Ethnocentrism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Ethnocentrism - Essay Example hropologists agree, likes to make premature judgments about other cultures and consequently brings false assumptions into his dealings with other cultural groups. In international relations, as a result, innumerable conflicts have broken out in the name of ethnocentrism. Constructive resolution of such conflicts between social groups have proven intractable in most cases because of one group’s lack of understanding of the other’s cultural uniqueness. One of the earlier names of ethnocentrism is colonialism, in which one culture sought to â€Å"civilize† and â€Å"develop† another. As was often the case, the social group placed under the gun of colonialism had its own concept of â€Å"civilization† and â€Å"development† which was quite different. Conflicts inevitably occurred. â€Å"When people are denied the legitimacy of their own life goal,† notes anthropologist Ken Barger, â€Å"they turn to radical means outside accepted practice.† Thus, we witnessed the bloody revolutions in colonized nations against colonizers that eventually led to global de-colonization starting in the 1950s, to coincide with the growth and acceptance of the United Nations. Colonialism is actually one of the three extreme forms of ethnocentrism, the other two being racism and ethnic cleansing. The latter gave rise to the most notorious ethnocentric of all time, Hitler, who sought to annihilate the Jews in favor of the â€Å"pure’ Aryan race and in the process triggered World War I. The belief that any culture represents the pinnacle of human achievement, which certainly possessed Hitler, is cultural arrogance of the worst form, a gross misreading of history and anthropology. Evidence of the evils wrought by ethnocentrism is all over the globe in modern times. On top of this is the mutual ethnocentric attitude between the Islamic world and the capitalist societies represented by the United States which now more than ever threatens to divide the planet. The Islamic societies