Ethnocentrism In American Culture Essay

Yes, Americans are more ethnocentric than other western industrialized countries. This can largely be attributed to the sense that they are the superpowers in different areas of the economy and military power. As a result, they tend to believe they have the final say and that their cultures are predominant and cannot be challenged or compared to any other. According to Linton (1937), Americans have borrowed a lot from other nations especially from the Asia continent. However, while most of their culture is borrowed from other western cultures, it is them that modifies and make their inherited culture more dominant and accepted. It is through their ingenuity of modification and improvement that makes them feel superior to other countries. Moreover, …show more content…
The ways in which it does this is by upholding the authenticity and the true value of American culture. When societies such as that of America know how superior they are and dominant, it gives them the notion that they can achieve greater heights. In other words, it builds confidence in whatever they do as they know they are superior to others. This is evident in Olympics and other competition that involve other western countries. This creates positivisms in the culture which is an essential aspect of a properly functioning society. The answer to the question of how much ethnocentrism is too much is that it is too much when they start viewing other cultures to be less important than theirs. This could result in problems such as reduced diversity. The ethnocentric culture will fail to accept other people cultures and thus bring about racism and discrimination. As a result, there can be a crisis especially an economic crisis whereby other nation will cease doing trade with the ethnocentrism country. This will make everything collapse in the mainstream which is bad for a country economy. Therefore, although ethnocentrism is good for positivism, it should be practiced with caution as too much of it can spell