Don’t Judge Others

Don’t Judge Others

    There are 196 countries in the world today, and those countries have their own identities that are distinguished from the other countries. It means that we are living in the world that contains many languages, behaviors, customs, and religions. While some people might urge that their own cultures are more variable than the other countries, I think we can’t judge other cultures based on our knowledge. Otherwise, it can bring several problems. 

    Comparing two cultures is a trigger to make conflict between two people and seriously two countries. Here is my personal example, One day, I had an opportunity to have dinner with my friend who is from Saudi Arabia, and he served his country’s traditional food, called “Kabsa”. I was looking for a spoon and chopsticks as a usual, but it was useless acting, because that food should be eaten by hands, so I tried to eat without any tools. I felt weird, but I tried it. If at that moment, I complained about using hands, it would make them feel unpleasant. In the history, we can find many examples that the wars were begun with neglecting other cultures or underrating other ethnic groups. The most terrible example of this is nazi Germany. During that time, Adolf Hitler deceived germans that their country was better than other countries in order to erase the experiences, World War 1.

    Ethnocentrism is not only meaning of judging another culture solely by the values and standards of our own culture, but also it could mean judging other groups, such as job positions and races. We are already encountering many groups that have ethnocentrism in our society. For example, some community groups who want to be the best group of the their society can blame other groups without any reason, because they believe they are superior to other groups, and it will become ethnocentrism. Sometimes, it is difficult to figure out what ethnocentrism is, and it can have an ambiguous barrier between having self-conceited, but certainly our society has ethnocentrism in some form.

    I agree that ethnocentrism has certain power that ethnic groups have strong relationships. They will be tied by an unbroken rope so that they can be together forever. However, this rope can kill those people. They will be isolated from the other groups. Hence, we need people who have different backgrounds, cultures, religions, and customs so that we can grow together.