Brushing Away Bias In his article "Body Ritual Among the Nacirema" Horace Miner analyzes the exotic practices of the tribal society Nacirema, developing an intricate persuasive social commentary on the prevalence and effects of cultural prejudices and ethnocentrism on the sociological imagination. In addition to utilizing kairos, ethos, pathos and logos to exhibit that language shapes perspectives generated by cultural relativism. By writing from a different cultural perspective in a traditional manner of an anthropological study, Miner attempts to divulge the consequences of stereotypical American viewpoints on humanity’s ability to see from the outside in and bestow upon the reader a broader understanding of one’s own ethnocentric judgments
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This is consistent with the kairos of Miner’s essay that emerged during the late 1900s in which Europeans focused on the colonization of primitive countries such as Africa specifically the Congo as described in Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness. Similarly, Miner underscores one of the larger controversies with cultural relativism: moral relativism, expressing that norms or mores, such as teeth brushing that a large majority of cultures practice, are not always performed in the same manner as in the United States nor with the same purposes. While these differences should be respected by all individuals cultural relativism does not mean adopting others beliefs or abandoning one’s own rather just practicing value neutrality. Moreover, different cultures often appear exotic or strange as established in the opening sentence that creates ethos, specifically when described by individuals from different cultures or with unique linguistic articulations (argot), however, brushing away the “plague” we often see resemblance to our own “holes” (shortcomings), “fillings” (traditions), and “gums” (foundational concepts). As John Hume and Malcolm Forbes concluded, in parallel to Miner’s sociological article, “Difference is of the essence of humanity, […]it is the art of thinking independently together, the answer to difference is to respect it,” and without cultural relativism to discredit ethnocentrism, societies would develop “gingivitis”(social alienation) resulting in a loss of perception of varying cultures, one’s own culture and relationships to the external
This is consistent with the kairos of Miner’s essay that emerged during the late 1900s in which Europeans focused on the colonization of primitive countries such as Africa specifically the Congo as described in Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness. Similarly, Miner underscores one of the larger controversies with cultural relativism: moral relativism, expressing that norms or mores, such as teeth brushing that a large majority of cultures practice, are not always performed in the same manner as in the United States nor with the same purposes. While these differences should be respected by all individuals cultural relativism does not mean adopting others beliefs or abandoning one’s own rather just practicing value neutrality. Moreover, different cultures often appear exotic or strange as established in the opening sentence that creates ethos, specifically when described by individuals from different cultures or with unique linguistic articulations (argot), however, brushing away the “plague” we often see resemblance to our own “holes” (shortcomings), “fillings” (traditions), and “gums” (foundational concepts). As John Hume and Malcolm Forbes concluded, in parallel to Miner’s sociological article, “Difference is of the essence of humanity, […]it is the art of thinking independently together, the answer to difference is to respect it,” and without cultural relativism to discredit ethnocentrism, societies would develop “gingivitis”(social alienation) resulting in a loss of perception of varying cultures, one’s own culture and relationships to the external