The article Body Ritual among the Nacirema by Horace Miner is about culture and rituals. Culture is defined as “a system of ideas, values, beliefs, knowledge, norms, customs, and technology shared by almost everyone in a particular society” (Basirico, Cashion, and Eshleman 99). In other words, it’s a way of life in society or a specific geographical area. According to the author, Nacirema is between the Canadian Cree, the Yaqui, and Tarahumare of Mexico, which offer the readers some insight of the true meaning of the text. However, at first glance, the reading seems to be describing a distinct culture, something that I’ve never heard of or encountered before. As I kept on reading, I realized that it’s really about America. The writing is written
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In relation to sociology, every society form rituals and ceremonies based on the beliefs. This is clearly portrayed in the writing as the Nacirema society focuses on the human body, appearance, and health, which resulted to the body rituals they perform every day. For instance, they see the ‘holy-mouth-men’ and perform rituals such as using a small bundle of hog hairs and scraping the face. Although this may seem normal to Americans, it isn’t for some culture. Being born outside of America, I could stand attest of this statement. For example, when Miner mentions the whole idea of the mouth, I was nodding in agreement, because where I’m from, we don’t go to dentists once a year, we only go to dentists if we have a serious dental problem. Another concept that Miner mentions is the medicine cabinet or the shrine with the magical materials where the body rituals are held. Once again, this is also something that I have noticed when I came to America because houses rarely have medicine cabinets or even have as much medicine as a regular American have in their house. All of this proves the point of the author. Talking about American culture in terms that are foreign to Americans, makes us really think about our society. We spend so much time in our culture, not being exposed to others that we take things for granted often times. For these reasons, people experience culture shock and sometimes even …show more content…
It is enlightening yet very entertaining. I did not find any grammatical errors, but the order of the writing could be improve. It was accurate with a clear message that was successfully delivered. It also did a great job in demonstrating the different sociological concepts. In addition, I think it would be really interesting to see a writing about the other aspects of the lives of American’s, such as dating, finding a career, or even the everyday life of an American. I think seeing one’s own culture in the eyes of an outsider really does put things in perspective, which was the whole idea of the
In relation to sociology, every society form rituals and ceremonies based on the beliefs. This is clearly portrayed in the writing as the Nacirema society focuses on the human body, appearance, and health, which resulted to the body rituals they perform every day. For instance, they see the ‘holy-mouth-men’ and perform rituals such as using a small bundle of hog hairs and scraping the face. Although this may seem normal to Americans, it isn’t for some culture. Being born outside of America, I could stand attest of this statement. For example, when Miner mentions the whole idea of the mouth, I was nodding in agreement, because where I’m from, we don’t go to dentists once a year, we only go to dentists if we have a serious dental problem. Another concept that Miner mentions is the medicine cabinet or the shrine with the magical materials where the body rituals are held. Once again, this is also something that I have noticed when I came to America because houses rarely have medicine cabinets or even have as much medicine as a regular American have in their house. All of this proves the point of the author. Talking about American culture in terms that are foreign to Americans, makes us really think about our society. We spend so much time in our culture, not being exposed to others that we take things for granted often times. For these reasons, people experience culture shock and sometimes even …show more content…
It is enlightening yet very entertaining. I did not find any grammatical errors, but the order of the writing could be improve. It was accurate with a clear message that was successfully delivered. It also did a great job in demonstrating the different sociological concepts. In addition, I think it would be really interesting to see a writing about the other aspects of the lives of American’s, such as dating, finding a career, or even the everyday life of an American. I think seeing one’s own culture in the eyes of an outsider really does put things in perspective, which was the whole idea of the