DISCUSSION: THE NACIREMA

Many things struck me as foreign and unusual about the Nacirema. I would have to say their culture and customs struck me more as different rather than familiar. The rituals they performed caught me off guard and didn’t seem practical. The story of the Nacirema states that some of the “ceremonies are so harsh that it is phenomenal that a fair portion of the really sick natives who enter the temple ever recover.” It also states that that it seems as if they have developed sadistic tendencies. If I wasn’t trying to understand their culture but instead was critiquing it would consider this to be preposterous and wonder why anyone would want to be hurt in order to keep good health. Something that seemed to strike me as familiar was stated on page 335, it said the focus of the ritual activity “is the human body, the appearance and health of which loom as a dominant concern in the ethos of the people.” I see this as being familiar because if you could perform a ritual in which you thought was going to help the well being of others, wouldn’t you? At the same time people in our culture do not seem to act this way. Americans don’t tend to care about their well being nearly as much, instead they want to eat big Macs and then go to the doctor and expect a cure for high blood pressure.

When using the emic approach looking at the Naciremas behavior makes more sense within its cultural context. They believe that “the human body is ugly and that its natural tendency is to debility and disease.” For them committing these rituals is their way of keeping these characteristics from becoming a part of them. Though their rituals seem violent and miserable they are a cure to their unwanted characteristics. On the other hand, when you compare the Naciremas characteristics and behavior to general, middle class America you find very few similarities. Though the Naciremas rituals seem absurd compared to the simplistic way Americans do things, they are in ways done for the same reasons we go to the doctor. Though as discussed the Nacirema have many differences from us as we can see there are also similarities.

When looking at the impact of how we choose to describe a culture and the way in which our assumptions come across this article taught me a lot. While reading this article I often noticed the author’s voice and opinion coming off of the page more than the voice of the Nacirema. The author portrayed these rituals in which are performed as unreal or almost ridiculous in a way. I would have liked to know if they believe going through these rituals … followed with pain and ‘torture’ was truly worth it. As I read I felt as if the author was trying to bribe my thoughts and bribe me to believe the way he does.