What is Ethnocentrism

The following is excerpted from Personal Transformations: The Process of Multicultural Awareness/Consciousness by Joseph McNair, 1998)

Study Notes

Ethnocentrism  as defined by Haviland is

 “the belief that one’s  own culture is superior in every way to all others” (Haviland, 1991/2001)

  It is a belief validated by the culture’s own criteria for superiority. Even when cultures or individual members of cultures assimilate “foreign” objects, practices or ideas, the outgroup origins of the same are de-emphasized and quickly and conveniently forgotten.

Garcia (1991) in a much more comprehensive definition places ethnocentrism on a continuum  that ranges from cultural degradation to cultural pride to cultural chauvinism, with cultural chauvinism being the extreme aspect of ethnocentrism cited in the Haviland definition. Cultural degradation, the other extreme, is a “reaction  or a defense mechanism to cultural chauvinism” (Garcia, 1991, p. 104).

Cultural pride, also an aspect  of ethnocentrism,  is

an important state from which can emerge such positives as self-esteem, group  identity, group solidarity, and  group cohesion.

  Before pursuing a discussion of ethnocentrism it is necessary to define several types  of “society,” ethnic groups or microcultures as well as make some distinctions between different types of societies and their respective cultures, microcultures and subcultures.

  Society can be defined as

A group of people occupying a specific locality, who are dependent on each other for survival and who share a common culture (Haviland p. 280).

  Culture is a fundamental element of any  society. It is

  the body of beliefs, values and attitudes which define the relationships  [family, region, social, political, economic, legal etc.] which hold a society together (social structure), and gives the society a group identity.

Some societies are homogenous with very little variation in the standards held by its various subgroups and in exhibited behavior patterns which accord with common cultural prescriptions. Other societies have a marked degree of variation in the standards and behaviors of some of their subgroups. These societies are called pluralistic societies.

MACROCULTURE

A distinctive feature of pluralistic societies is the presence of a macroculture and one or more microcultures.  A macroculture according to Bennett is 

 . . . the predominant culture in a given society which determines formal institutions, official language, social values and other aspects  of  life (Bennett, 1990,  p. 39).

The term predominant culture refers to the  

culture emanating from a societal subgroup or subgroups which by virtue of size or power relationships has been able to exert the most influence on the society.  

Such influence includes determining and sustaining the “official” language, beliefs, values, attitudes, customs, traditions and the form and function of that society’s formal or legal institutions. Contemporary society in the United States of America is a pluralistic society. The forty-eight contiguous states, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam and other protectorates, contain several different major  ethnic, regional, religious, and linguistic subcultural groups and hundreds of minor subcultural groups. 

There is a predominant culture in the United States of America which may be described as the macroculture or the “national” culture.

  THE AMERICAN CREED

Ricardo Garcia aptly describes the core cultural premises of the American macroculture in a discussion of American more s:

The central mores of the American culture are individualism and equality.  Both are crucial to the culture’s testament of faith, what can be called the American Creed.  At the core of the Creed is the belief that capitalism  is inviolably and absolutely good—the greatest  good comes to the greatest number of people when persons pursue their individual economic self-interests . . . The Creed is a faith that all citizens can prosper . . .

The Creed contains a presumption of human equality,  a feeling intertwined with general Christian notions which holds that all people are brothers and sisters under the skin, that all peoples are equal in the eyes of the law . . . (Garcia, 1991, pp. 16–17).

 In using the term central mores, Garcia is referring to the core beliefs, values and attitudes which  make  up the American macroculture.

Norms,  the “rules” which regulate characteristic cultural behavior, are derived from its long-standing customs and traditions. 

 America’s macrocultural norms are reflected in the laws which govern the land, in the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Indepe ndenc e.

  Both the mores and norms of the American macroculture are rooted in Anglo-European cultural thought, customary behavior and traditions.   

 “Peculiarly” American ideas about individualism, freedom and equality are derived from the works of John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau among other European thinkers.  The  common language of America, i.e., the language of business, commerce, education, law and government, is a variant of British English. 

The educational system is adapted from various European models.  The legal system is adapted from English common law and the governmental structure and processes from the English parliamentary system.

The majority of Americans today are at least nominally Christian.  A significant number of these same Americans believe that America is a “Christian” country.  History contradicts this notion. 

The Lockian notions of natural rights which include religious freedom coupled with the reality of the extant religious pluralism of the time advised  the founding fathers against adopting a state religion.

They adopted, instead, a European humanism that resembled somewhat the moral values exhorted in common by most of the established religions, but was based upon secular ideas. Garcia submits:

 The First Amendment separated church and state, resulting in the formation of a secular government. The new nation would be governed by broad-based, humanistic morals and ethics—European concepts such as natural rights and social contracts  . . .  (p.  20).

Even the system of morality embedded in the American macroculture is not based upon the Judeo-Christian ethic as some would have us  believe. The  morals and ethics of the American macroculture  derive from European secular humanism.

From the Anglo-European settlers in the first colonial societies in America emerged the predominant mores and norms, tempered in the crucible of the “new world” experience.,  These  became major components of the American macroculture. 

But the celebrated “American character” seems to be made up of much more than the Anglo-European  ethos and  is  much more  than a product of Anglo-European cultural thought.

 A society’s macroculture, while predominant with respect to language and formal institutions, can like any culture be influenced, altered or profoundly changed by various kinds of contact with other cultures.

While some members of the predominant culture of a given society have a tendency to believe their  culture to be superior and will go to considerable lengths to keep it from being “tainted” by foreign or deviant elements, even dominant cultures are influenced by other cultures.

 CULTURAL DIFFUSION

Conrad Kottack asserts that any two cultures can share experiences and means of adaptation through the process of cultural diffusion, which may be realized through direct or indirect methods.

 Diffusion is direct when two cultures intermarry, wage war, or trade with each other or when they watch the same TV program. Diffusion is indirect when products and patterns move from  population A to population C via population B without any firsthand contact between A and C. (Kottack, 1991/2001)

Ever since humans began to form groups and cultures, they have had contact with other groups and cultures. The resulting cultural diffusion has liberally borrowed and assimilated into these cultures those objects, practices and ideas useful to cultural purpose and in making adaptive adjustment to environmental stresses. 

With respect to intrasocietal diffusion, particularly in the Unided States of America, the impact on American macroculture of worldwide cuisine, or African American, Hispanic American or Asian American nonstandard speech, or African, Afro-Hispanic, Asian and /or indigenous images and rhythms is so obvious it almost goes unseen or unconsidered.  Think for a moment about the pervasiveness of Chinese medicines and medical practices, or Japanese and Taiwanese manufacture.  Or the proliferation of  African, Arabic, Hindu, Chinese, Japanese, and Native American religion, philosophy, art, martial arts or magic, or the growing numbers of people of color and women in the workforce, in the professional and management class?

When  people  from one culture or subculture enter and reside in a specific locality occupied by people of another culture, cultural diffusion can and usually does occur.

The process of entering and establishing one’s group in a locality occupied by others has a variety of names ranging from invasion to immigration.

  The American cultural experience has been relatively free from invasion (perhaps the Native American has a different perspective) but immigration has been a major factor in the growth and development of America.  

 Immigration, voluntary and involuntary e.g., slavery, has in the course of history checkered American society with a significant number of ethnicities or microcultures.

ETHNICITY OR MICROCULTURE

The term ethnic group or microculture  is defined by Bennett (1990) as

 “a group of people within a larger society that is socially distinguished  or set apart, by others and/or by itself, primarily on the basis of racial and/or cultural characteristics . . . ” (Bennett, 1990, p. 39).

Garcia expands on this definition by suggesting that an ethnic group or microculture is “cohered by a sense of peoplehood.” He asserts that

  . . .  the sense of peoplehood, a subjective, emotional feeling or condition, is embodied in such factors as:

1.  shared symbols, customs and traditions,

2.  common racial or kinship ties,

3.  shared religion, folklore, myths,

4.  common language, and

5.  common geographic or national origin

(Garcia, 1991, p. 78).

In pluralistic societies, the various groups compete for predominance, e.g., to control society’s resources or allocations of value. 

  Pluralistic societies are societies with  many microcultures or a marked degree of subcultural variation (reflecting standards and behaviors distinctly different from those prescribed in the general culture).

Certain groups find themselves advantaged over other groups. This means that certain groups enjoy disproportionately  greater  amounts  of power,  privilege, prestige and personal freedom. The same are disproportionately influential over the general society.

The beliefs, values, attitudes,  ideologies, customs and traditions of these groups are given official sanction in the macroculture or “national” culture at the expense of those of other groups.  They are represented as superior as in “haute couture,”  “haute cuisine” or other pretensions  (hauteur) of superiority.

Garcia comments on an interesting transactional relationship between individual members of ethnic groups (and/or regional and religious microcultures) in the United States and the macroculture:

 The U.S. society is a cluster of human and legal communities cohered by a national culture and a pervasive ethos, the “American Creed.”  The “Creed” is a testament of faith that individual free enterprise coupled with equality  under the law  is the archetypal American communal ideology based as it is on humanistic beliefs and natural rights.  To determine a social identity, to answer the basic question “what is my role in society?”  . . . (the individual) . . . is given broad guidelines  by the Creed.  One  must  turn  to more  specific value and belief systems like those rooted in the home, the school, and the local community.  Then one must reconcile the more specific value or belief systems with the broad-based beliefs of the Creed .

In  American society, U.S. citizens have an  American nationality, a more specific group  affiliation(s)—ethnic, racial, religious, or social class group—a localized self-concept, and a specific occupational identity (p. 37).

Members of microcultures and subcultural groups in America are especially challenged to make their value and belief systems and resultant behaviors consistent with the norms and mores of the macroculture. 

There are often conflicts between the beliefs,  values, attitudes and behaviors of specific ethnicities, religious groups, social classes, age and linguistic groups, and the American ideal.  There are intergenerational conflicts within families and groups regarding which values, beliefs or behaviors are important  and/or what makes one  more “American.” 

Since the belief and value systems of the American macroculture are broad-based, consistency between those systems and ones specific to microcultures and subcultural groups is often a matter of interpretation. For example, the belief ensconced in the words

  We  hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal . . . 

did not apply in practice to people of African descent, specifically, and people of color, generally, or women, for that matter. In practice, “all men” was interpreted as all European or “white” men who as such, were the only ones “endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights.”

Individuals (males) in certain social classes within dominant Anglo-European cultural groups determined how the mores (beliefs and values) and  norms (laws or codes of behavior) of the macroculture were to be interpreted.  These interpretations were eventually  reflected in the establishment  of a common (not official) language  and  in the curricula of the nation’s schools.

  To belong to a microculture other than Anglo-European meant to a greater or lesser degree a limited participation in the American dream or exclusion from it altogether.  Even if one was culturally  European, “Americanization” initiatives invariably pressured  one to speak English and act “American.”

Industrialization, the standardization of American English and the establishment of “universal” public education were major factors in setting  in  place the American macroculture.

Industrialization, capitalized by Anglo-European money, brought Americans from different ethnic groups to the urban centers for work.  According to Garcia:

People were concentrated in large, urban areas; they often lived in their own ethnic enclaves where they could maintain a semblance of their former cultures, but the workplace, government and education all required a standardized language and a common culture to cohere the ethnic and cultural diversity into a united whole (p. 38).

  The urban workplace required if not basic literacy, then at least a common language for efficient and effective operation.  That common language as determined by Anglo-Europeans was “standardized” American English (p. 38).  Teaching  this common language (and through  it a common culture) required making a certain amount of education  mandatory  for all citizens.  That  education  became known as  universal public education.

  Public education was the principal agency for establishing an  American “lingua franca,” for transmitting sanctioned  cultural thought and facilitating social mobility.  In addition to providing students with a common, standardized language,

  public education  presented a national history with its “model” heroic figures, “just” causes, traditions, holidays and “manifest destiny”;  “American” beliefs and values; and enabling technologies.

Education became tied to employment and thus to upward social mobility.  A “good” job was essential to providing well for oneself and family.  To get a good job, one had to get a good education.  In the process of getting that education, one was exposed to the customs, traditions and language which made one essentially “American.”

The  American  macroculture  unlike most traditional cultures was and is a literate rather than  an oral culture, that is, its customs, traditions and language are transmitted by and large through reading and writing and telecommunication media

This is distinct from microcultures where customs, traditions and language are preserved and passed on for the most part by an oral tradition. 

  The American macroculture is transmitted through its schools, its legal and governmental processes, and its business and commercial practices.

Communal  ideologies  are the mores and norms that enable an individual to live in and understand his or her role in a particular community.  These develop from the cultural thought and characteristic cultural behavior of microcultures.

Microcultural mores  and norms  either mirror (to a greater or lesser extent) the core beliefs and values of the macroculture or are in direct conflict with them.

CULTURAL CHAUVINISM

Individuals and institutions based in particular communities and regions of a given country often interpret or reinterpret macrocultural mores and norms to fit their own particular communal ideology. 

As mentioned earlier,  Africans in the United States were excluded from the definition of “man” and therefore not afforded the natural rights and equality under the law enjoyed by most European “men.” 

Most individuals in European communities did not feel compelled to treat people of African descent as equals (or even as human).  As such, they oppressed them by individual acts (of commission and omission) and by institutional policy and practice.

The same may be said of European treatment of  Native Americans,  Hispanics, Asians, Jews  and women in varying degrees. 

The justification for their discriminatory or oppressive practices was rooted in notions of their racial and cultural superiority. The Dred Scott Decision (1857), the Brown vs. the Board of Education (1954), the various Civil Rights legislations, just to name a few, are examples of legal milestones marking the American macroculture’s developmental struggle to confront its ethnocentrism, racism, sexism and heterosexism, etc., and afford equal rights to all people.

CULTURAL DEGRADATION

Individuals in cultural groups who have experienced individual and institutional discrimination/oppression based upon “race,” religion, ethnicity, or gender, etc., may feel that their racial/religious, ethnic and gender  heritages, or sexual orientations  are  inadequate, perverse  or inferior. Individuals in cultural groups who have persistent or  unassimilatable differences may feel that those differences make them inferior. The same may be said of individuals in cultural groups who have distinct customs,practices and traditions which may have caused them to be victimized.

 They may derive from their perceived experience of victimization impaired self-concepts and low self-esteem leading to self-hatred. Their communal ideologies take on a defensive or “siege” character. Individuals from these cultural groups may look  at discriminating outgroups as the “enemy” or “oppressors.”  

 They may develop a range of attitudes including hostility and intolerance towards members of outgroups, members of their own group, a sense of their own futility and/or an inverted sense of their own cultural superiority.                 

Their behaviors when in contact with discriminating outgroups may range from strategies of  conformity to the expectations of those outgroups to overt acts of hostility and violence.

 It is far more difficult for these individuals to reconcile  their  group identity, cultural thought and customary behavior with that of the macroculture.

As a result, they may experience what Garcia refers to as cultural degradation. 

CULTURAL PRIDE

Individuals from certain cultural groups are taught by their communal ideologies to take satisfaction in, to be proud of their racial/religious, ethnic and gender heritages, their microcultural customs and traditions. They derive from these heritages, customs and traditions a significant amount of self-esteem, group identity, group solidarity and group cohesion.

 The extent to which  they  are able to access society’s  privileges and advantages is directly related to their ability to “match” microcultural group identity, microcultural thought and customary behavior to macrocultural mores and norms or influence those mores and norms.

 These individuals are capable of negotiating the “divide” between microculture and macroculture with relative ease.

 Pride in one’s culture, as long as it does not degenerate into feelings of cultural superiority and/or provoke, condone or acquiesce to discriminatory or oppressive practices, is essential to the development of self-esteem, group identity, cohesion and solidarity. 

 Self-esteem, group identity, group cohesion and group solidarity are important states in initiating healthy participatory political action and social reform. The same can impact in several positive ways on an oppressive or ethnocentric macroculture.

Self-esteem, group identity, group cohesion and group solidarity can enable a particular group to bring about progressive political change.  They can enable the elevation  of microcultural thought, custom and behavior to the status of macrocultural mores and norms.

 BEYOND ETHNOCENTRISM  

Here the reader is advised that attaining multicultural awareness/consciousness, does not automatically expurgate any of one’s own prejudice, ethnocentric or otherwise.  What it actually  does  is make one aware and/or conscious of one’s own prejudice in its many behavioral manifestations, and that of others.

 It predisposes one to examine personal beliefs, values, attitudes and behaviors as well as the worldview  from which they spring. It predisposes one  to test the same for their consistency, veracity and utility in one’s own life.

 It predisposes one to examine the beliefs, values, attitudes, behaviors and worldviews of others from the point of view of an “insider.”   It challenges one to learn all that s/he can about others, either first hand or from authentic and reliable authoritative sources.

 Multicultural awareness/consciousness involves learning to:

1.  combat  in oneself and others prejudice  based  on ethnicity, “race,” language, religion, political affiliation, status group, ability or disability, sexual orientation, age, interests or education and the resulting “isms” defined by the discriminatory behaviors that emerge from them;

2.  first reduce and then eliminate the tendency  in  oneself and others to infer  or draw  immutable conclusions without sufficient information.

3. resist the tendency in oneself to generalize without adequate experience; 

4. proscribe the tendency in oneself to conform without thoughtful consideration of  the rightness, goodness, justice and/ or veracity of authority or cultural prescription.