People of different societies have different cultures, there are more differences than commonalities in cultures. Every culture has its own language, study of specific language structure, and manners of communication or conversation. In Middle Eastern countries people keep little distance during conversation and they usually speak very loud, on the other hand in North American countries people maintain distance during conversation. Even cuisine vary from culture to culture. Inhabitant of china eat dogs, it might not be acceptable as a cuisine in other cultures. People of America eat pig meat very often on the other hand it is despised in all the Muslim countries. In Pakistan people eat the meat of cow however, in India cow is considered sacred and cows are prohibited to eat. According William Sumner, considering your own culture better or superior than other culture is known as ethnocentrism.

Some tourist feel proud for trying other than their own cultural food, while other get disgust by other culture cuisine, and return to home thanking their native culture. For example, many cultures consider eating dog meat as uncivilized, but for people of china dog meat is considered as fine cuisine. So being judgmental towards other culture and considering your own culture better than other culture is considered as ethnocentric.

Appreciating one’s own culture is healthy, it increases solidarity among the members of community or society. However, despising other culture might lead to conflict. In 16th century European colonial expansion begin, they viewed the invaded people as savages and uncivilized, who need to be governed by civilized nation. For example, British ruled over India for almost one century for the very same reason, sociologist refer to such phenomenon as cultural imperialism, which come under the category of ethnocentrism. British considered India native culture as uncivilized and imposed their own culture on them, which resulted in revolts and campaigns for independence.

BY Khushdil Khan Kasi

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