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Eating Christmas In The Kalahari Summary

1153 Words5 Pages

Georgia Felts
Anthropology 206 Culture Shock: One can experience Culture Shock when visiting a new country. They may feel disoriented and unsure due to the shift social environments. Simply traveling to another type of life can take a toll on some people. An example from the textbook, Conflict and Conformity, in the section titled Eating Christmas in the Kalahari. In this section, an anecdote is presented, detailing how a man named Richard Borshay Lee buys an Ox for the Christmas celebration, and is his way of saying “thank you for the cooperation of the past year” (Lee, 14). Lee was determined to buy the biggest, fattest Ox he could find and that is what he did. But what Lee did not know was that that culture did not praise each …show more content…

In the beginning of Wards ethnographic research, she stated that she "understood cultural relativism from an intellectual perspective, but the gut reality turns out to be something else" (Ward, 8). What I took from that statement is that yes, we understand that we should not judge other societies and cultures. However, I was also able to determine that when you are there and surrounded by those unfamiliar societies and cultures, judgement between that culture and your own seems like just a natural reaction. Ward shows cultural relativism by accepting and understanding the choice of Sohn Alpet to not take the modern medication. Alpet instead decided to continue taking the traditional ancient recipes that his family provided for him. Ward said "If the curing ceremonies had accomplished only an acceptance of death and the loving care of his family, they were worth it" (Ward, 93). Ward came to Pohnpei to "promote the idea of blood pressure and heart disease and sicknesses that cannot be seen" (91), and the reason I view this as cultural relativism is because Ward believed in modern medicine and that it could help and treat the people of Pohnpei, but when it came down to the wishes of her friend she put her personal opinion aside and supported his decision. She realized that just because she believed he should stay near the hospital and take modern medicine doesn't mean that he felt the same

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In Anne Fadiman’s, A Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, there’s a conflicting battle going on between cultures. While it might never be specifically stated, Anne Fadiman attempts to convey a neutral understanding to her readers of the Hmong beliefs and culture alongside of the culture of biomedicine western society is mostly familiar with. While the Hmong beliefs and practices in medicine are taboo to western society, readers gradually see that Hmong medicine is just as equal or more powerful than biomedicine that we’re so familiar with. It’s an important concept to understand in this book is that the doctors are there to treat Lia’s disease, not precisely concerned with Lia as a person. Hmong medicine seems to be more related to in helping

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The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down In the book, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Anne Fadiman explores the cultural collision between the Hmong Lee family and their American doctors. Along with the culture clash, the social stigma against the Hmong family brings to light a lot of the systematic, moral, and ethical issues that can arise in our healthcare. Ultimately, the combination of the cultural clash in medical perspectives, the underlying social stigma, the inadequate treatment, and the miscommunication hindered the proper diagnosis and recovery of led to the demise of the Hmong child. However, many of the problems could have been easily avoided or resolved with more patience, objectivity, and most importantly, cultural competence.

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The case of Lia Lee can be used holistically to showcase the negative effects which a culture and language barrier can produce between doctor and patient. It can reveal how communication and cultural sensitivity can aid in medical practice. Nevertheless, Lia’s case also shows the need for doctors and healthcare practitioners to learn more of about a culture so that treatment may be administered smoothly and without complete comprehension of the patient and their

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CAUCASIAN MOUNTAINS- On January 6th, the popular Titan Prometheus was freed once and for all. After angering Zeus and stealing his beloved flower of fire, Prometheus was sentenced to 200 years of being chained to the Caucasian mountains. “My intentions were not meant to be harmful at all, I only tried to save the men on earth by giving them a chance to protect themselves.” Prometheus finally broke his long overdue silence and spoke in his defence.

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Our moral beliefs indicate the kind of environment or culture we grew up in. Therefore, if we were born in Somalia, we would believe that it is morally right to go through female circumcision as a rite of passage. However, if we grew up in the western world, then we would not believe in female circumcision. We can therefore see the relativist 's argument of cultural relativism in this case, because if cultural relativism exists, then naturally, morality will also be relative. Additionally, to support his stance, the relativist will also argue that tolerance comes into play when it comes to cultural relativism.

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Nevertheless, when immigrating to the U.S. many newcomers find themselves lost the vastness of the contemporary culture this is known as culture shock. Since most people move to the U.S. from developing countries they are not used to the freedoms that America offers. An instance of this is when the speaker of the presentation came emigrated from Israel. At first inclination he found himself enthralled by the independence of Americans. Ironically, he soon became astray when traversing through the subway system.

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Philosophies According to Alligood (2014b), philosophies are specific theories that focus on one or more metaparadigm concepts in a wide spectrum philosophical way (p. 43). For a person to understand philosophies it is required to understand the knowledge type, metaparadigms. Metaparadigm Metaparadigm is the vast perspective of a discipline and a way to describe a concern specifically to a profession or department (Alligood, 2014b, p. 42).

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This is shown in “A Defense of Ethical Relativism” where Ruth Benedict gives examples of different circumstances. However, as shown in the example of the eskimo female newborns and male eskimos those who believe in Cultural Relativism seem to get morals, and cultural distinctions confused. These tribal people have different ways of dealing with their relatives, one being no right than the

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From the moment a child is born, a parent wants nothing more than two things: to protect them from everything and to give them all the opportunities they never had. In the last fifteen years, science has greatly aided their efforts by providing potential parents with a life changing choice- do I want my child to be genetically manufactured? Genetic modifications in an embryo can determine whether or not a child will have blue eyes or be less prone to cardiovascular disease, however this great medical advancement has seen much controversy. Even though genetically modified children represent a great leap in technological advancements, it is largely unethical because people will harm society by introducing new humans that were not intended

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It is an over-optimistic argument as cultural relativism has a more logical way of reasoning, for at least two reasons. First, it reminds us that objective truth does not have a plausible standard in every culture that is peculiar to the society. Furthermore, it shows that every value must be less universal as every society has its own moral code. For example, eating the flesh of our parents is dreadful to a normal person. However, for the Callatian (Blanco, 2013), it is a sign of respect as the person’s spirit will dwell within them.

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Ethnocentrism is a silent problem which many people are not aware of. Some scholars have defined ethnocentrism as “the making of judgements” based on criteria of one’s cultural groups. It is characterized by applying those criteria in judging other behaviors and belief of people who may be from the different cultural backgrounds. Bennett, a founding director and CEO of the Intercultural Development Research Institute (IDR Institute), has defined ethnocentrism as “assuming that the worldview of one’s own culture is central to all reality”. He also suggested that people who has ethnocentric mindset tend to use their own worldview to interpret other’s behavior and that the idea of a “universal truth” is usually based on one’s own value.

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In other words, “right” or “wrong” are culture specific, what is considered moral in one society may be considered immoral in another, and, since no universal standard of morality that exist, no one has the right to judge another societies custom (Ess, 2009). Cultural Relativism is closely related to ethical relativism, which views truth as variable and not absolute. What makes up right and wrong is determined solely by individual or the society (Ess, 2009). Since the truth is not object, there can be no standards which applies to all cultures.

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(Luco, Week 3 Notes, p.9) Cultural Relativism is simply a combination of the following three theses: 1. The only criterion of moral truth or falsehood is the moral code of a cultural group. 2. A moral claim is true, relative to a culture’s moral code, if and only if the claim is generally accepted within that cultural

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Culture Shock-One of Common Problems in Intercultural Communication. Cross-Cultural Communication, 11(8), 71-74. INTRODUCTION Do you think studying in a different country is something that sounds very exciting? Are you like many young people who leave home to study in another country thinking you will have lots of fun?

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Ethnocentrism and its prevalence in U.S culture Ethnocentrism is judging another culture solely by the values and standards of one’s own culture. Individuals who are ethnocentric judge other groups in relation to their own ethnic group or culture. I think The United States likes to refer to themselves as the “big mixing pot” of cultures. I would agree, we do have a wide range of different cultures, but that does not mean that we do not “evaluate and judge other cultures based on how they compare to our own cultural norms.” I think us as Americans feel this way, because we are too scared to change what we have learned and known since birth.

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