer families imitate the rich by applying pottery plaques to their shrine walls… shrine rooms of the more wealthy are walled with stone.” I believe Miner is telling how the American culture spends their wealth just to show it off while the lower classes try to look as wealthy, revealing how the culture take pride in wealth. Secondly, Miner talks about certain professions such as doctors, pharmacists, and dentists. I kind of felt that Miner finds these certain professions to be somewhat useless as he states “the people seek out a holy-mouth-man once or twice a year… despite the fact that their teeth continue to decay.” I think he’s trying to exaggerate how people only go to the dentist and pay for fillings, knowing that their teeth will still decay just to look good for public. Overall, this piece of writing I believe was the exaggerate the American culture and how it’s shaped our people to do certain practices such as salons, strip clubs, and nursing homes which lead to new jobs. I personally like how Miner did this piece because it shows the reader what our society is doing and gives us an interesting view overall. My favorite, however, is the end where Miner states that all of these customs that we do brought about an advanced civilization with several great discoveries/inventions to come, stating the beauty it created.
ReplyDeleteI found this article to be very intriguing and disturbing. The rituals that the Nacirema practice seem quite horrific to us, and yet these rituals have been with them for hundreds of years. I realize that we just read about what the practices are, but seeing as we are not the Nacirema, we fail to understand the meaning and implications behind all of the practices. So before making any judgments about it, it is important to truly learn all of their beliefs and their reasoning behind doing the rituals. We learned a few things, such as their belief in magic and how they believe the “human body is ugly and that its natural tendency is to debility and disease. I would think that they do not do these rituals just for the sake of it- there is much culture and meaning behind all of this that we could never truly understand unless we were the Nacirema or we studied it for many years. There were also similarities to our culture as well- they had their own doctors and dentists, even though their methods were rather harsher than ours would be. I thought that the last quote of the article was also very interesting and true, as it stated, “ Looking from far and above, from our high places of safety in the developed civilization, it is easy to see all the crudity and irrelevance of magic. But without its power and guidance early man could not have mastered his practical difficulties as he has done, nor could man have advanced to the higher stages of civilization.” This article was very interesting, as I have never heard of the Nacirema people before, and it was interesting to see a completely different way of life and culture. Out of curiosity, I also wonder about the quality of life of these people. In the article, it stated that they were quite masochistic, and I wonder how much happiness they had in their life. Perhaps they are satisfied with their way of living, but I wonder at their quality of life.
ReplyDeleteI thought this piece was an interesting glance into the lifestyle of people whom are not normally discussed or in my case even considered. I often forget that rituals and things normal to me or strange to me, can be the exact opposite for somebody of another culture. In this case that culture is the Nacirema. One of the most shocking things to me about the Nacirema was how they hide their pregnancies and rarely nurse their babies. To my culture pregnancy is a joyous occasion that is often celebrated with things like baby showers, not hidden and cursed. I also found it wild that these people are so convinced by their medicine men that they will physically mutilate themselves because they believe it is for the best. I also thought the part about how most women will never see their husbands naked very often or at all to be shocking as in many other societies the body is celebrated and shown off. It made me laugh though that one similarity exists between our societies, the fact that women can make a living showing off their breasts to others. I really found it hard to believe that a society like the Nacirema still can exist with the rapid spread of information we have today. I would have figured by now, they would have picked up on other ideas, religions and medicine practices.
ReplyDeleteI think it’s interesting how different the Nacirema’s views on the human body has remained so extreme over their existence. In our own culture today the body is seen as beautiful and is treated much differently, yet at the same time there are still many people who dislike their body and undergo activities to make themselves more appealing like the Nacirema. While our society is much less extreme about it, there is that similarity that we must do things to change our natural appearance, for example the growing popularity of plastic surgery. It’s also interesting that the medicine men are revered and trusted as people do with doctors today. Doctors and medicine men both are trained to treat the citizens in their respective culture. They also speak their own language you could say, that the normal citizen does not understand, like the Latin based taxonomy in medicine. Although in our society, doctors go about medicine and surgery in a much gentler way, there again is a similarity between the two. Doctors aren’t perfect, like the medicine men, but people trust them because in both societies, they are the only ones who the citizens can turn to help them. Lastly I find it interesting that children are afraid of both doctors in our own culture, and the medicine men within the Nacirema. Although this could be for different reason, it’s funny to see how although this Nacireman culture is so extreme, there are still similarities in the way that people treat specialists who can help heal them, or make them more appealing, as well in the similar dissatisfaction of the human body.
ReplyDelete