What’s Wrong with Ethnocentrism?

To return once more to the topic of ethnocentrism (i.e., seeing and experiencing and interacting with the world from the perspective of your own culture / your own frame of reference, without an understanding of the different cultures of others, or the ability to enter into their frame of reference and experience), I would like to ask whether ethnocentrism is compatible with faith, and if not, what’s wrong with it?

Here are some of the characteristics of ethnocentrism, with reference to the stages of Bennett’s “Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity”*:

(Denial)

• lack of awareness of cultural difference
• lack of interest in cultural difference
• inability to distinguish cultural difference (e.g., thinking of “Africans” or “Asians” or even “foreigners” as a broad category without internal differentiation)
• isolation or intentional separation from different others

(Defense)

• lack of understanding of cultural difference or others who are different
• a negative experience of difference, and reaction against it – feeling threatened by difference
• one’s own culture experienced as the only viable one
• polarization (“us” / “them”)
• generalizing and positively stereotyping one’s own people and culture
• generalizing and negatively stereotyping other peoples and cultures
• prejudice, denigration, possibly animosity, toward those who are different
• in the extreme, dehumanizing and/or demonizing others

(Minimization)

• trivializing difference, acting as if people are basically the same (i.e., as if others are basically the same as ourselves)
• thus, not relating to others as they truly are, in their uniqueness or fullness
• lack of cultural self-awareness
• generalizing from one’s own experience, principles, practices, to others – assuming that what “works for us” is universal, relevant and applicable anywhere and everywhere and to everyone
• those in a dominant or majority group not being aware of how racial minorities experience race relations, men not being aware of how women experience gender issues, etc.
• assuming we have “the answers” for everyone, not being aware that the questions that others are asking, may be different than our questions

In sum, ethnocentrism is a form of self-centeredness, on a group and cultural level. It ranges from ignorance through defensiveness to a somewhat benign assumption of similarity, but in all cases, one cannot know and relate to others as they are, from any point on the spectrum of ethnocentrism.

There are many reasons why someone might decide that it would be best not to stay in an ethnocentric state.

From a faith perspective, I would argue that ethnocentrism, while “natural” to people, is not compatible with living according to the example and teachings of Jesus.

Take Jesus’ central teachings, to “love our neighbor as ourselves,” and to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” As a starting point, it would seem that these commands would necessitate having an interest in knowing others and relating to them. And both “loving” and “doing unto others” would seem to clearly imply not looking down on them, negatively stereotyping, being biased against, or despising them. Thus, it seems obvious from the beginning that the “denial” and “defense” stages of ethnocentrism do not square with Jesus’ teaching.

To go deeper, in the broader context of the teachings of the New Testament one might define love as encompassing many other relational teachings, e.g., the exhortations to accept one another and to honor one another. To take just those two, it would seem obvious that a depth of accepting and honoring another person requires knowing that person as they are. The more fully I know someone, the more deeply I will be able to (learn to) accept or honor them. And this would be true of the “do unto others” command, which is really a way of summarizing what it means to love someone – what I want of others is that they understand me as I am, and accept and otherwise relate to me as I am, not according to an inadequate or distorted image of me.

It doesn’t take much empathy to imagine that for a person of color, having a white person treat you as if you are the same as them, without any understanding of your personal or group experience of discrimination, etc., is not loving (or even tolerable); or for a woman, to have men blithely proclaim that “we have no problem with gender issues here,” without ever listening to your experience or perspective on the matter, falls short of a positive or even acceptable relationship (to say the least). And anyone who has been on the receiving end of some other person or group coming in with the (“universal”) answers to what they perceive to be your need or problem, knows how obnoxious that approach is. Therefore, “minimization” also falls short of relating well to other people, and thus, to living according to the teachings and example of Jesus.

Ethnocentrism, in one way or another, in one form or another, is at the heart of many of the problems which exist between groups of people in the world today (and throughout history). It seems clear to me, as a follower of Jesus, that living up to the ideals and standards of our faith should lead us to reject, and seek to identify and grow beyond, ethnocentrism in all of its manifestations.

Coming soon: Beyond Ethnocentrism…

* For more details on each of these stages, see:

http://contextualliving.blogspot.com/2011/02/loving-our-neighbor-insights-from.html

http://contextualliving.blogspot.com/2011/02/how-ethnocentrism-hinders-love-of.html

http://contextualliving.blogspot.com/2011/03/how-ethnocentrism-hinders-love-of.html

For full treatment of Bennett’s model, see

Bennett, Milton J., “Towards Ethnorelativism: A Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity.” In Paige, R.M. (Ed). (1993) Education for the Intercultural Experience (2^nd ed., p. 21-71). Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press.

Bennett, Milton J., “Becoming Interculturally Competent.”  In Wurzel, Jaime S., ed., Toward multiculturalism: A reader in multicultural education (2nd ed., pp. 62-77). Newton, MA: Intercultural Resource Corporation, 2004.

How ethnocentrism hinders love of neighbor (part II) - defense

The second stage in Bennett’s model of intercultural sensitivity is defense.  As someone moves from a lack of awareness of difference (the denial stage, see http://contextualliving.blogspot.com/2011/02/loving-our-neighbor-insights-from.html) into more contact with cultural difference, the initial experience and reaction is often negative.  Differences, at this stage, are perceived as threatening to one’s sense of reality and to one’s identity, and a common reaction is to try to preserve the absoluteness of one’s worldview, in the fact of the growing awareness of difference.

Defense is characterized by polarization (“us” vs. “them”), and by a positive stereotyping of one’s own culture and identity, and a negative stereotyping of the other. Bennett refers to the negative view of the other as denigration – negative stereotyping based on race, religion, age, gender, or any other assumed indicator of difference. He refers to the positive sense of self as superiority – positive evaluation of one’s own status, with the idea that everything has evolved and will evolve in our direction (the sense of ourselves as “civilized,” etc.).

Note that defense is the predominant orientation of nation-building and nationalism. And that it deepens in times of conflict between peoples, e.g., the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the conflict between Bosnians, Serbs and Croatians in the former Yugoslavia, between Muslims and Christians post-9/11, etc. (I remember my shock, the first time I returned to the U.S. post-9/11, to see Christmas light decorations in the shape and colors of the American flag, and all the “God bless America” bumper stickers everywhere.)

Note also that at the defense stage, the "knowledge" of the other is shallow and superficial. There is an Arab proverb, "he who is ignorant of something, is its enemy." We can most easily negatively stereotype and believe the worst about others, when we do not know them, when we do not have personal relationship with them. Most of the Americans that I know, that are most suspicious of Muslims and of Islam, do not have friendships, or even basic relationships, with Muslims.

Bennett notes a variation on the polarization of the defense stage, which he refers to as reversal – the denigration of one’s own culture, and assumption of the superiority of a different culture. Although this may look more positive toward another culture than defense normally does, it is “only changing the center of ethnocentrism.” Reversal is common for people who go abroad and begin adapting to another culture, like Peace Corps volunteers. It can also occur for anyone who gets involved with another group of people and takes up “their cause.”

It is probably fairly self-evident why and how being at the defense stage, hinders love of neighbor. Again, love of neighbor requires relationship, building something positive together, coexistence. A sense of one’s own superiority, while denigrating the different other, is a serious roadblock to loving one’s neighbor. Whether it is Israeli Jews thinking of Palestinians as “dirty Arabs,” “terrorists,” etc., or Americans wondering “what’s wrong with those Muslims, that they are always so violent,” the negative stereotyping of others – especially in situations of conflict, in which love of neighbor is most necessary –  makes it hard to move in that direction.

In fact, defense actually embodies hatred of our neighbor, pushing them away, disrespecting and mistreating, etc.  The danger, if we continue on the “downward” slide of defense, is that we will end up at the point of villainization and dehumanization of the other. The end of this ugly road is the possibility of doing anything to the other, including ethnic cleansing and extermination, with no twinge of conscience. And obviously, this is not the road of loving one’s neighbor.

     

Why did Jesus use the Samaritan as the example of love of neighbor, when asked “who is my neighbor?” He chose the example of the people whom the Jews at that time had the worst relationship with, characterized by superiority, denigration, and avoidance; characterized, in fact, by hatred. And Jesus’ point was that those that they most disliked, are the ones that they must learn to love, if they are to fulfill God’s command to love their neighbor.

We cannot live in a state of feeling threatened by those who are different from us, and fulfill Jesus’ command to love our neighbor. We cannot allow ourselves to dwell in “us” / “them” thinking, where we are always criticizing “those people,” and love our neighbor. We cannot take pride in our own superiority, and denigrate those different others, and love our neighbor. And most obviously, we cannot embrace the demonization and dehumanization of others, and love our neighbor.

If we want to fulfill Jesus’ command to love our neighbor, we must move beyond the ethnocentric stage of defense.

(Coming next: how minimization hinders love of neighbor)

*For full treatment of Bennett’s model, see

Bennett, Milton J., “Towards Ethnorelativism: A Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity.” In Paige, R.M. (Ed). (1993) Education for the Intercultural Experience (2^nd ed., p. 21-71). Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press.

Bennett, Milton J., “Becoming Interculturally Competent.”  In Wurzel, Jaime S., ed., Toward multiculturalism: A reader in multicultural education (2nd ed., pp. 62-77). Newton, MA: Intercultural Resource Corporation, 2004.

Can People of Faith Rise Above Tribalism? Reflections on the occasion of the remembrance of 9/11

(I meant to post this on 9/11, but my computer crashed, and I only now regained access to my documents.)

In another post on the site “Not the Religious Type,” the author refers to a recent NY Times editorial by Stanley Fish (see http://notreligious.typepad.com/notreligious/2010/09/their-kooks-are-representative-our-kooks-are-lone-nuts.html#more and http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/30/weve-seen-this-movie-before/?pagemode=print). In his editorial, Fish points out the double standard used to discuss violent acts by or against members of a religious community, and concludes the following:

“The formula is simple and foolproof (although those who deploy it so facilely seem to think we are all fools): If the bad act is committed by a member of a group you wish to demonize, attribute it to a community or a religion and not to the individual. But if the bad act is committed by someone whose profile, interests and agendas are uncomfortably close to your own, detach the malefactor from everything that is going on or is in the air (he came from nowhere) and characterize him as a one-off, non-generalizable, sui generis phenomenon.”

What is going on here, I think, is something which we humans easily and naturally slip into, a kind of tribalism whereby we assume the best of those who are part of our people, and read their actions in light of our own best values (and with a generous dose of excusing and explaining away bad behavior), but assume the worst of those who are part of a different group, especially during times of conflict and tension between the communities.

(In terms of a model developed by Bennett – his “Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity” – which explains how people progress in their experience of cultural difference, this would fall into the second phase, “Defense,” in which people have a negative experience of difference, and tend to generalize and polarize and talk in “us”/“them” terms, where the “us” is generalized positively and the “them” is generalized negatively. More on the DMIS another time.)

The ability to assume the best of our people and the worst of others is rooted, I think, in lack of self-awareness in the first instance (glossing over how bad “we” are and can be) and ignorance of the others in the second instance. When we don’t know people from the “different” group, it is easy to assume the worst of them.

As a Christian, I believe that Jesus would encourage us to be bigger than our tribal allegiances. (As a human being, I would hope that any religious faith would encourage those who follow it, in this same direction.) In illustration of his most important teaching, that the two great commandments are to love God and to love our neighbors as ourselves, he told a parable of a despised Samaritan (whom his Jewish listeners would have nothing to do with, and through whose territory they would not even pass) helping a wounded Jew who was abandoned by the road side. And he himself not only passed through Samaria, he stopped and conversed with a Samaritan woman, someone who would have been looked at by Jewish men as a non-person. By his teachings and by his example, Jesus showed us that God’s perspective on humanity is different than the tribalism we so easily embrace.

My question is, can we – not just Christians, but people of any faith – rise above our tribalism (which is worse when wrapped up with religion – which happens with people of all religions) and learn to relate to other human beings who are not members of our tribe, as if they were people also created in the image of God? And can we defuse the generalizing and polarizing, and work toward a more accurate understanding of those of other groups, that can only come as we enter into relationship with those others?